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True Part 6 From the moment Alexis got back to school, her schoolmates descended on her, begging for information about the oh-so-cute boy she'd met on the debate team's trip to Manhattan. The ones who exchanged letters with her during the summer knew that she was going out with him, but they wanted to hear her tell the stories in person. Alexis liked her privacy - a lifetime living with the Cassadines had taught her to guard her secrets - but she lived in a suite with three other girls, and her suitemates were vivacious and curious and good friends of hers, so it was difficult for her to hold back. "Come on, Alexis! You never gave us any details in your letters! Did you kiss him?!" Kristen asked. "Was he a good kisser?" Bridget chimed in. "He *looked* like he'd be a good kisser," Lisa said, winking at the others. Alexis shut her suitcase, which she'd been unpacking, and sighed in defeat. "Okay, fine, yes, we kissed, and yes, I liked it, and that is *all* you're going to get out of me. I wrote about everything else you need to know in my letters." As she stowed her empty luggage in the closet, Kristen, Bridget, and Lisa pouted. "But we wanted to know about the things we *didn't* need to know!" Kristen complained. "Are you two still dating then? Is he your boyfriend, forever and ever, now?" Alexis looked out the window and hugged her arms around herself, as tightly as she remembered Sonny holding her that last day in Brooklyn. "We'll keep in touch," Alexis said mysteriously, and the other girls had to be satisfied with that. **** Winter did indeed come very early that year, as her Uncle Mikkos had warned her. Snow began falling months too soon, and then blizzards. The ground was packed with ice. Alexis didn't check the news, because she didn't really want to know how her family was involved with the freak weather. *God, that sounds ridiculous,* Alexis said to herself sometimes, walking gingerly across the glassy sidewalks to class, trying to avoid slipping. *The world is being turned upside down, the laws of nature are collapsing, and my uncle is probably behind it.* No one could possibly understand her life. Except maybe Sonny. They wrote each other constantly. Whenever she received a letter from him, she didn't wait even a day to respond. She sat down right after reading his words and wrote him back. He seemed to have the same desperate sense of urgency; letters came for her every two or three days, regularly. Neither of them had the money to call each other long distance - Alexis's family paid her school tuition directly to the administration, and she received only a pittance for an allowance, and Sonny was struggling to save every cent he could from the wages Joe Scully paid him. So they made do with their letters. But it was hard, as she delved into her classes and club activities and the rest of her school life, to remember the impossibly handsome dark-haired boy she'd held hands with all summer long. She felt as if she knew him better than she knew anyone on the planet, and yet sometimes, she thought he had been nothing more than a happy dream. He was so far away from her world, and she from his. The snow and sleet stopped pouring down just before Thanksgiving. A few days after the weather had returned to normal, Alexis went out early to the mailbox to send a letter to Sonny. In the letter, she'd written how much she'd miss him at her school's holiday dance in December. "It's one of the few times boys are allowed on campus," her letter said, "and of course, there's no boy I want to dance with besides you." When she walked back to her rooms, Headmistress Robbins was there waiting for her. "I'm sorry, Alexis," Mrs. Robbins said with a sincere expression, holding out a telegram. The telegram said her Uncle Mikkos was dead. Without acknowledging the Headmistress or her three suitemates, who were looking on anxiously, Alexis walked slowly to her room, dove under her bedcovers without bothering to take off her coat, clothes, or shoes, and didn't come out for ten hours. **** The day before the Thanksgiving holiday, another telegram arrived, and this time Alexis began hyperventilating severely. "She can't breathe!" Kristen helped Alexis to one of the chairs in the common room of their suite. "Lisa! Bridget! Get help! Alexis can't breathe!" She unbuttoned the first few buttons of Alexis's white shirt, but it didn't help. Alexis sat gasping for air like she was suffocating. She recovered by the time Bridget and Lisa returned with the school nurse. As the nurse checked her for signs of serious illness, Kristen picked up the telegram that lay crumpled on the carpet. "Mother is coming for you personally. She means to take you back for funeral. She will be there tomorrow by noon. I am sorry I cannot stop her. Yours, Stefan," Kristen read. On the couch, Alexis's eyes met Kristen's, and Kristen saw nothing there but agony and terror. **** The girls pooled all their allowances for the week, and it was enough to make a phone call to Brooklyn. Alexis felt tears begin to drop from her eyes as soon as she heard Sonny come to the Cerullos' phone. "Sonny?" she said, choking already. "Alexis? What's wrong?" he asked. She could hear his worry. "Everything," Alexis admitted. "Sonny, my Uncle Mikkos is dead, and Helena is coming! She's coming here!" Alexis looked heavenward as she said it, in supplication to some higher being, and in accusation too, wondering how any God could let her be subjected to Helena Cassadine her whole life. "Stefan wrote and said she wants to take me back to Greece for the funeral." Alexis began sobbing. "Tomorrow! Stefan says she's coming for me tomorrow! I can't…I don't know what to do!" Sonny didn't hesitate even for a moment. "You have to get out of there, Alexis. You've been waiting your whole life to get away from that woman; don't let her get her hands on you now. I mean it, you have to run." Alexis sniffed and wiped at her eyes. "I want to…But where would I go? How could I leave here?" "Come here. Can you borrow some cash from your friends? Hop on the bus and get down here as quick as you can. Alexis, you do not have to go anywhere with that woman. Do you hear me? She does *not* control your life," Sonny said forcefully. Alexis leaned her head against the door of the narrow phone both and shut her eyes tightly, squeezing out the last of her tears. "Okay. You're right. I'll leave tonight." "Are you coming here?" Sonny sounded hopeful. "I don't know if I can make it as far as Brooklyn. But you're right, I can't go anywhere with Helena. I'd rather die," Alexis said, willing herself not to start hyperventilating again. "Don't. She's not worth it. Come to me." Alexis just listened to the sound of his breathing, and regulated her own breaths by it. "I'll try," she said, and they said their goodbyes. **** Alexis found herself alone on the highway at six o'clock, with fifteen dollars in her pocket and a satchel of clothes. Fifteen was all she could beg and borrow off of her schoolmates - most of the girls had already left for the holiday - and it wasn't enough for a bus ticket to New York. So Alexis was on the road, ready to hitchhike. Her suitemates told her it was the most dangerous thing she could do, but she argued that waiting for Helena to torture her again was actually the most dangerous thing. Nothing could be worse than that. Kristen had wrapped her arms around Alexis and stuffed her last couple of dollars into Alexis's hands, and the girls saw her off at the school gates and wished her luck. A half hour after Alexis began walking beside the road, a car stopped for her. She hadn't actually started hitching yet; she hadn't yet found the nerve to stick out her thumb. When the black Mustang pulled over, she peered inside and saw a brown-haired young man, maybe a little younger than Stefan. She was uncertain. She'd heard the worst option for a girl hitchhiking alone was to get in the car with a lone man. "Are you lost?" the man asked. Alexis shook her head. She knew she looked scared. "Do you need a lift?" he asked, with raised eyebrows. "Where are you going?" Alexis asked timidly. "A little town in upstate New York called Port Charles," said the man. "I was hoping to get to Brooklyn," said Alexis. He shook his head. "Can't help you there. My folks are spending Thanksgiving in Port Charles, so that's my final stop. If I take you there, maybe you could catch a lift to Brooklyn." When Alexis looked nervous, the man said, "Look, if it makes you feel any safer, I promise I'm a pre-med student at Yale, and a pretty decent fellow. I bear no ill will towards lost young girls wandering beside the road." Alexis thought she saw a slight smirk on his face, and there was a dry humor in his voice that made her think she could trust him. "Okay," she said, climbing in. "Thanks, um…?" "Cameron," the man said. "Cameron Lewis." "Thanks, Cameron. I'm Alexis. And I'm not such a 'young girl,'" she said, correcting his earlier remark. She thought she felt Cameron's eyes move over her once, quickly, before he focused on the road and put the car in gear. "No, I can see that you're not," he said as they pulled away. **** continued on the adult site (don't worry, it's not a camis addendum! just a happy dream of sexis)
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