DOGS

Chapter 12

The harsh smell of spicy cologne makes Kenya wrinkle her nose as she sits at the lunch table waiting for her friends to show up. At first she fears it's James coming to offer his company again, but looking up she sees Justin towering beside her with a bored expression on his face. Rolling her eyes, she concentrates on her book again, knowing she's probably not going to open it once the weekend hits even though she needs to get through forty pages before literature class on Monday.

"We need to talk," Justin announces. When she doesn't respond he snatches the book from her hands and she jumps up from her seat in protest, ready to curse him out. "Don't make this difficult Kenya, I just wanna have a civil conversation."

Kenya holds out her hand and he gives the book back. Marking her page, she sits down again and puts it away in her backpack. "Talk."

Justin licks his lips and takes a seat. His face says that he'd rather be doing anything else but sitting here having this conversation. "Camille thinks we should try to be friends."

Kenya stares at him, waiting for him to say more. When she doesn't she sighs and speaks up. "What do you think?"

"I think that we couldn't be friends even if our lives depended on it." His voice is cold as he talks to her, matching the hostility in his eyes.

Her face softens as she stares at him. She wants to say something sassy just to get under his skin for being rude, but she's honestly tired of arguing with him knowing it won't benefit anyone. "What did I ever do to you, Justin?"

"It's not what you did to me directly. It's what you did to Kyree and then what you did to Faith."

Kenya reels back, not expecting that answer at all. "That had nothing to do with you."

"Kyree is my best friends brother, I looked up to him. The way you threw him under the bus like that was really shady."

The lump in her throat makes it hard to talk for a minute and she swallows a few times to form a tangible sentence. "You don't know the full story. No one does and that's the problem with the people in this school, everyone listens to gossip and no one cares for the truth. It's not fair for you to judge me when you don't even have your facts straight."

"Then what are the facts Kenya, set me straight right now." He leans on his elbows, his heavy gaze unwavering.

"It doesn't matter anymore, you wouldn't take my word for it anyway because you go with whatever Eli says." She looks down at the table with a sick feeling in her stomach.

Justin makes an irritated sound in his throat, "You're absolutely right but, what I do know is that you can't be trusted. You poured paint on your best friend."

"EX- best friend,"

"Whatever, the point is I would never do some foul shit like that to Eli even if we stopped being friends. Faith may have been crazy but at least she wasn't a backstabber."

Kenya laughs dryly and looks up at the ceiling, "She has all of you fooled, even Eli."

They're both silent for a few minutes and the cafeteria gets louder as students begin filling it up. Music starts playing the from the table Justin sits at with Eli and their other friends. Kenya looks around to see if her friends have come in yet, desperately wanting to be saved from this conversation. Even James would be a great relief right now.

"Look, I ain't come here to talk about this. I came to offer you a deal." Justin says and Kenya raises an eyebrow, already over this conversation. "You and I don't have to be friends, but we can at least act like it. We both want the best for Camille and I don't want her caught in the middle anymore."