White Liar (24 page)

    Dismissing her with a simple roll of the eye, Chloe went to push past her.  Her mouth was set on those chips and she didn’t want to hear whatever it was that this blond bimbo wanted to say.

    “Excuse me,” Chloe said and was immediately brought to a halt when something warm and very wet was suddenly dumped on the top of her head.

    “What?" she started and was cut off again when something else was dumped over the top of her head.  This time, she spotted a limp noodle the hung over her forehead, swinging precariously in front of her eye.  Spaghetti?  Did they seriously just dump spaghetti on me?

    Whirling around, Chloe took a step up to the skinny red head that was holding the empty tray, smirking at her.  She was sure the look on her face was murderous but the red head didn’t even flinch.

    Chloe went to make a grab for her and something ice cold ran down the back of her shirt.  Freezing her in her place.  Chloe shrieked and rounded on the newest threat. 

    It was Blondie the bimbo and she was so close to her face that Chloe could smell the spearmint from her chewing gum.

    “I learned something very interesting today,” she whispered lowly at her ear.  “Something that happened in the past, something that you don’t want anyone to know.”

    Chloe felt the color drain from her face.  Standing there with spaghetti sauce embedded in her hair and her shirt soaked with tea, she couldn’t move.  “No,” she whispered out the word, praying- hoping that Erica didn’t say anything.  She couldn’t have, she wouldn’t do something that cruel to her.  She was her cousin.

    Cathy started to laugh.  Laugh!  It wasn‘t a chuckle, it wasn‘t a giggle, it was a full blow laugh meant to intimidate and the bad thing about it, Chloe thought to herself, it was working. “I see you know exactly what I’m talking about- tramp.”

    Visions of that night started to come back to her, haunting her all at once.  Craig- his friends, all in one room.  The recurring nightmare was like a double fist to her gut.  The memories, the laughter, the pain- it was happening all over again.

    “Slut!” Chloe heard someone else yell out from behind her and felt her body being pushed sideways.

    “Whore!” Another person jerked on her arm and she found herself stumbling over her feet.  She tried to catch her balance but instead up standing upright, she was falling into someone else.

    “White trash!”

    Chloe was stunned. She couldn’t move.  Her body was being pulled this way and that, words were being shouted over her head but all she could see was the faces from that night, that one horrible night where she made the worst mistake of her life.

    “Hey!”  The world around Chloe suddenly stopped moving and a new set of hands wrapped around shoulders.  Stronger hands, a pair of male hands that left an icy imprint all the way down to her bones.  “Back the hell off Cathy.  This is low, even for you.”

    She laughed again and Chloe felt those same hands tense on her shoulders.  “Troy, you don’t know what the hell you walked in on,” she accused.  “She,” she said, pointing at Chloe's chest. “Is the reason that John almost died.  She put the itching powder in his jock strap that almost killed him.”

    “It was an accident,” he gritted out between his teeth.  “Accident’s happen, we all have them.  He’s okay now, so let’s all move on.”

    Again, Cathy started to laugh.  The sound of her laugh made Chloe feel sick to her stomach.  “That’s only the half of it Troy.  We heard about her reputation at her old school- she walks around here like she’s some Ms. High-and-mighty, and in reality she’s nothing but a common slut.  A common tramp that would do anything you asked of her.”

    “I’m warning you now Cathy, shut your damn mouth and back the hell off!”  In that one sentence, the threat was clear.  Chloe was still stuck in shock mode and couldn’t find the will to move.  Everything that was going on around her was happening in slow motion but Craig’s laughing face was branded in the front of her mind.

    Cathy stepped back, placing one tightly fisted hand on her hip.  “I can’t believe that you are actually defending her,” she sneered.  “After everything she has done to us, you are actually taking up for the slut.”

    Troy pushed Chloe behind him so fast that she stumbled over her own two feet for the second time and would have fallen flat on her face if it hadn’t been for the hand that he had around her waist.  He stood her back up, placed his hands on her shoulders to steady her and looked down into her face.  “Are you alright?”

    She was numb.  She was still in shock because all these people now knew her secret and he was asking her if she was alright?  Did it look like she was alright?  Hell no! She wasn’t alright.  Nothing was alright, and it never would be again.  Craig made damn sure of that.

    “Who gives a flying shit if she’s alright, John’s the one that’s laid up in the hospital.”

    Troy’s eyes narrowed and Chloe didn’t miss the throbbing vein pulsing at his temple.  He spun back around in a whirlwind of fury.  “I’ve already told you to shut your mouth.  Another word and I’m going to shut it for you.”

    “I’ve got this.”  Justin's familiar deep voice resonated through the now quiet cafeteria. 

    Chloe's eyes snapped up to meet his fiery gaze.  His hand was clamped onto Cathy’s arm and he was already pulling her back behind him.  Figures he would take her side Chloe thought to herself.  He was no different than Craig in her eyes.  He didn’t care who he hurt as long as he got what he wanted.  “Get her out of here,” he told Troy and with those five words, Chloe could hear the contempt and condemnation in his voice.  He must have heard the rumors too.

    She couldn‘t even look at him any longer.  The disgust written all over his face cut her to the core.  Dropping her head, she held in the urge to break out into another round of tears.  It shouldn’t matter anymore, none of it should matter but the cold hard truth of the matter was, it did.  It mattered and it hurt like hell.

    “Come on Chloe, let‘s go somewhere to get you cleaned up.” Troy’s soothing voice did nothing to soothe her bruised ego.  He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and started to lead her out of the cafeteria.  She didn’t have it in her to stop him.

    They stepped out into the hall and another familiar voice called out my name.  “Chloe?”

    Glancing back over her shoulders, she spotted Erica leaning up against the wall, a conniving smile sitting on the corners of her lips.  She waved her fingers at her and then of all things, she winked. “So sorry to hear about what happened to you back there.  Maybe next time, you’ll listen to me, what do you think?”

    Before Chloe could come up with any words Erica pushed herself up off the wall and Chloe watched her back as she disappeared into the cafeteria.

    She was dead to her now.  Cousin or not, Erica was going to pay for what she had done to her.  She knew the hell that she went through after that night and her cousin still used it against her.  Family wasn't supposed to do things like that to each other.  Family was supposed to have your back. 

If she wanted to play hard ball, then Chloe would play hard ball.  Oh it was on now... it was so on now!  

“What?” Cathy sneered when Justin spun her around in the hall to face him.  He released her arm and pushed her up against the wall.  He was so angry right now that he was having a hard time coming up with words for her.  All he could do was glare and glare he did, right at her overdone, made up face.

She rolled her eyes at him.  “Don’t tell me that you’re going to feel sorry for the little twit too.”  When he didn’t immediately answer her, she hesitated and then went on to press her point.  “You don’t even know her Justin.  You don’t know about her past like I do.”

“I don’t need to know about her past,” he finally spoke through tightly clenched teeth.  “What you girls did out there was inexcusable Cathy.  No one,” he stepped up closer and bent down so that they were eye to eye. “And I mean no one deserves that kind of treatment."  Cathy opened her mouth to talk but Justin raised his hand and cut her off.  “I don’t give a damn who that person may be Cathy, no one deserves the type of treatment that I just witnessed out there.”

She lifted her chin in the air, ignoring every word that he just said.  “You want to know what they called her back at her old school?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Justin retorted, still just as pissed off as he was when he first walked out of the cafeteria with Cathy instead of Chloe in tow.  He saw the pain all too well in her eyes.  It was the same pain that he saw the night before and he wanted to be with her now, instead of Troy comforting her, giving her his shoulder to lean on.  Instead, he's out here in the hall, confronting the girl who caused that heart breaking pain.

“Senorita Sex-a-lot." Cathy spat.  "They said that she slept with four guys all in one night and still couldn’t get enough.  The next day her boyfriend dumped her because she couldn’t keep her pants on and she begged him for days to take her back.  She’s nothing but a common whore Justin and she should be treated as such.  She doesn’t belong here with any of us.”

Justin closed his eyes.  He couldn‘t believe a word that Cathy was saying.  Yeah, she may have had a bad rep at her old school but he couldn‘t see Chloe sleeping around like that.  Wasn’t it just last night that he decided he was going to figure out what made Chloe act the way that she did?  Just by the way that she reacted to him, pulling away so suddenly, he could tell that she had been screwed over one too many times.  Could whatever happened to her at her old school be the key?

Cathy smacked his arm.  “Are you even listening to me Justin?” she bristled.

Justin shook his head to clear his thoughts and focused back on Cathy.  He grabbed her by the chin and forced her to look up at him.  “No Cathy, it’s time that you listened to me.  I want you and all of your little girlfriends to stay away from Chloe.  She’s going through enough right now on her own and she doesn’t need your shit to add to it.  Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Cathy’s temper began to go into overload.  She wanted to smack the arrogance right off his face.  Why was he acting like this?   Justin was the high school quarterback and she was the head cheerleader.  Wasn’t he supposed to be backing her up?  “What has gotten into you Justin?  This isn‘t like you.  Not like you at all.  Don’t you love me anymore?”

He barked out a humorless laugh and released her chin.  “Love you Cathy?  What in the hell would make you think that I loved you?”  He took a step back and held up his hands.  “You’re pathetic Cathy.  It’s time that you took a good look around you and grew the hell up.  We aren’t little kids anymore writing notes back and forth, sneaking kisses behind the bleachers.  We graduate in less than a month.  Do yourself a favor, concentrate a little more on getting out of here and a little less on how miserable you can make someone else’s life.  It isn’t worth it.”

Cathy’s eyes were now burning with unshed tears.  How could he be so callous?  So ruthless about their relationship?  He had been her first and she was his.  They had been together for so long now because that’s the way that it was supposed to be.

And then the cold, hard truth hit her like a Mack truck running a red light.  “You like her,” she hotly accused.  Her voice began to rise with each new word that she spoke.  “That’s why you are taking up for her, isn’t it Justin?  You’ve gotten tired of me and now you want to move on to some fresh meat.”  This time it was Cathy that advanced on Justin, backing him up against the lockers.  “Tell me Justin,” she demanded, pressing her body shamelessly to his.  “Is that what this is all about?  You want to test the waters with the new bitch in town?”    

“You don’t know what you’re talking about Cathy.  We may hook up once in a while, but we aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend.  What I do on my own time is no business of yours. Now,” he said, grabbing her by the arms and setting her away from him.  “I’ve warned you Cathy, go near Chloe again and I’ll make you regret ever messing with me.”

Having said all that he intended to say, Justin spun around and started to walk away from Cathy.  He had to find Chloe and Troy.  He needed to make sure that she was okay.  That pained look in her eyes when she left the cafeteria pulled at the heart string in his chest.  Just thinking about what he saw go down in the cafeteria had his muscles tensing and his anger rising to a whole new level.  Cathy really had no idea how close she was to getting her face punched in.

What they did to Chloe wasn’t right.  No matter who she was or what ever happened in her past, no one deserved that type of personal degradation or humiliation.