Cheater [Watty Awards 2011]

Cheater Eleven

-WOO. Finally. The killer is revealed! But is that all there is to it? Or am I gonna be mean and add another twist? Probably. No, yes. There's YET ANOTHER twist in the next chapters. So, don't expect to fully understand her and her motives, because this is really only the beginning. Ha. I'm cruel. ;D Hope you guys like it, though.-

Chapter Twelve

Natalie and Cole spend the night talking and Cole is proved right. She doesn’t just, ‘not like it’, she loathes it, and almost kicks him out of her home, but can’t find the heart to. After all, it’s Cole. She couldn’t do that to him. Not her best friend...

So Natalie had listened, had even let him cry softly on her shoulder – even though he tried and tried to deny it, she knew that he wasn’t just allergic to her cat, and that those were real tears- and had let him stay over until he felt better.

She could see how terrible he felt about everything. She could tell that he hadn’t wanted to do it, but he had done it anyway, and for that, it was nearly impossible to feel bad for him. But Natalie, being the kind, open-minded spirit she was accepted his mistakes and promised to love him anyway.

Early, the next morning, he is saying his goodbyes and thank-yous for a helpful night,

“I’ll invite her over tonight and we’ll definitely talk it out.” Cole smiles, standing by the elevator with Natalie.

“Great.” Natalie sighs, content. Somehow, her advice got through to him and it seemed like he would actually follow it through.

“Thank you again, Natalie. For everything.” Cole takes her hand and kisses it, then still holding onto it, “I mean it.”

“Sure,” She slips her hand away, gently. I can’t... “Anytime, Cole.”

“Thank you.” He pushes both up and down buttons, still looking at her.

She smiles in response. Be strong, Nat, she tells herself.

“In fact, I feel so good, that I think I’ll take the stairs.” He goes down the hallway and upon opening the door to the stairs, he gasps, dropping the apple he’d been crunching on for the last five minutes,

“V!” Natalie runs up to her and hugs her.

“You know her?” Cole’s face is screwed up in both disgust and confusion.

Valerie answers Natalie’s question, “We’re sisters.”

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“You’re psycho.”  Cole spits.

“We had our reasons.” She smiles.

“What did you just say?”

Slowly, she says, “I had my reasons.”

“No. You said, ‘we’.” Thinking back, Cole is almost completely sure that it is not his hearing. She definitely said it, didn’t she? He definitely heard ‘we’, didn’t he?

            For a while, she shakes her head and smirks. Maybe she is thinking of something to say, maybe she is hiding something, something she won’t... or can’t let slip from those smudged-red lips, or maybe, it is just that she is shocked that he even began to correct her. Either way, after a seemingly endless period of silence,