"I hate you."
"I know."
-----------------------
Alexia Adams has dedicated her whole life to dance. As a college freshman, she scores the spot she most certainly deserves as the lead. She has spent her whole life standing up for herself and after sc...
I am tongue tied, and slightly scared but I can't let him see that, because if I do he will find me weak and I have known men like him, men who cannot take no for answer. Maybe it would be safer for me to bite my tongue, apologize for my attitude and hope he lets me go. But I have never been one to bite my tongue. So I decide I will cause a scene, scream at him, and if he wants to take advantage of me he will have to kill me first because I will go down fighting until I can't anymore.
But I don't need to do any of those things, he is on the ground bleeding before he can do anything else. "She said let go." The man, that I refuse to call my savior, has a voice so firm and loud it powers over the base of the music.
I rub my sore wrist, staring at the man holding his ribs in agony. Klaus towers above him, his eyes dark, his posture taut. His chest heaves up and down as he breathes. I don't know what stops him from killing the man. The whole room is now looking at them, looking at me, at us. My eyes begin to fill with tears, from fear, from relief, I don't know, but I will not cry in front of a crowd so I suck in a sharp breath, force my tears back to where they belong, and make my exit. Calm and composed. I plan to go back home, what I will tell Richard, I do not know. Will he tell her we ran into each other here? Does she know we are at the same party? Part of me wishes I'd never met him.
I unhook my keys from my belt loop as I make it out the door and onto the lawn, walking towards my car. I take out my earplugs only when I am far enough from the music, a few houses down from where I'd been. "Darling!" His voice echoes down the street as his footsteps trail behind me.
I don't turn around, too enraged to face him. I pick up my pace, fumbling with the pepper spray in my hand that no longer seems needed with him following me. "Alexandria!" He calls out again.
The name strikes me like a slap to the face and before I can stop myself I whip around, jabbing a finger in his chest. "What the hell was that back there?" I scream, pushing him as hard as I can and to my amazement, he stumbles back just a bit.
"He was trying to hurt you." He is so sure in his voice but that is not even what I asked.
"I don't need your protection!" He had ignored me, acting like I did not exist. He had no right to defend me. I am not his to defend.
He goes to speak but I will not let him. "I'm not some weak defenseless little girl who needs her knight in shining armor to protect her." I have dealt with men like that one before, it is the burden I bare for existing.
He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, his jaw tightening. We can never be friends. This is who we are, this is what we do. We will never not hate each other. "I know that." He says.
"Then why would you—" I don't finish, I don't care about his answer, about why he hit that man. That's not why I am angry. "Why did you ignore me?" He walked past me like he did not care at all. Like I was nobody. No one had ever done that.
This draws a look of confusion to his face and his jaw relaxes. "What are you talking about?"
The sentence makes me feel like an idiot. He hadn't even noticed what he'd done, because he hadn't noticed me. "Forget it." I turned away from him, too scared that every thought was written on my body.
"Alexandria, wait!" He grabs my arm, much softer than the man from before. I am too tired of arguing to even complain when he calls me that. Despite my better judgment, I let him pull me back and wait for him to speak. I need to know what he will say. "I thought you wanted us to pretend nothing had happened."
Not like that. I wanted to ask why he did the body shot then, why he had touched me that way, but I was afraid of his answer. "No, I didn't." And with that I leave and he releases his soft grip on my arm. I will tell Richard, tonight. The guilt is too unbearable.
When I arrive home, I open the front door softly in case Richard is asleep. I know she is not but I do so anyway. She lays sprawled out on my couch, head on the cushions, leg dangling over the top of it. Her cheeks are still tear stained and her novel lays on her chest. She stares at the wall, hardly noticing my presence, probably reliving the last moments of her story in her head. My guilt eats away at me and she smiles and the room glows but it does not warm my soul. "Claudia?" She sits up, making a place for me.
She clutches her book to her chest and I know that this one is a rough one, marked with hundreds of sticky tabs on the places she felt particularly emotional. It is the most I have seen her book marked up. "How was the party?" She asks as I sit beside her, pulling the blanket over the two of us. "Nothing eventful." My voice is hoarse and raspy.
She pouts, setting her book on the coffee table. "Really?"
It is the first time I have ever said this, and that is why I know she will not believe me but I cannot think of anything else to say. "Yes. Tell me about your book."
The mention brings tears back to her eyes. She assures me that we will come back to the topic of the party before telling me about her book, weeping with every word she says. I am hardly listening, though I try my best too, catching small pieces about war, gods, Patroclus and his lover. When she finishes, I am no closer to knowing who Patroclus is, to no fault of her explanation but to my wondering mind that can only think of my guilt as she speaks. I am not the friend she deserves, her and her sweet heart. My best friend. She wipes her tears, blows her nose, composes herself, and then asks me about the party again. Tonight is not like our usual nights, though I wish it was. What I wouldn't do to sit and watch a movie with her while she gives me tidbits of her book and I put them together until she tells me the whole story of her novel and I have done the same, telling her about my night out between movies and slow scenes. But instead there is no movie playing in the background, and our words are not broken by distraction of the tv. We are sitting face to face, with nothing to distract from what we say and there is a dark cloud that looms above me. I cannot possibly tell her tonight, not after she has already been through so much pain, shed so many tears. I can't. "It really was pretty boring."
I know she sees through me, but she does not say anything, only states at me. Her gaze is so intense, deep blue eyes, just like his, and they eat away at me, as if they know what I have done and the night comes flooding over me and slams me to the ground, crushing my lungs so that I cannot breath and I burst into tears that I can't force away. She cradled my head to her in an instant, asking me what happened, who did this to me.
Myself. I did this to me. She holds me with no idea of the things I've done to hurt her. She holds me while I grieve for the pain I know I will bring her when she finds out.
A/N Hi lovies! So great news, the ebook for The Deal is available for presale on Amazon under the title The Fake Date by Rachelle <3 and is released November 23rd. The paperback and the hardcover will be available for sale the 23rd as well!
Here is the official cover
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I'm very excited to publish the one and start working on new project!
