When The Gang Leader's Son Hates You

Chapter 20

Kiara was grinning in absolute glee. Asher hates me once again and I had no idea what I had done to deserve it. My stomach contracted in painful convolutions, I felt like I was going to be sick. I looked straight into his eyes trying to pry out his reasoning for this. But his eyes gave nothing away, they were blank as he refused to look at me. Why would he do this? I thought we were friends. Maybe a little more and now he's making it seem like he has had nothing to do with me.

"She's been stalking you, Asher. Does someone have a little crush? Aw how sweet," Kiara taunted me in a condescending voice. Embarrassment washed through me, reddening my cheeks at what she was portraying me as. It shouldn't affect me because I knew it was lies, but it made me realise how childish I had been in trusting Asher. My face must have become bright red because Kiara pinched my cheeks. Red-hot anger seethed through my veins at them and myself. I slapped her hand away.

She squealed and then laughed viperously. 

"Embarrassed are we? Liking someone way out of your league. Now I thought you had some pride left in you." She sneered at me, with a cruel curl on her lip. 

People had started to gather around us, circling around Kiara and I. No one passing up the opportunity of seeing a spectacle made of me. Brad was looking at me with sad eyes but he didn't intervene, neither did Logan who was looking on with an uninterested gaze. This was Asher's fight, they wouldn't dare speak against him. 

"You should know that no one would ever like you. Everyone in this school hates you and your rat of a father. Anyone can see you take just after him, exploiting other peoples work and wasting it on yourself."

"I would never do that," I yelled back, outraged. My eyes kept flickering to Asher for him to say something. He knew me, he knew she was telling lies. But his lips were pressed together as he watched me with an intense gaze, a plucker between his eyebrows and his hands folded over his chest. It made his tatoo on his shoulder stand out and it reminded me of the first time I ever saw him as he watched on and allowed me to be bullied by Kiara. Even after everything we went through together, nothing had changed between us and it made my heart pierce in a way that scared me. 

"Oh, but you did, Cordelia. We all watched you on TV as you lounged by your pool being waited on while we were all starving because our money was being wasted on pampering you," she howled at me, her nose was scrunched up and her hands were in fists at her sides, I could see the anger mounting up in her. She was finally letting everything out that she thought of me.

I was speechless as I gaped at her. I never knew all this. This must have been what was in those news articles my mom didn't let me see.

"You and your family ruined our lives and took everything from us. That's why no one wants you here. That's why everyone hates you," she spat at me viscously and no one around seemed to deny what she was saying. Not even Asher. 

She stepped up to me and suddenly yanked my bag out of my hands and it slipped from my grip because I wasn't expecting it. She fished my diary out of my bag that had the small book Henry made when he was still alive peaking out the sides. Panic clawed up my throat as if it was constricting my insides. I gasped in a frenzy, not Henry's book.

I threw myself at her in a blind hysteria, trying to snatch it back but she held me back by pushing me strongly in the chest away from her. I stumbled backwards, barely keeping myself upright as my footing floundered underneath me. A hand shot out and grasped me around my wrist, stopping me from falling as Asher took a step closer to me. It was like an unconscious reaction that he didn't want to consciously do because when I was steady, he instantly stepped backwards away from me again, making the constricting feeling and panic in my chest worse. But I wasn't focusing on him, my eyes were on Kiara's hands that were clutching Henry's book.