by T. J. Sin
It all started as a game. That much he understood. It was all pranks, all in fun and then….this. But how did it get to this? How did the game start? He remembered the first day that Chloe arrived and he could remember the hatred that emanated off of her before they ever really met but he never understood why? Why did she hate him so much when she didn’t even know him?
So many questions and not enough answers. It was beginning to be the freaking story of his life.
“Justin?”
At the sound of the familiar voice, he snapped his head up. Surprise was only one of the emotions that he was feeling. Anger, confusion, rage, frustration were just a few other that swirled around him when he noticed Chloe standing by his car.
How dare she show her face here?
At that moment, a fiery red hot flash of anger coursed through him, running rampant through his blood like gasoline. Picking up the pace, he closed the distance between them and pointed his finger in her face. Justin opened his mouth, dead set on telling her exactly where she could go when he first saw it. Saw the one thing that he would have never thought he would see in her.
Her vulnerability.
One tear slid from the corner of her eye and his gaze zeroed in on to that single droplet, following its trail as it zigzagged down her cheek.
“I’m… sor-ry,” she said, her voice breaking at the end. She lifted her hands up to her face, holding it as if she was working to hold herself together. She started shaking her head back and forth, tears coming in earnest now. “I didn’t know", she cried. "I..I... I didn’t know.”
Chapter 11
Chloe couldn’t stop the tears from coming. She desperately tried to get a hold of herself but the river of teardrops kept flowing down her cheeks. Her hands trembled and she was at a complete loss for words. She didn't know what, if there was even anything at all, she could do or say. She had come here to see Justin, tell him it was all a mistake, that she didn’t mean for any of this to happen but now that Chloe was here, and he was standing in front of her, all she could say to him was "I didn’t know."
Who would have thought that such a mindless prank could have turned out so disastrously? Chloe didn’t. All she wanted was for them to feel just a little bit of the humiliation that they had caused her. Just a hint of it and that was it. She definitely didn’t expect anything like this.
Sniffling and making all kinds of sniveling and runny nose noises, Chloe tried to compose herself the best that she could. Wiping her cheeks with the back of her hands, she finally garnered the courage to lift up her head and met Justin’s accusing gaze.
His face was blank, not giving her any inkling as to what he was thinking. He stood stiff with his long arms dangling by his sides. At first he just stared back at Chloe, a cold stare that she could have sworn she could feel all the way down to the marrow in her bones. When the chilling silence between the two of them almost became too much to bare, he let out a tired sigh and broke their tense connection, giving Chloe his back.
She watched on, not sure if she should say something or just wait for him to speak when she noticed him running his hand through his already mussed up hair. It was a habit that Chloe had seen him do several times before and she realized that it was a show of his pent of frustration.
“Chloe,” he breathed out in a dead tone, not even bothering to turn around and look back at her, “Now is not the time, nor the place, to talk about this. I understand that you didn’t mean for this to happen but the fact of the matter is- it did happen. And now my friend is in that hospital, fighting for his life all because of what, a prank....... a freaking prank! The best thing that you can do right now is just go home.”
She felt like there were so many words on the tip of her tongue that she wanted to say but when she tried to open her mouth and say them, not one of them wanted to come out. Chloe stared at his back, willing herself to speak, but still…nothing came out. Not even a single syllable.
“Did you hear what I said Chloe?” This time Justin yelled and did turn around to face her. Even in the blackness of the night, she could see the clear worry in his eyes for his best friend.
Feeling completely defeated, Chloe dropped her head and bobbled it in a nodding gesture. “Yes.” The one word response wasn’t much more than a squeak but she had heard him, loud and clear. And she knew that she was the last person he wanted to see right now. Staring down at the concrete parking lot up under her feet, Chloe absently mumbled. "Yes I understand, I'm not wanted here but I had to come. Not only for him, but for me, too."
Unable to meet his eyes any longer, Chloe quickly spun around on her heel and headed back towards her own car. She didn’t know where she was going just yet. All she knew was that she didn’t want to go home and that she didn’t want to see Erica- but there was really no where else to go.
Opening the door to her car, Chloe slid in the driver’s seat and slammed it closed behind her. The pain that she was feeling burned deep in her chest. She hadn’t hurt this bad since the horrific incident with Craig Conner back in Greensboro.
Chloe just didn’t have the energy to go anywhere right now. Leaning her head forward so that it rested on the steering wheel, she squeezed her eyes closed and did the one thing that she hadn’t done in over two years … she prayed. She prayed long, hard and with every ounce of her very being.
*****************
“Where in the hell have you been?” Erica asked in a fierce whisper. She had been sitting in Chloe's room for several hours now, in the dark waiting for her to return.
“Out!” Chloe bristled, not willing to give up anymore information than that. Erica was the last person that she wanted to talk to right now. If truth be told, all she really wanted was to be alone.
Erica stood up and leaned over to cut the lamp on by the bed. Chloe immediately raised her hand to shield her eyes from the brightness of the light. “Don’t give me that Chloe. You went with him, didn’t you? You went out with Justin even after I told you what he did to me. Even after everything he has done to you.”
Erica's face contorted into an angry scowl and if Chloe hadn’t been so drained and exhausted, she would have been more than happy to give her the argument that she was instigating. But the fact was, she was too tired and Chloe had about all that she could handle for one night.
Brushing by her, Chloe sat down on the edge of the bed and started removing her clothes, not caring in the least that Erica was still standing there. Realizing that she wasn't leaving, Chloe sighed. "Erica, it‘s three o‘clock in the morning and I‘m tired. We will talk about this later. Right now all I want to do is go to bed!"
Chloe tiredly pulled off her top and blindly reached behind her to draw the covers down, settling herself between them. She was leaning over to cut the lamp on the night stand off when Erica spoke again.
“I bet you even let him kiss you and touch you, too.”
Now that blunt statement, needless to say, pissed Chloe off. She had no right to even go there. Throwing the covers back off of her, she jumped off of the bed and met her cousin toe to toe. “You don’t know shit about what happened, Erica. John is in a hospital right now, fighting for his life because of an allergic reaction he had to the powder. Yes I saw Justin, but I was by no means with him so you can get those convoluted thoughts out of your head right now.”
For the briefest of seconds, Erica's face turned pale, just a shade lighter than her normal milky white complexion and then just as quickly, it returned to normal. “So," Erica shrugged and just as casually, she added, "It’s not our fault that he had an allergic reaction. We didn’t know that would happen. Besides, they were the ones that brought it on themselves with what they did to me and to you.” She made a show of glancing down at her nail and started picking at it, suddenly looking bored with the conversation at hand.
Chloe could only stand there, staring back at Erica in shock. She didn’t look like she had any remorse about what had happened to John. She really couldn’t care less and that bothered
Chloe. It bothered her a lot. “Did you understand what I just said to you?” she probed, looking at her expectantly while waiting for some kind of response.
Erica lifted her eyes from her nails and looked up to Chloe. “Yeah, I'm well aware that John's in the hospital, and boo-hoo for him. I’ll send him a ‘Get well soon card’ to express my deepest sympathies."
Hearing her flippant attitude towards John had Chloe wanting to pull her own hair out and shake the crap out of her cousin. “You’re not listening Erica. He could die because of something that we did.”
Erica shook her head and pointed a rail thin finger in Chloe's direction. “Correction Chloe, something that you did. And besides, he‘s not going to die. Guys like Justin and John have nine lives. He’ll rebound, you’ll see and then he'll be back to his old tricks in no time."
Once again for what seemed like the umpteenth time tonight; Chloe was left at a complete loss for words. Was she actually placing all of the blame on me for the incident? Erica had been the one who bought the damn powder in the first place and from the second that the idea hatched, her enthusiasm was more or less off the charts.
Chloe fisted her hands on her hips and she snorted. “You can’t be serious, he’ll rebound?" she asked incredulously. "How can you be so sure about that Erica? He’s hooked up to a mess of machines and you stand there saying, he’ll rebound! What in the hell is wrong with you girl?"
Erica knitted her brows and shrugged her shoulders. “We’ll, it’s the truth.”
Chloe took a long deep breath, held it and then slowly exhaled, telling herself that Erica just didn’t understand the enormity of the situation. She could see that she wasn't going to get through to her tonight either. Done with trying to convince her cousin, Chloe just dropped her hands by her sides and closed her eyes. “I’m tired, okay. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. All I want to do is crawl in my bed and go to sleep.”
And that was the honest to God truth. Chloe was tired. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore, especially with Erica. She didn't think that she was asking for too much, especially after the night she was having.
“Fine,” Erica conceded and clicked her heels together, abruptly turning around. She had just opened the door when she stopped and glanced back at Chloe with a haughty look over her shoulder. “Don’t forget what we have planned for next week. The supplies have already been ordered.”
Chloe had just sat down on her bed and was getting ready to pull the covers back over her body when Erica spoke again. She looked up at her with wide owl eyes. “Oh, Hell no,” she told her, feverishly shaking her head. “You can’t seriously be considering still doing that after what just happened tonight.”
Erica shut the door and turned around so that she facing her. “You’re not backing out on me now Chloe, not after all of the planning we put into this.”
“No!” Chloe said firmly. There was no way in hell that she was going along with this plan. As far as she was concerned, she was done with the prank wars. This last stunt broke her. She never wanted to feel this way again.
“You have to or else," Erica insisted.
“No- I don’t. I don’t have to do a damn thing that I don’t want to do.”
The two girls were locked in a stare down and Chloe could see the determination on her cousin’s face. But it was Erica's next words that took her by complete surprise. “Yes. Yes, you will do this Chloe, because I would hate for the entire school to find out about your dirty little secret.”
Chloe jumped up off the bed again. “You wouldn’t!” she gasped.
The sickeningly sweet smile she gave Chloe said it all. “Oh yes ma’am, believe me, I would. Do you want to try me?”
Chloe was stuck in a poleaxed position. Erica should have just slapped her, it would have been better than this. She continued with that all knowing grin of hers, confident of what Chloe's answer would be. Hell, there was only one answer Chloe felt she could give her. What other choice did she have? She couldn't let anyone find out about her past, it was entirely to damaging.
Erica patted her cousin on the shoulder and Chloe cringed at the gesture. Seemingly satisfied with her reaction, Erica turned to leave her room singing over her shoulder. “See you in the morning, cuz.”
Chapter 12
Justin forced himself to trudge through the school hallways on Monday morning. He was most definitely not in the best of moods. His head continued to throb with a persistent ache that started somewhere in the wee hours of Saturday morning and was still going strong. His body felt like it was moving in serious slow motion; sort of like wading through a dense evening fog and to top it all off, even the conversations going on around him seemed to be a thousand miles away.
His day started with a phone call to the hospital and needless to say the news he received was discouraging. There was still no change in John’s status. It’s been over forty-eight hours now and he was still in a coma. And what made it worse, there wasn’t a damned thing that he could do about it except wait and hope that he wakes up soon. All of this waiting, unable to do anything, is what was slowly killing him.
The last place that he wanted to be was here, at school, but it wasn’t like Justin had much of a choice in the matter. One of the conditions of his scholarship had been that he maintains a 3.0 GPA. So here he was, going through the rigors of high school and for what? A scholarship? All so he could play football?
In the grand scheme of things it all seemed pretty frivolous with all things being considered.
“Hey man.”
Stopping at the sound of the familiar voice, Justin turned around to see several of the guys from the team hanging out by the door at the commons area. He realized that Don was the one that had spoken to him. He inclined his head in his direction and Justin slowly made his way over to him. Standing in the middle of the group, he took a deep breath and slowly let it out. By now, most of the school had heard about what happened with John. They all knew it was an allergic reaction to something but what that something was remained a mystery to the public in general.
Both Justin and John had decided after the game to not say anything to anyone about the itching powder that Chloe so deviously filled their jock straps with. The decision was made in order to avoid an epic embarrassment more than anything. The guys all knew about the prank war that they had going back and forth with Chloe and Justin just couldn’t bring himself to tell them about how she pulled this one over on them. Besides, John had been a bit miffed with the fact that she only agreed to go out with him on a date so that she could gain access to the locker room. And Justin had been hard pressed then to not tell him 'I told you so.'
Looking uncomfortable, Don rocked back on the balls of his feet and played with the zipper on his hoody before finally speaking. “How have you been hanging man?”
Justin shrugged. “I’m hanging in there,” was about all that he could manage to say. It was nothing short of the truth. He was getting by- barely.
“Any news on John?”
Shaking his head, Justin told him. “Not really.” His answers were intentionally cut short because there just wasn’t a whole lot to say about the situation. Guys didn’t talk about their emotions like girls did. They just got down to the heart of the matter. Is he alive? Are you okay? And that was about the sum of it. Anything that they typically felt, they kept bottled up inside. That’s just the way that guys handled things.
For a long minute afterwards, no one said anything. Everyone just sort of looked to the floor or across the way. Anywhere but in Justin's direction.
Finally, Tyler broke the awkward silence by bringing up the big Duke and Carolina basketball game tonight. With the guys pretty much split in half over which team was going to win, the somber mood of the group instantly transformed into more of a teasing rivalry.
It literally hurt to stand there and listen to the boys carry-on the way they were like nothing ever happened. The laughing, the playful punching- it was all just a bit too much for Justin. With
out John here to give them that brilliant smile of his, playing the referee role between the guys, it just didn’t seem right. It wasn’t normal. Hell, Justin frowned, nothing about this was normal.
“Pinnix…. Justin… Hey dude…”
Justin shook his head from side to side and focused on the hand that Tyler was waving in his face. “Yeah, um- sorry about spazzing out on you man. I just have a lot on my mind right now.”
He gave his friend a sad smile. “I understand.” Justin shoved his hands in his pockets and noticed Tyler's eyes narrow on something or more than likely someone behind him. “Before you found out about what happened with John at the party, didn’t you and the new chick get into it over something?”
Justin grunted, barely recalling that conversation now. He had been his usual cocky self because they had won the game despite her efforts and she was just being a first class bitch. “Something like that,” he answered, scowling as he remembered the episode.