Ladies' Choice (re-uploading SOON)

CHAPTER FOUR

A gasp unhinged my jaw as I lunged for Daniella, but she was already running. 

I hated how much she knew me. 

"Don't read that!" I yelled after her. My vision wavered. Beneath me the dirty water-colored speckled linoleum transformed into the red track outside and I was running after Daniella, but instead of a baton, I had a love letter. 

Daniella wasn't listening, her eyes darting around my page. She guffawed, her laugh like a crack in the mirror when I called upon bloody Mary. "I knew it! You stole a quote from Notting Hill!" She read from the page, and I stuffed down the feral childish need to scream and drown her out as she said, "I'm just a person, standing in front of a pretty girl, asking her to the dance."

My face burned, the heat and shame washing over me. Unfortunately, Daniella was correct. I didn't know what to say to Mona and that was such a good quote from Julia Roberts to that British guy. If Mona had never seen the movie, she'd be wooed for sure. If this quote was famous or something or she had seen it, Mona would understand the reference and think it was cute. Either way, I was a winner.

Daniella just really couldn't help herself.

She was human rot.

That was it. Two could play this game. I never tore open a letter open faster in my life. This was not ASMR (ruining your enemies' life in a library roleplay). I wanted Daniella to know I did it and she turned so fast, she nearly crashed into me.

"Don't!" This time she yelled, and I went running.

While my eyes skimmed the paper, I led Daniella down the hall. Not sure where I was going at all. Skipper called after me, "Yo! You're leaving your stuff behind!"

But I couldn't stop.

I cackled, an unnerved feeling whirling through me like a ripped wire still plugged into an outlet. "You're gonna make fun of me?!" I waved her letter back and forth over my head. "I've never read something so full of cliché in my life. I liked you from the first moment I met you? Don't you know love at first sight is a tired cliché?"

"At least I mean it! You sound so fake!" She shouted back.

"Fake?! This letter isn't anything like you. You don't even like people! Daniella James doesn't have the capacity to like others, which means no one is capable of liking her back."

"You don't know me at all, Summers! And you never did." Something contacted the back of my head and I stumbled to a stop, seeing my letter crumbled into a ball. I turned to face her, crumbling her letter back. Breathing hard, Daniella's blush spilled down her neck and up to her ears. I had never seen someone blush so red and bright before. Her eyes sparkled with the threat of tears. 

She stated, "You are the worst person who has ever existed. You're not even a real person, Summers. You're empty..." she filled my emptiness with her words, and it reminded me what dug the holes out of my heart, what made my soul evaporate. This reminded me I was somebody. Maybe not who I was originally, but I was someone.

Daniella shook her head. "If you thought Mona would ever like you for you, you're crazy."

I pointed to myself. "I'm crazy? You're crazy. Someone as nice as Mona is probably talking to you out of pity. She'd never actually go out with the rudest person alive."

"As if you're a prize." She stepped closer to me and I steeled myself, refusing to me. I wouldn't give her the power to make me back down. I just stared right back at her. "I would rather pull out all my teeth and fingernails before I went out with you."

"Keep your teeth and fingernails because that would never happen."

I shivered from my anger, my fists tightening so much my knuckles threatened to pop out as I just stared at her, ready for the next blow. Daniella glared back, her jaw clenched. Without trying, I had wrapped my hand around her letter, and I crumbled it inside of my palm. I tossed it at her chest, and she let it bounce off her.