The Psycho Is Innocent | ꪜ

Chapter 11: Blackmail

A R I E L

          MY FINGERS CURLED around the steaming hot cup of coffee and every so often I would snap my gaze towards Larson, then back down at the black pool of my drink in the white mug. The cafe was buzzing with life; I suspected that this town ran on caffeine to the point where no one could go without it; myself included.

          Larson sat silently across from me, his eyes staring off into space for a moment and I wondered if everything Lewis said about him was true; did he really made her cosplay as me just to get off? I couldn't get it out of my head, just the thought of him being obsessed with me to the point where he had his girlfriend act as me was kind of bone-chilling. However, I've known Larson long enough to know that that's not possible. One thing I know for a fact is that Lewis was lying about it.

          She's wasting my time. "What do you want to know, Ariel?" He asked, his eyes never meeting mine. I shifted in my seat, finally focusing my attention on him and only him. I knew he wasn't referring to our conversation in the car because despite the bombshell he dropped, he still stood firm in withholding the reason behind our breakup. "What?" I inquired confusedly. Finally, for the first time since we arrived here, his eyes met mine.

          I don't know if it was the fact that I've spent two years observing him and just being in his presence but I could tell whatever facade he sported for the past few hours had crumbled. He was no longer playing along with my game of befriending him. I knew from the beginning that he didn't fall for it, that was the whole reason why I insisted we hung out today so that I could convince him otherwise. But Larson is intelligent, one of the smartest students at our school. He's not gullible nor stupid enough to fall for my tricks. I went into this knowing that risk.

          The shit I do for you, Tobias.

          "Ariel, I've known you for years and I know when you're faking something. Those tears in the hallway were convincing if you did it to anyone else but remember. . . we dated for two years and you really wanted that freaking stuffed elephant at that fair and a lot of other things that I had previously said no to."

          I bit down onto my lip as I tried to suppress a burst of nervous laughter. Yes, I saw this coming, which is also why I prepared for it beforehand. Larson may have thought he had the upper hand, but I'm always two steps ahead. "Okay you caught me, it was the only way to make you agree to talk to me, so my question now is, why did you play along with it?" He leaned back in his seat, his arms folding over his chest, "because I want to know what you want from me? And not only that, for the first time in a year, I can talk to you freely without your boyfriend looming around us."

          "Tobias was never looming around us."

           "Oh yeah? I thought you were smart, Ariel but you're just as clueless as everyone else in this bloody town. Tobias was accused of a double homicide, which shouldn't be surprising considering the fact that he's done a number of questionable things over the past year which includes but is not limited to: choking a guy at a party and then threatening his life with a baseball bat, constantly threatening me to stay out of your life oh and I'm guessing you didn't know about the time he beat me up in the hallway, yeah?"

          My face fell. At the sight of my hesitation, he smirked, "some people aren't who they say they are, and I know for a fact that the charming and talented Tobias Aspen is exactly who the media portrays him to be: a crazy asshole who murdered two girls." I didn't react. I couldn't. Larson was one of the first people to know my struggles with my anger, so I could tell that he was purposely pushing my buttons, perhaps to get a reaction out of me. He didn't hide the fact that he had his own agenda coming into this, so could this be it? Is this his attempt at fishing for what my own agenda is?