Belonging to Lust

Chapter 195: All Without A Beating Heart

The second the clock ticked off lunch being over, Alan was on Zaiyia like a ruthless vulture. He pursued her like an enticing dead corpse through the halls and through their fellow students. Zaiyia did her best to ignore his approaching presence behind her as she sped through the bodies in her way to get to her locker, but when she sensed him reaching her side, she hissed at him without glancing his way. “NOT here!”

Alan heard her warning loud and clear, but now that he finally had her in his proximity, he couldn’t push himself to back off and let her go. He needed to talk with her. He was a madman barely clinging to his sanity and she was sidestepping his problem. “We need to talk, Zaiyia!”

Making it to her locker, Zaiyia unlocked her padlock and swung it open just in time to set up a wall between her and a pouty Alan who took to leaning his back on the locker next to hers with his arms crossed over his chest. The hall was crammed with students that would soon take notice of Alan’s closeness to her. It could invoke armageddon all over again. “Goddamnit, Alan! You can’t talk to me here with the whole school around us! I could get bullied all over again for simply being seen this close to your ass, don’t you get that?”

“I don’t care, I need to talk to you!” Alan snapped at her, glaring at her locker door that cleaved him from seeing her face. Though perhaps it needed to remain there for the time being. He could tell by her tone that she was becoming enraged with him right now, but that wouldn’t impede him. “Can I come over today to see you?”

“NO!” Zaiyia nearly shouted, slamming her locker door shut and spinning around to stomp away from him. The more distance between them, the better. Alan may not give a damn about her safety, but she did, and she wasn’t about to allow him to provoke the entire school to harass her again after all the hard work Principal Quinn had done to create a safe environment for her among her fellow students. Life was amazing now! She was a normal kid just like everyone else, and she was gonna keep it that way.

Sadly, Alan wasn’t gonna spare her today. Following at her heel and overlooking the attention they were garnering around them, Alan pleaded to her. “Zaiyia, please! You have to talk to me! It’s important!”

Up ahead, Alice White was closing her own locker after retrieving her history book and turned in their direction just in time to catch a full glimpse of the two inbetween the bodies navigating through the hall. In that moment, her heart stopped beating in her chest, suspended in time as her blue eyes widened in shock, her jaw dropping.

“Shit!” Zaiyia cursed aloud to herself as she halted in her escape. Alice had seen her and Alan together and was likely thinking the worst of her! Inviting the red hot rage to dominate her at the thought of losing Alice as a friend over a misunderstanding, Zaiyia whipped around to finally face an unhinged Alan and yelled in his face. “I SAID FUCK OFF!”

Alan was struck speechless not by her outburst, but by her knee coming up and bashing itself right into his groin area. Hips jerking back from the blow, Alan let out a cry as he cupped his genitals with both hands and fell to his knees on the floor in front of gasping students.

Letting out a gasp herself at the violent backlash of Zaiyia to her ex-boyfriend, Alice covered her mouth in another wave of shock as she gaped at her former rival.

At this point, Zaiyia had no idea what Alice was thinking. She had no idea if the girl loathed her with just as much passion as before, or if seeing her with Alan unleashed Pandora’s box unlike anything Zaiyia has ever seen before. Feeling crushed and helpless, Zaiyia bolted away to take refuge in the girl’s bathroom up the hall. It was empty of students, and so she began to pace up and down the tile floor, cursing Alan’s name for making her react so abruptly and violently. “Sonofabitch! Why doesn’t that fucking idiot EVER fucking listen! Now he’s got to ice pack his dick because he pushed me even after I warned him to get lost! Fuck, what am I gonna do now? Alice probably hates me now…”

“Zaiyia!” Alice called as soon as she thrust the bathroom door open and strode in to see her friend looking like she had the world’s complications weighing on her shoulder. Indicating to the hallway from the other side of the bathroom wall, Alice demanded answers for what just transpired between her and Alan. “What the hell was all that about out there? Why did you kick him in the balls for?”

Even though Alan deserved to have all of his tea spilled…Zaiyia wasn’t gonna do it. She wouldn't tell Alice the truth. No, she was gonna dish out another lie once again. With a shrug, Zaiyia fabricated a falsehood. “I don’t know! I wasn’t exactly trying to listen in on whatever the hell the dude was telling me other than to tell him to get lost and leave me the fuck alone. There was no way in hell I was gonna stand around and chat with him after everything you and I have been through.”

Alice didn’t say anything for a while. Her mind was stumbling over itself trying to make sense of what she saw and what Zaiyia told her. It wouldn’t serve Zaiya well to be seen with Alan, that was definitely true. Alice couldn’t lie, seeing the two together definitely sparked some past jealousy hatred on her part that had been thought to have been entombed long ago. In seconds it had surfaced like the phoenix from its ashes to seek vengeance again. If it hadn’t been for their new bond, Alice would’ve given in to the temptation, but instead here she was looking for answers.

But none of this explains why Alan was trying to talk to Zaiyia in the first place…

“Was…Was he trying to ask you out or something?” Alice questioned her, her voice sounding strained as the emotions threatened to well inside her at the possibility that Alan was still trying to be with Zaiyia.

With a disgusted scoff, Zaiyia rolled her eyes and growled. “Motherfucker better not even think about it, or I swear on God Imma blow his fucking head off with my fucking mind!”

A small burst of laughter spewed from Alice’s lips, surprising her at its arrival and genuinity.

Zaiyia was somewhat relieved to hear the blond laugh rather than rage at her. The last thing she wanted was for them to become enemies again not because that meant she’d be fighting the whole school once more, but because they also had genuinely become friends. To lose Alice would suck, especially over some stupid boy that decided to screw up his own life. Twiddling her fingers together, Zaiyia softly asked her. “Are you mad at me, Alice?”

“Honestly, I was at first…but seeing you kick Alan in the balls, my mind was changed in that instant.” Alice rawfully admitted with a soft smile. “I realized then that if you cared for him, if you truly loved him like I do you wouldn’t have ever physically harmed him the way you did. Nothing within you would have allowed you to.”

“Love him like you do?” Zaiyia recited, tilting her head slightly with interest as a knowing smile curved her full lush red lips. There it was, Alice’s confession of love for Alan! The girl was still in love with her ex-boyfriend despite everything they’ve been through!

“No, I-I mean…I’m not in love with Alan anymore! It was just a slip of the tongue.” Aliceurgently tried to remedy her mistake. She didn’t want anyone to think that anymore. She didn’t want anyone to know. She was moving on from Alan whether she still loved him or not. “Old habits die hard, you know?”

“Alice…tell me the truth, girl. And I mean honesty just between the two of us.” Zaiyia softly spurred her, needing to know the truth. Her answer would dictate what happened next between her and Alan. It was the key to everything that had been spiraling to this very moment. “Are you still in love with your ex-boyfriend?”

There was hesitation as Alan turned her head to stare at her own reflection in one of the bathroom mirrors. Her mouth opened and closed several times. It was difficult for her because Zaiyia was expecting the truth from her when the truth wasn’t something she shared even with herself. Her feelings for Alan were no longer addressed or acknowledged. She avoided glancing his way because she was frightened to find out if she was still tethered to this boy who no longer loved her. Instead, she was fixated on moving along and liberating herself from the shackles of love. “I’m…working on it.”

There it was.

There was Zaiyia’s answer.

Alice was still in love with Alan despite all her talks of ‘moving on’ and such from him. Her determination to keep going could truly be a legitimate desire from her, but her heart was still in the dude’s clutches, and had yet been shaken free. Until then, Alice was gonna continue to walk about her daily life, minute after minute with a smile on her face that belonged to the old Alice who had never felt the piercing stabs of a heartache, or the resulting drowning of its miserable aftermath. She was trying to obliterate him from her system. And all of these attempts were made all without a beating heart.