The Psycho Is Innocent | ꪜ

Chapter 28: Welcome Back, Whore

Past

      I MISS YOU. Ariel couldn't believe her eyes. She blinked once, then twice, wondering if the text message had just been part of her wild imagination. When it remained glued to her screen, the surreal moment finally began to weigh on her shoulders. Her fingers moved across the screen swiftly. 'April fools was months ago if you forgot, ' she typed. Ariel placed her phone back onto her nightstand, trying but failing to make sense of Tobias' sudden change of heart.

It hadn't even been a day since she came to visit him once again where she declared her loyalty to Tobias despite his obvious mental instability. She figured Tobias was possibly on the other end of the door listening in on their conversation. He was so adamant that he wanted them to break up, the entire ordeal made no sense to her whatsoever. Did a few heartfelt words sway his mind? The phone chimed and Ariel wasted no time grabbing it off the table.

'Then I guess asking you to come over isn't a trick if April fools were in fact in April.' She read the text over and over again until the glowing lights of the screen made her eyes water. She wondered if this was his sick way of leading her on or if he genuinely wanted to reconcile. There was only one way for Ariel's lingering questions to be answered and that was by facing him herself. Ariel slipped off her bed and sauntered out of the room. "Off to get boned?" Adele sing sang as she emerged from her room.

"You wish," Ariel responded as she climbed down the stairs into the foyer. "I do wish so that I can blackmail you into giving me money to keep my mouth shut." Ariel halted in her footsteps, "when do you ever not blackmail me? I could be going out for ice cream and I still have to pay for your silence. You know I can just lock you in a room and leave anyways right? Mom and Dad can't stop me. They're too busy with work to care."

Adele leaned against the wall, "fair enough. I'm still gonna blackmail you though, so pass me a ten." Adele didn't need money considering their entire family was well off due to their parent's high-paying jobs but she still liked the thrill of hustling Ariel for money and both girls were aware of that fact, yet neither stopped playing the other. Ariel smiled and lowered a ten-dollar bill into her sister's hand. "Thank you. You just got played by the way. I know you're just going out with Evelyn."

"What?"

"Stop playing dumb. I saw her car pull into the driveway from my window." Adele didn't elaborate any further as she disappeared down the hallway. Ariel quickly slipped on her boots and swung the front door open to find Evelyn standing at the foot of the porch, her hands nervously fumbling with one another. "Eve? What are you doing here?" For a moment she forgot that she was supposed to be mad at Evelyn since their last encounter at the baseball game. "Can we talk?" Evelyn muttered.

Ariel slammed the door shut behind her, "I have somewhere to be."

"Ariel, please. You're my best friend and we haven't had a proper conversation in two whole weeks. I didn't even know why you missed an entire week of school and that's something you'd normally tell me you'd be doing but we weren't talking and I-I just miss you." Ariel slowly began to trek down the porch, her eyes narrowed to slits, her lips turned up into a sneer.

"You're doing it again. You only wanna make up on your terms. You wanna make up when things aren't going right for you because you feel lonely and you miss me. Why? Why should we reconcile? Because we're besties? If we were best friends you would have believed me when I said I didn't mean to kiss back and it was just a reflex. You wouldn't have shut me out and refuse to listen to my reason! Instead, you pushed me away and then reeled me in then out like a goddamn yo-yo. What about me? What about what I want, Eve? Huh?"