Cold In Heat

19. Slaves to the Truth

PRESENT

HUNTER

I pull Charlie to the side. "Hey. Can we talk?" If I wasn't paying so close attention, I would miss the way her eyes glances away from me hurriedly. To me, that screams secrecy. If anything I learnt from my time in QueensTown was that secrecy leads to bad endings. She gulps her scotch and soda and nods. I scratch the itch of my jaw, "I am not going to beat around the bush so here I go but did you know anything about the day the video was leaked?" Charlie's eyes widen a bit. "What video?" My eyes slanted, "For real?" Then, she heaves a sigh and says with a struggle, "Just the same things what you know." I could stop at that. There was no point of inquiring further and I believe Charlie but her hands wouldn't stop twisting the glass tumbler of her alcohol. "Are you sure?" I try again, this time pointedly looking at her twitchy hands. She bit her lip and glanced around. "Hunter, why are you bringing this up now? You have been so good, moving on from whatever happened in our school. Why rehash the past when there is nothing to rehash?" She made a good point. What good did it do? I sip my concoction of a Pina colada that Ajax made for me. "I just think you should forget whatever happened and move on, you know." She says it with this flair of a philosopher. Charlie had always been like that. Its one of the reasons why I dated her. She had a mind that was deep and inquisitive. She read voraciously. Her intellect once upon a time used to challenge me. Now it made me tedious and bored. It dawned on me then, "You said I have been so good. What does that suppose to mean?" She flunks her hand around, "Just an expression." I tilt my head slightly and I wonder if I am being overtly suspicious. "Maybe. But from how you said it, you make it sound as if I am a working lab rat bidden under your experiment." She takes in a deeper breath and places her arm on my chest. "Sweetie, I promise you it's nothing, you are overthinking this." Am I? 

We stay in the silence of awkward suspicion. My eyes steering to the raven haired minx on the balcony. She is alone now. Her older friend vanished, leaving her looking over the balcony at the other patrons. Her eyes don't miss my presence but she skates over me just like she did in the past. I always tried to deny the sting I felt whenever she did this. Now I cant even deny it. It stings like a mighty sword. "Hunter I don't even know why you are bringing this up!" I look away from Kit and bring my attention on a squirming Charlie. " I didn't say anything." She looks up and sees Kit and her eyes engulf in bitter flames. "One second please." She dumps her glass on the counter top of the bar as she makes her way up the stairs to the second floor. Immediately I see her interact with Kit. I cant tell from here but it looks heated. "You should go up there." I jerk away when I see Jacob magically appearing beside me. Her eyes noting the heated argument that was taking place above us. "Really?" When I heard her make a sound of disgust, I frown, "What?" Jacob gives me a patronizing look, "Get some fucking balls for once. You loved her once. Clearly you love her now. Just find out the damn truth and be over with it. Not that hard." I never heard Jacob talk like that, especially to me. Either way, I go up and follow the same path that Charlie took. When I wind up on the second floor, the whole floor was empty. I look around for them and easily I hear the murmurs of heated words passed in exchange. When I find the door that is loosely opened, I push it further and stare at the two women. More importantly, I stare at Kit. And Kit stares at me. The silence returns in the room when I entered. Shit. I know it's been only a month but it feels like a long time since I have been away from Kit. Even when she used to ignore me in the past, I still never felt anything like this. In past, whether Kit didn't look at me or talk to me, she was at least there. In the last month, she was gone. Just gone and I hated it. But before I could talk to her, I had to find the truth. Or the secrets that been keeping me in the dark of this blizzard darkness of my past. If I really needed to remove the cloud of Kit and QueensTown, I need the proper closure. I turn to Charlie, "What did you say to her?" I know I didn't make out the words exchanged between them but its a trick to getting the details out. Charlie looks as if she was about to faint. My jaw clenches when no one says anything. I close the door behind me. "No one leaves until you tell me everything, Charlie?" Kit remarkably says nothing and her eyes are glued to the floor. Both of them were. "Charlie?" I try again and she finally has the courage to look up. "Hunter there is something I have been keeping from you and I don't know how to say this..." She looks back at Kit who still has removed her gaze from the floor. "Um-I was the one who recorded you that night."

I don't think I ever found myself stupefied before. After lengthy pause of silence, I shift my stare at Kit. Her hands were wringing in front of her. She has never been this nervous. "And you knew this?" When Kit doesn't answer, I already knew what was coming. Charlie stepped closer and I watched her like a hawk. "I recorded it and blackmailed Kit to stay away from you but after last summer when I saw you two- I posted it." She was crying now yet it didn't move me. "We had an agreement and she broke it and I was upset! We just got together and I thought you were finally over her!" She was full blown sobbing and her steps inched closer to me, begging me to listen. Oh I was listening. I listened too hard I suppose because I swear I felt my head throbbing. There was no way I could express my rage when all I want to do was sink into the floor and curl up and die. The reason being the betrayal from Charlie didn't cut me into bits, because it was her silence that did. Kit's silence. My eyes go back to Kit, whose whiskey eyes were finally boring on to  me. They were red and brink with watery tears. "How could you do this to me?" Her bottom lip wobbled and I felt my heart drop. She knew all this time. She played games with me. She stayed away from me because - wait. I walked towards her, ignoring the weeping Charlie. "Why didn't you just tell me it was Charlie who was blackmailing you?" Kit's face paled. "There was more, wasn't it?" When neither of them answered, I growled loudly, "Answer me!" Kit jolted in shock and even though, I didn't like the thought of her scared of me, I didn't care about it now. She gulped and looked straight into my eyes, the tears rolling off her cheeks. "I was recording the video too. Jacob did it for me. Charlie caught us."

Suddenly, I started to laugh. Just like crazy. I laughed so hard that I had to bend at my waist. The tears forming in my eyes and the laughter rolling hard knocking my bones inside me. "Hunter?" Charlie's voice called me out of my maniacal moment. I looked up at her, wiping the tears from my eyes with my knuckles and said, "Its a good thing I didn't love you the way I loved Kit." The gasps from both of them made me chuckle harder. Then I looked back at Kit, her lips parting. Those beautiful manipulative lips. "And it's a good thing that I loved you. Because I don't think I will ever love you again." With that, I left them.

On that very day, I booked my ticket and flew to Oxford. I didn't speak or hear from either of them for seven whole years. I was right all those years ago that secrets leads to bad endings.