White Liar (26 page)

     "Alright," he said and bent down just enough so that he could pick her up and toss her over his shoulder.  "I tried to be nice and give you options, but since you are being so stubborn about it, I guess we'll do it my way now."

    "Hey!" Chloe's bag fell to the floor when her head flipped upside down.  She balled up her fist and smacked him hard in that back.  "What do you think you’re doing?  Put me down, you Neanderthal!"

     Justin bent down and picked up her bag from the floor, holding her body steady so that she didn't wobble off his shoulder.  The ends of Chloe's hair tickled the back of his leg.  "No can do sweetheart."  He stood back up, swinging her bag across his other shoulder.  "Not until we've had our talk."

      "Ugh!"  She smacked him with her fist in the back again.  "Don't call me that and why do you have to be so pig headed anyway? So dang infuriating?  So... so.."  She kicked out in frustration, meeting only air.  "Put. Me. Down!"

      She could feel him walking now, her body slightly swaying with his gait.  His hand was perched on her butt cheek, keeping her in place on his shoulder.  "I'd rather not," he replied airily and squeezed her cheek.   "The view from here is phenomenal."  

      "I'll give you phenomenal," Chloe muttered when they walked out of the school.  She saw the concrete sidewalk and felt the jumble when he jogged down the steps, carrying her as if she weighed no more than a paper doll.  The moment his walk smoothed out and she spotted the grass, she struck.

      "Ow!" Justin yipped, and stopped to set her down in front of him.  They were outside the school now and less chance she would run.  "You bit me," he accused, rubbing at the teeth marks on his back.  He was pretty sure that there would be a nasty bruise there come tomorrow.

      Chloe wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.  After being upside down for so long, her head spun dizzily.  "Damn right I did and if you ever try to manhandle me like that again, I'll do more than bite; I'll maim you, you crazy fool."

     She reached for her bag and Justin jumped back, clutching it to his chest.  "Not so fast.  You'll get this back, after our talk."

      She dropped her arm.  "You can't be serious."

      "I'm as serious as a heart attack."

     Chloe narrowed her eyes on him.  He did seem to be set on having this conversation with her, but why?  Why her and why now?  She laid her hands on her hips and wrinkled her brow.  "If you want to talk to someone so bad, why don't you go talk to your little blond headed cheerleader girlfriend.  It seems like she had plenty to say to me this afternoon."

      Just thinking about that episode in the cafeteria and remembering what Cathy and her lechers had done to Chloe had his whole body tensing.  The image of Chloe being pushed around only fed his ire.  Justin closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than to close the door on those images and said coolly, "I don't have anything else to say to her."

      "Yeah right," Chloe laughed sarcastically.  She grabbed the ends of her pants and inched them up her calves.  "Uh-oh. I better pull these up, the shit's getting deep in here now."

      He pulled his head back and raised a brow.  "What in the hell is that supposed to mean?"

      "It means that I don't believe a word that's coming out of your mouth."  She let her hands fall to her sides.  "You know, I get it.  I really do.  You two were made for each other.  Your both cut from the same cheap cloth.  She's a bitch, you’re a bastard- you're perfect together and I'm outta here."

      Chloe started to turn away from him even though he still had her bag.  If he wanted a pink book bag that bad, he could have it.  She was so done here.

      "Hey, wait a second," Justin called out to her.  "You can't say something like that and just walk away from me."

       "I just did," she said flatly, suddenly feeling so tired. She could hear the sound of the whistle from the track in the distance, she could hear a car alarm going off in the grocery store parking lot across the street and she heard a bird up in a tree somewhere above her tweeting.  But it was his next word out of his mouth that she heard the loudest.

     "Why?" He finally asked.

      Why?  Was that supposed to be some sort of trick question?  With her back still facing him, she answered him with a question of her own.  "Why what?"

      "Why do you hate me so much?"  She heard his footsteps as he came closer to her and felt his hands rest on her shoulders.  "The second you laid eyes on me, you decided not to like me.  All I want to know is why?"

     This time it was Chloe's turn to tense up.  She had her reasons and that's all that mattered.  Even though Erica was being a bitch right now, she was still family.  She spun around, whirling on him.  "You know why," she told him.  "It's because of what you are.  What you do.  You sleep with girls, you take their virginity and then you dump them.  You’re one of them- a player, and I can't stand players.  They use you and they abuse you until they get what they want and then they wash their hands of you."

     He pursed his lips.  He was tired of being accused of things that he hadn't even done.  It was time to get to the bottom of this.  "Who have I supposedly slept with Chloe?  Whose virginity have I supposedly taken?  I'd like to know, because I surely don't remember being there."

      She scoffed and rolled her eyes.  Figures.  "If you can't remember, then that's even worse."

     He wanted to pull his hair out.  What else could he say to make her believe him.  "I can't remember Chloe because it didn't happen," he hissed.  "I don't go around making a habit of deflowering virgins, that's not my style.  I have a little bit more respect for myself than that."

    "Don't you dare try to lie to me!" She pushed him away from her and wrapped her arms around her middle.  "What about Erica?  My cousin.  Are you trying to tell me that you didn't sleep with her and then trash her the next day?"

      Justin breathed out heavy and slow.  "Erica?  The girl that was at your house?"

     "Yes," Chloe snapped, a lone tear sliding down her cheek.  She furiously wiped at it, pissed off at herself because she let Justin get to her so easily, again.  She was tired of crying; tired of being the weak one.  “You stole her innocence from her.  You broke her heart and now... now...."

      Tears started to come in earnest.  She thought of Erica, she thought of herself and she thought of all the other girls out there like her.  The dam broke free and she couldn't stop it.  Her shoulders started to shake and the weight of everything came crashing down on her all at once.

     Justin couldn't hold himself back any longer.  He pulled Chloe in his arms and held her tight.  “I didn't sleep with your cousin," he told her honestly, slowly rocking her in his arms.  "I promise you Chloe, I didn't.  I don't even know the girl."

     Her cries struck something deep in his chest.  He saw it then.  He saw the truth of the matter.  It wasn't her cousin that pained her so much, or even him for that matter.  It was Chloe that was hurting.  She was the one that was bleeding and now he had a pretty good idea why.   He squeezed his eyes closed. God help him if he ever happened upon the person responsible for her pain.

       "Shh," he whispered into her hair, smoothing a hand down her back. "There's something more to this story, isn't there Chloe?  Something that you’re not saying."  She shook her head back and forth against his chest, trying to deny it but unable to say the words. 

     "Shh," he whispered again, opening back up his own eyes and wishing he could steal away her pain.  "Let it all out.  Just let it go sweetheart," he softly urged.  He thought of the way that Cathy had treated her, he thought of the way that her minions had pushed her around in the cafeteria and he even remembered how his own friends laughed at her, too.  Not to mention the guy that he was pretty sure had already done a number on her.  He would almost bet that the guy and the past that Cathy mentioned was the reason Chloe built up these walls against him.  "I won't let anyone hurt you again." he promised her right then and there. "Do you hear me Chloe, never again."

Chapter 22

     When the tears finally subsided, Chloe pushed back from Justin's chest.  She couldn’t believe that she had done it again.  She let herself fall apart in front of him, of all people.  She let him see her weak and that was just unacceptable.  He was the last person that she wanted to see her as weak.  Sniffling, she used the back of her hand to dry her cheeks and regain what was left of her composure. 

   "Look," she started and sniffed again, unable to meet Justin's tenuous gaze. "I'm sorry I just blubbered like a baby all over you.  I don't know what it is these days that's making me so damn emotional but-," she waved her hand flippantly in the air and shook her head. "Can we just forget that any of this ever happened?"

     Justin watched her take a step back and attempt to withdraw into herself. 

     Oh no you don't; not this time, he thought to himself.

      "Chloe."  He called her name and waited patiently for her to look up at him.  Instead of looking up though, she steadily kept her gaze averted away from him.

     "Chloe, look at me," he instructed once again softly.  When she still didn't lift her head, he took the initiative and stepped forward, gently grabbing her chin with his fingers,  and pulling her gaze up to meet his.

     Her dark stormy eyes stared back at him.  Those piercing eyes told a story of pain, loss and a whole lot of hurt that she was keeping locked up inside.  His own gut clenched tightly. He didn't like seeing her like this. 

     "Chloe," he started once again.  "I think we both know that neither one of us is ever going to be able to forget what has happened here.  You've got a whole lot of something going on in that pretty little head of yours, something that you've held in for way too long.  Talk to me, let me help you."

    "Don't!" Chloe interrupted him and warned. 

     She tried to pull her head back from his grip and when Justin didn't release his hold on her, she felt the anger coming back and she welcomed it with open arms.  She could handle the anger; it was the tears and the frustration that really got to her.  "Don’t try and appease me.  I’m not one of your little groupies that are going to sit here and fawn all over you.  But what I will do Justin Pinnix, is tell you to get your damn hands off me, or else."

     Justin smirked.  There’s the fire he was all too familiar with,  he noted.

     "Or else what, Chloe?”  He raised his brow in question.  He was actually beginning to enjoy this little banter between them.  “What do you think you are going to do?"

     She didn’t have to think about it.  She knew.  She knew exactly what she was going to do.

      “This.” She grunted, lifting up her knee and connecting with his groin.

      The pain hit him, stealing his breath from his chest.  He instantly released her and had no choice but to fall to his knees, grabbing a hold of his crotch with both hands.  “Damn girl,” he heaved out heavily.  “What did you have to go and do that for?”

      Chloe bent down and grabbed her book bag from him.  It was wrapped loosely around his wrist. “I gave you fair warning,” she told him.  “You just didn’t listen, maybe the next time- you will.”

      Standing back up, she spun around, her hair bouncing around her shoulders with the movement and started for the school.  Her day had gone from bad to worse to downright horrible.  Cathy, she could deal with.  Erica, she would deal with but Justin- she wasn’t sure what to do about him.  He unnerved her and that was something that she could not allow.  Not from Justin, not from any guy.

      “Chloe!” Justin called out weakly from his position on the ground.  “We aren’t done talking yet.”  The pain in his balls throbbed but watching Chloe saunter off, her hips swaying was enough to entice any man to pick his pride up off the ground and go after her.

      She heard him calling after her but refused to turn around.  Why couldn’t he just get a clue and leave her alone?  When she heard him call her name again, she promptly flipped him off, made a u-turn and started for the parking lot.  After the day that she had, Chloe decided she wasn’t ready to go back to her classes, not today anyway.  She needed to get out of this place; away from these people.