Limelight

Chapter Thirty-Eight

~~Describing The Word Love~~

Aaliyah shouldn't be here.

She had literally less than an hour before she needed to be on her way over to the Garden for Madison's opening night. And here she was standing outside Xavier's apartment, building up the nerve to knock. Things were finally starting to get back to normal again, ruining it by saying things she may not even mean to him wasn't going to make a difference. She knew this, she knew that whatever was going on with him, that he was her friend. He wouldn't abandon her in her time of need for any selfish reason, would he? Or for Madison?

Unable to help herself, she looked up Xavier Adams and Madison Strong in her search engine and a few of their individual songs popped up as well as a music video where they played love interests in a song from Madison's first album. Despite her better judgment, she watched the video, nausea building up and swirling as she saw the smile on Xavier's face as he stared into Madison's eyes adoringly, whilst they lied on a patch of fake grass in a movie set featured in the music video. She thought that that was how he looked at Aaliyah sometimes. She had to remind herself that this was just a video and that he was probably just a great actor too, but it seemed too good to be true. Or maybe that was just in her head. She couldn't tell, it was driving her crazy.

She supposed that she was wrong for bringing all of her insecurities into an argument, but she couldn't help it. She didn't want to make things hard for herself before she needed to be on stage in front of five hundred thousand people. She knew all of this, but she couldn't find herself walking away.

And then her fist was raised and she rapped against the front door. Once and then she received no answer, her pent-up frustration boiling over the top as she knocked again. "Xavier!" She yelled, her anger straining through in her voice, "Xavier, open the fucking door!"

Not up to a second later was Xavier at the door looking to her incredulously, though Aaliyah didn't give him the chance to even speak before her hand was out and cracked across his face with a force she didn't even know she had. He rocked back on his feet, as his head spun to the side like a ball on a pike. He cupped his cheek looking at her out of shock rather than pain and then he glared. "What the hell was that for, Lia?" He snapped, and Aaliyah could hear the level of control he was using. Aaliyah was still stunned that she had even raised a hand to him, but when she met his gaze again her stomach bottomed out.

"For making promises you can't fucking keep," She sneered at him, and at her words, Xavier's eyes darkened taking his hand from his face and wrapping it around her wrist tightly pulling her inside without another word. Aaliyah tried to struggle out of his grip, but he only let her go once she was in the room as the door shut behind her and she stumbled a little, and couldn't help a cold laugh, "Don't tell me. This is the part where you come up with a bullshit excuse as to why you couldn't pull up for me, huh?"

Xavier scowled as he stalked over to the kitchen not saying a word as he rummaged through his freezer, and took out a bag of frozen peas. She watched with intrigue as he put the bag over his cheekbone. He swore beneath his breath and continued to stand in the silence, it was slowly starting to feel like it was peeling back her skin, leaving more time for it to grow back so it can do it again. She couldn't help but feel bad as he pressed the peas to his cheek, looking down at her hand wondering why she even hit him. She was trying to keep herself together just before she knocked, wasn't she? She could slowly feel the silence work on her last nerve. "Aren't you going to say something?"

"Clearly, anything I say to you, isn't going to change how fucking crazy you're being," He replied in a freezing tone, "So why waste my breath?"