The Psycho Is Innocent | ꪜ

Chapter 9: I'm Not Afraid Of You

Present

        LARSON FLICKERED HIS eyes down to Ariel, his cheeks suddenly growing hot at the proximity between them. He cleared his throat, "you know I can easily pick you up and get you out of my way, right?" He questioned. Ariel smirked, "and you know I don't ask for things, Larson, I take it." He placed his hands firmly on her shoulder and pushed her off of him, his eyes narrowing.

           She leaned back against the locker cooly, finally catching his full attention just as she had intended. Ariel's tactic was to break down Larson's defences in the most obvious way: by making him hot and bothered. And it seemed to work...kind of. "So you want us to be friends?" He muttered in disbelief.

Ariel was growing impatient. Her plan was to have Larson in the palm of her hands by the end of the day. But the more he stood around in a state of bewilderment was time being wasted. "Stop acting like I was the one who broke up with you and now suddenly I want you in my life again." She folded her arms over her chest, hazel eyes burning a hole through Larson's head. He adjusted the gold watch adorned on his wrist, trying but failing hard to divert his gaze from Ariel.

"You say that as if I didn't want us to continue being in each other's lives after the breakup. You kept pushing me away every time I approached you and your possessive boyfriend also didn't like that. So in the end, I realized I wasn't welcome so I stepped away. Now you want us to be friends? Hmm sounds fishy." He turned up his nose, mockingly sniffing around to emphasize his point. Although Ariel appeared calm leaned against the locker simply gazing up at him, deep down she wanted nothing more than to rip his mouth off his face.

          "You're right, Tobias was possessive." Her face contorted and suddenly a tear trickled down her cheek. She snapped her head away and cleared her throat, "he was and it took him getting arrested for me to realize that. They were little things that I thought were cute. I thought he was just being protective but that wasn't it. He always prevented me from speaking to other guys, even his own friends.

          He needed to know where I was every hour of the day and hated the idea of me spending my time with Evelyn and not him. And don't get me wrong in the beginning I didn't want to talk to you and that should be understandable seeing as you broke up with me literally weeks before. But after that, when I did want to be friends, Tobias was hell bent on not making that happen." Tears pooled under her chin rapidly as they flowed against her cheeks, deceiving Larson who stood at her feet, eyes assessing her carefully.

          He sighed, "shit," he muttered under his breath. "Fine! Since your crazy boyfriend isn't here we can be friends. Just stop crying, you're making people stare and that's the last thing I want." Ariel's lips twitched into a smile as she swiped away her faux tears with the back of her hand. Larson rolled his eyes, a groan of regret unsubtly parting from his lips. "What about Lewis? Wanting to be friends with me doesn't explain why you two are in cahoots."

          Ariel lowered her head to the floor, her fingers fiddling with one another. "I just–she came to me after you guys broke up and I guess she just wanted someone who could relate to having broken up with you. She was lonely and I didn't know how to turn her down so here we are hanging out, nothing more." Larson didn't believe her. Ariel didn't do things just because. There was another motive behind this friendship and he needed to know what it was. "Okay, I guess," he responded.

          Ariel detected the hesitation in his voice. She needed more than just his word. Walking away now would be stupid, she needed to convince him more. "Do you wanna go grab ice cream after school?" He pondered on her question, wondering if he should dive headfirst into whatever plan Ariel was concocting. If he wanted to get a front-row view of what it is she truly wanted, he had to push aside all his doubts and go in without hesitation, "sure Ariel."