A fighting chance

- About 10 years ago -

From the day Laila stormed out of the karaoke bar till many weeks after the fact, Jake would use any chance he got and any method at his disposal to apologize to Laila, over and over again. Where he was confident at first that all it would take was a simple apology or even just some time for Laila to cool off, this confidence soon crumbled. As that had been all it took before to make her forgive him, Jake didn't think that this time would be different. But after a few days of no success and Laila even returning all the gifts he had bought her, he knew this time was different. After a few days without Laila, the fear of him losing her for real started to hit him. Only now did he realize what he had and how special of girl Laila was. As long as there was still a fighting chance, he would do whatever to get her back.

The first week was fully spent on him apologizing in every way possible. "I am sorry Laila. It wasn't what it looked like. Please just listen to me. I can explain. We weren't actually kissing. It was like a stage kiss. Like actors do. I had to do it babe. Trust me, this was my only option. Suzy was being stalked by some guy. An ex who hadn't taken their breakup well. She asked me to convince the guy that she was seeing someone else to make him give up. He had followed us into the karaoke place so we thought we should give him a show. I didn't think that you would see it as well and get the wrong idea about what was going on."

When Jake noticed that he wasn't able to get Laila's attention with these words and that she was having none of his excuses, he decided to switch his tactics during the second week apart. He had never been apart from her this long and the longer they were apart, the stronger his fear grew that things would stay this way. All he needed was to make Laila sway, even just a little bit. He was sure that if he could plant just a little seed of doubt, that she would be able to see things his way and he knew just the way how.

So, Jake decided to ask Laila a series of shitty questions. Such as, "Would you have preferred me to do nothing and let Suzy deal with the situation herself? Would you be able to forgive yourself as a fellow woman if that guy had attacked her because he couldn't face reality?" Laila was luckily not alone when this happened and her fried Noah was by her side. He pulled her away from the situation before Jake could make matters worse while he shot Jake a deadly glare as they both walked away.

Jake's questions were very mean indeed and although Noah had pulled her away and although Laila didn't respond to Jake's words when he had said them, they had completed their objective. His questions started circling in her mind and it began making her picture all kinds of scenarios. None of which were any good. And in a few short days, she started questioning herself again after weeks of being strong. Noah could see that Jake's words had affected Laila but since the damage had already been done, all he could do was be there for her, like he had always been.

As Laila was questioning her choices, Jake kept coming around, he kept apologizing, asking her for one more chance. Saying he would never make the same mistake again. That he would do anything in order to have another chance with her. "Come on babe. I promise I have changed. I have learned my lesson. From now on I will never have anything to do with another woman again. I will never try to do anything that might give you reason to doubt my loyalty. Look I will even delete all numbers of other girls in my phone. Friends or family are no exception." Despite Noah trying to pull her away and telling her to ignore him, Laila felt a bit intrigued. She looked at Jake with a doubtful glare and watched as he deleted all the numbers of his female friends in front of her in order to convince her that he was a changed man. "There. No one left but you and my mom, the only two women I will have in my life from now on."

Laila responded with a snort and a 'ché' as she stood in front of him with her arms crossed and Noah right by her side. In a harsh tone she replied back, "That was a nice show, but it no longer has anything to do with me whether you have no female friends or a thousand of them. You had your chance to have me be the only woman in your life, aside from your family, but you blew that with lies and games. Now you can go find someone else because I no longer want to play." With those words Laila turned around and left with Noah's arm around her shoulders. But, it was going to take more than a few harsh words to get Jake to back off. He was quite determined when he wanted to be and right now he was the most determined he ever was. He didn't want to lose Laila and he would do whatever it takes to win her back. He wouldn't take no for an answer and giving up wasn't in his dictionary...