Hard to Hate You // Michael Langdon

Part XV - Competition

"Where the hell did you hide my hairbrush?" Dinah shouts from down the hallway.

Coco, Mallory, Gallant, Emily, and I all turn towards the hallway from our spots in the sitting room to see Andre backing into the hallway.  "I didn't steal your damn hairbrush!" he yells, not noticing all of us watching him.

Dinah storms up to him angrily.  "I know that you've been pining for my hairbrush ever since you were careless enough to lose yours!  Why can't you take no for an answer?"

"But mother, I need to brush my hair somehow!" he complains.

"So you did steal it," she accuses.

He quickly closes his mouth, realizing that he just incriminated himself.

"Just tell me where the hell it is," Dinah threatens, her voice lowering.

"I don't have it, I swear!"

Something in Dinah's expression changes, and she slaps Andre across the face.  "You stupid boy!  You basically admitted to stealing it, don't you dare try to deny it now!"

Andre turns away from Dinah and notices all of us staring at him.  Dinah follows his gaze and glares at us.  "Great, we have an audience," she sighs.

"You think?" I scoff as I lean back and turn my attention back to the book in my lap.  After everyone's looked away from me, I smirk.  All that I had to do was mind-control Andre into stealing Dinah's brush, and the rest just worked itself out.

"What do you expect when you're having a fight in the middle of the hallway right outside our main gathering space?" Coco remarks.

Dinah sighs and turns around dramatically.  After she's stormed out of the hallway, Mallory goes over to comfort Andre.  "You know, Coco and Gallant have plenty of extra brushes-"

"No we don't," Gallant interrupts.

Coco sends him a questioning glance.  "What are you talking ab-"  Gallant makes an erratic hand motion, motioning for her to lie about the hairbrushes.  "Oh, I forgot about how you broke most of them when you were throwing a hissy fit over Langdon's proposal to us."

Gallant scoffs and throws his hands up in the air as he turns away.

"Wait, what proposal?" Emily asks.

Coco rolls her eyes as Gallant turns back around, his face in his hands.  "He said that we get to choose one of us to go to the Sanctuary," Gallant explains.

"If we don't reach a decision, we both get left here," Coco finishes.

"God, that's horrible," Emily sighs.

"And impossible," I add on.  "The probability of them managing to work this out is most likely less than one percent."

"Wow, thanks for having faith in us," Coco remarks.

"I'm facing the facts," I shrug.  "You're both too impossibly selfish to work this out."

"So are you!" Gallant protests.

I shrug.  "That's exactly why I know you won't work this out; I never would if I were in your position."

"She has a point," Mallory speaks up.

"Okay, can I have somebody support me?" Coco asks.

She looks around at everyone in the sitting room, but they stare at her silently.

She huffs angrily as she stands up.  "You know what, fuck you all.  Mallory, come help me get this damn corset off."

Mallory quickly trails after Coco as she storms off to her room.  After Coco and Mallory are out of view, Michael appears in the doorway.