Chapter Ten continued...

I am met face to face with Ari.

She is disgustingly flawless. Like she'd slept well, had time to do hair, make-up, and had spent a few minutes extra on her outfit. It wasn't fair. I'd wanted her to look broken.

Ari is leaning against my porch banister, she is deep in contemplation and hasn't noticed me yet. I pivot around to go back inside.

"Wait, please?" She begs.

I don't want to wait. I want to get away from her. She'd won. She always won. What more did she want from me? I stand with my back turned to her and my hand on the doorknob. I don't want confrontation. I turn the knob to go in.

"I'm sorry." She says again, it's the third time she has said. She's come for forgiveness. "I didn't have sex with Cam."

My hand tightens on the handle. His nickname on her lips slices me like a knife. It was so intimate. Had she always called him that, Cam for short? I barely understand the meaning of her words, I just hear his name. Had she said his name when she was having sex with him?

I swivel around to confront my tormenter. I'd thought my actions for the last couple of months were consequence free. Now the devil disguised as an angel is here to collect.

"I don't believe you, Aurora."

Her mouth opens. I adjust my backpack on my shoulder. Her friends call her Ari, I was no longer her friend.

"Please, leave." I plead.

I hate asking her for anything. I wish I'd told her to leave without the desperation in my voice. I'd made a promise to not to let anyone, especially Aurora, see how badly I hurt. Her appearance alone was making thin cracks in my poorly put together facade. I trudge past her and towards my car.

She shouts at my back. "I'm a virgin!"

I'm caught off guard and turn to look at her. She is clearly a liar.

Aurora sees the disbelief in my eyes. "I know you don't believe me. Because of the rumors, who in their right mind would." She crosses her arms around herself in an embrace. "I drank too much. Things got out of hand..."

She looks down at her feet. "But I promise you, I didn't sleep with anyone last night. I'd know."

Aurora a virgin.

How could it be true? All the stories she told me, though she'd never explicitly said the word sex. Hooking up that meant sex, right? I have a hard time believing it could mean anything else. She got around, it was all over the Dirty.

If she was lying about this, what else was she lying about? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. She's good at playing with a person's emotions. A master. She knows what to say and how to act to make you feel what she wants you to.

"Why'd you do it?" I ask.

Call it morbid curiosity or masochism, but the question slips out before I think better of it.

"I...." Aurora starts to answer.

I don't want to know the answer. I ask the next question before she finishes.

"Was it worth it?" I don't want to know to that either. I follow it up with another question.

"Have you been with him before?" This time, I pause and wait for her to answer.

I stare into her eyes; her gaze doesn't hold the same effect it used to. It's easy. Aurora averts her gaze, but I don't miss the tear running down her face.

My heart sinks further into my stomach. I knew it. It wasn't the first time. It was one of the questions that had been plaguing me. The way Cameron acted around Aurora. He disliked her too much, and then to suddenly fell into bed with her. Before I was too blind to see it. Doth do protest too much, methinks.

I inhale a sharp breath. I'm trying to keep my promise, but my head is pounding with the effort. There is a dull pressure building behind my eyes like a dam waiting to burst. I walk to my car.

Aurora follows me and says in a swift ramble. Like ripping off a band-aid. As if saying it faster will make her words hurt less.

"We've never slept together. We've kissed before, but I turned him down."

I open the door of my car and throw my backpack into the passenger side. I'm choosing not to respond. I'm done with this conversation. Of course, my boyfriend had kissed her. Of course, he'd had a thing for her. Who didn't?

"It was one time at a party." She says, "There's nothing between us."

I take my anger out on the car and slam the door shut.

"Enough! I get it. You know what would've been nice, Aurora?" I emphasize her name. "Honesty. You might have said this weeks ago. Or perhaps on the three-hour road trip yesterday. Then I might believe you haven't been sleeping with my..."

I stop myself, for the first time acknowledging he may not be my boyfriend anymore. "...Cameron this whole time."

"You're right. I should've told you and I wanted to." She says.

Aurora uncrosses her arms and wrings her hands. "When you look at me, you see me. You were new and hadn't been there to see me make my mistakes. I was scared if I told you, you'd look at me like everyone else. They're all waiting for me to screw up or to break. Kids at school, my family, James."

"It was wrong, but I wanted you to keep seeing me. " She takes a step closer and her eyes meet mine. The tears are rolling freely down her face now. "I was afraid you'd look at me the way you are now."

Her tears and words don't make me feel any better. It makes me feel worse, like more of an idiot. She'd manipulated me and was trying to do it again. She'd picked me because I was new and didn't know any better. Boo hoo, poor glamorous Aurora. She was too pretty, too popular, and just wanted a friend. I wasn't buying it. I've learned my lesson.

I scoff. "You hung out with me because I was an easy mark."

"No, of course not." Aurora takes another step closer.

I take a step back. I don't want her to touch me. Hurt crosses her face.

"I wanted to be friends because you're kind and understanding. Even now after what you think I've done you haven't said a cruel thing to me."

Aurora is good at apologizing, but I'm ready to end his conversation for good.

"What do you want from me?" I ask.

"I..." She's caught off guard by my question. "I...I just wanted to tell you...I..."

Aurora rubs the tears from her eyes and looks down at her feet. "I guess it doesn't matter anymore...but I-I..."

I realize she doesn't even know what she wants. I wait impatiently for her to figure it out.

"I want you to believe me. I want you to believe me when I say I didn't sleep with him. I want your forgiveness for making a drunken mistake. I want you to look at me like you used to and to..." She pauses then looks up at me. The grey pools around her pupils are alluring even filled with grief.

"...to love me."

Yesterday, I'd been angry. I'd wanted a formidable weapon to hurt her, to break her. Today, she stands fragile. I finally see how empty she is. I was wrong about her. She isn't made of stone; immutable, and solid.

Ari is made of hollowed out glass. She's always searching for a way to fill her emptiness with a new and exciting thrill. She's starved tornado devouring up everything in her path and I'd got caught up in her spinning vortex. In her rampage against the world, I was just another accidental casualty.

I do believe she hadn't hurt me on purpose.

I give Aurora a good long look. She is a warrior on the outside. Her make-up is her war paint, her put together outfit is her armor. But it was all an elaborate illusion which afforded her no real protection. I know her well. I know the words to break her.

"I forgive you, Aurora."

I don't say them.

Though I can break her, I refuse to be the person to do it. It's not in my nature and it's not the kind of person I want to be. She stands unmoving and silent in dismay. It's her turn not to believe me. But it's true. I do forgive her. Even if she'd slept with Cameron.

She's reckless and had been since I'd met her. I'd been playing with fire and I got burned. I had no one to blame but myself.

I open my car door and crunch down to look inside. I reach across the seat for my backpack and fumble with the strap. When I've got what I'm looking for I straighten and face her eye-to-eye. I always forget we're the same height. She'd always seemed larger than life. I hand her the piece of metal and plastic. She wordlessly takes it and tightly closes her fingers around it.

Then I get in my car and back out of the driveway. I look back at her in my side mirror as I pull away. Aurora is looking down at the object I'd given her; a parting gift. It's the keychain she'd stolen and given to me.

Badass.

I didn't give it back to be savage. I'd done it for myself. It was cathartic, a way to start over. It marked the moment I'd thrown my morals out the window. I'd been starved for attention and the second I got it, I'd been willing to give parts of myself away. Before Aurora, my life may not have been anything to write about but at least it didn't hurt.

Aurora's figure is still looming in my driveway. As both she and the house disappear from my rear-view mirror, I wonder if I can convince my mother to move again. We could start over pretend this year never happened. We'd moved so many times why not once more.

TBC...Chapter Eleven up next.