Bittersweet Expectations (Hate at First Flight #0.5)

10. Tension Filled Stares

SONG : DON'T BLAME ME - TAYLOR SWIFT

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"Heads, I go in. Tails, I don't,"I muttered to myself as I pulled out a coin from my pockets.

It had been eight thirty when I left the main building and all I had been doing for the past fifteen minutes since getting to Building X was pacing in front of the front door like it was a treadmill.

The main reason was because I was indecisive as to whether I should have feigned illness or not and the other was because I was mustering up the courage to walk in there and tell him to his face how wrong he was.

After getting home yesterday from the hotline yesterday, I had stuffed down my cold meal with anger as I remembered the accusations Ethan Clarke had laid against me.

After he had dirtied up the living room, shattered glass and gory blood everywhere, I had, like any reasonable person, done the best I could with the situation. I saw the blood and I ran for the first aid kit, where Diana had told me it was.

Then what did the ungrateful, egomaniac, conceited idiot accuse me of?

He accused me of being a gold-digger that thought could seduce him because I was being nice to him.

Whoever Laurel Richards was to him, I hope she made him suffer enough, the way he was making me suffer lately.

I remembered her appearing on America's Next Top Model but getting eliminated before the Top 10 were chosen. Then she disappeared from the main scene only to appear 2 years later being the main model for brand such as Gucci or Yves Saint Laurent. One and half years later and she was the most sought out model, gracing most of the billboard in New York City.

I didn't know how exactly Ethan Clarke and Laurel Richards were affiliated, not that I cared to know. But I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

Of course, the courage and determination that had been burning through me last night had died down when I woke up this morning.

In fact, if anything I stalled, dragging the time it took me to get out of bed because I didn't want to get out and face the sure, ever-present fact that I was stuck with Ethan Clarke for the next month in close proximity and that he would do everything it would take to make me quit.

Maybe, I hoped, he changed his mind and didn't want me to come over anymore.

That was before I got dressed and went out to meet Diana.

"Mr Clarke expects you there no later than nine a.m, Ashleigh," she said with an almost grimace as if she still found the idea distasteful before she walked off.

I almost stopped her and begged her to go to him and convince him to let me off because we both didn't like each others company.

I almost got down on my knees and told her that I, too, didn't like the idea of being left in a room alone with Mr Grumpy, especially when he would rather throw me out of his house and his family then let me wash his tighty whities.

But then I realized that I shouldn't do that because if I did, I was basically admitting defeat. That was until I got to the front door and my nerves started again, leaving me to the inevitability of leaving my fate to a simple, mundane flip of a coin.

I tossed the coin and covered it as it lands on my palm.

"Heads, I go in. Tails, I don't..."

***