Lie To Me Chapter 6

Xander sat on the toilet and realized it was definitely the first time he had sat on one for so long with his pants buckled. His thighs and butt were painfully numb and began to tingle from the uncomfortable seat. Faith had been quiet since they sat down almost an hour earlier, with her head rested on his chest tilted away from his view. He was still sopping wet and to entertain himself he wiggled his toes inside of his wet socks and shoes. He chided his stupidity for not kicking them off before getting into the shower with her, but he knew that at the time, he was about half a second away from complete panic, so his sneakers being uncomfortable and squishy didn't even enter into his mind.

The painful tingling shooting through the lower half of his body finally overrode all of his logic and he motioned for her to stand up.

"Faith," he said as he shifted his weight and gripped her biceps. She jumped, completely taken by surprise.

"I didn't realize you were asleep," he apologized, immediately noting that moving was a mistake by the look in her face.

"Either did I," she muttered, standing up quickly. She seemed taken off guard and she responded by being defensive. Xander could practically see her paving up the crumbled wall around her. She walked out of the bathroom and Xander slowly raised himself off of the toilet as though his body was several decades older than it actually was.

He stood still until the tingling in his legs went away, or at least for the most part, before walking out of the bathroom. Faith was standing by her dresser of clothes facing away from him. She was pulling her wet shirt off over her head when he came out of the bathroom. He was momentarily distracted by the defined curves of her body, but not made uncomfortably by them anymore.

Xander leaned against the wall as he tried to get his wet sneakers off of his feet. He knew how upset she had been but as that faded he was reminded of his own pain and hurt because of the situation. He was furious with her and seeing how upset she was actually fueled his anger further. The fact that she would do something like that to hurt him even when she knew how much she didn't want to do it, almost made him sick.

"So, do you throw up after having sex with me too?" he asked, his anger overriding his concern. She finished pulling on a dry sweatshirt and then turned and glared at him. "Is this some sort of sex bulimia or something? I've heard of regular bulimia and then the new thing is like exercise bulimia… I don't know if I've heard of sex bulimia before, but hey, anything's possible." His words dripped with angry and bitter sarcasm.

Faith remained quiet as he joked without any levity in his tone.

"So what was that all about?" he pushed, seeing she was just going to stay quiet and allow him to vent. He didn't want to vent – he wasn't fucking venting! He was just talking to her like an adult…

She looked over at him again hearing his tone shifting from lacking levity to just plain pissed off. He rung out of shirt onto the floor, now not even looking at her as he talked.

"I mean, are you and steroid guy going to go steady now? I mean, until you're bored, of course…" he mocked angrily. "Okay," he said, feigning seriousness, "serious question now, do you throw up after fucking me?"

"Xander, stop it," she finally spoke up.

"I want to know," he demanded, "do I make you vomit? Come on, don't make me jealous… I don't want to be the only guy that can't fuck you hard enough that you throw up!"

"Xander-"

"What, I'm not hot enough? Only hot guys like that-"

"Xander! Please stop…"

"Faith, maybe no one's ever told you this before and that's why you're like this, so I'm going to do you a favor and tell you – you're acting like a fucking whore!" he yelled angrily. "Now maybe you just didn't realize it because shit heads go along with the whole, sex with no strings attached, thing-"

"So I'm a whore?" she asked, her voice getting more angry and defensive.

"You seem to think so," he snapped, motioning towards the bathroom. He saw the hurt look immediately spring to her face and he knew he had taken it a little too far. She could've handled him degrading her and calling her out on anything she'd ever done, but it was too far for him to throw her moment of weakness back into her face.

He was out of line and the hard thing was that he knew it. She turned away from him and walked out of the bedroom area and into the kitchen. He held back in the bedroom for a couple moments trying to regain his composure and have some sort of general plan on how to handle things. When he finally followed her into the kitchen, he still had no plan.

"Get out," she told him blankly as he approached her.

"Faith…"

"Just go," she told him coldly.

"Okay, so it was harsh, but jock boy?" he asked, trying to soothe his jealousy.

"It wasn't harsh," she answered awkwardly.

"Okay," he answered, slightly agreeing that his comment was deserved. "So why are you still pissed off?" he asked as she continued to busy herself with straightening up the countertop. She wasn't facing him and the only answer he received was her shaking her head. He felt a sharp twinge go through his stomach seeing her so rigid in her stance, but he could still feel the heat in his eye from where the tears had fallen only a short time ago.

"You seem awfully hurt by someone calling you on your sex life. Didn't you always say you were comfortable with your lifestyle?" She stopped what she was doing and stood still as though she were either thinking or trying to hold back her emotions.

"Get out," she finally answered stiffly.

"I thought you were comfortable with-"

"And I thought you cared about me," she answered, spinning around and throwing his insult right back at him.

"And you didn't care!" he screamed back, his real anger finally being unmasked. "You told me that I couldn't have you because you didn't have you! How the fuck do you plan on finding yourself when you're fucking around with pieces of shit like that? You think fucking him is helping you find yourself? It made you sick! You freaked out! You… you want to know why you don't even have yourself to count on? It's because you know you do this shit to yourself – that's why you can't even trust yourself! Why the fuck should I worry about hurting your feelings when you don't even worry about it?"

"I told you this was over," she answered, trying to hold back the emotions that were ready to leap out.

"No, you fucking told me that I never meant anything to you!"

"You don't!" she screamed back at him. Xander turned away from her knowing he could convey his point – aka be more hurtful – if he was calmer and thinking more clearly.

"So…" he began, turning back towards her and pointing in the direction of the door, "I mean nothing to you," he stated, "and you brought home a nice hunk to prove it to yourself. I mean, why not, right? A girl like you belongs with a guy like that… I mean, hot body, killer muscles – I bet that's a real turn on for you, the fact that he might actually stand a chance at hurting you. But, I'm pretty sure the big reason, besides for the fact that he's got a big dick – I could tell by the way you were moaning and getting off on it – it's simply that he doesn't have some fucking deformed face."

"Xander, stop it-"

"No, I'm serious! There's no reason a hot girl like you should be with someone missing parts… fuck, I wasn't half as hot as that guy before Caleb poked it out! You think I don't know that? You think I don't know how out of my league you are? Faith, I'm your good deeds for the day, I know it! I'm your pity fuck that you do to make sure you're still doing your piece of redemption! That's all I am to you! And you fucking that guy for everyone to hear, with the fucking door open, is just the exclamation point! Faith, you are a fucking whore! You use the people around you and you use yourself like it doesn't mean anything! That's what a whore is!"

She stood there, her silence almost disturbing. He had expected her to lash out at him just as he was to her and then they would both feel better about it. But she didn't lash out – she didn't say a word.

"What's that face for?" he asked, nervous by her pensive gaze at the wall. She shoot her head calmly and answered,

"No, it's just that… people wonder why I don't believe them when they tell me that they love me." She forced a laugh, acting like what she said was just some joke. He looked at her, empty after spilling all of his emotions out in his words, and saw that smiling face that had fooled them all countless times, convincing them that she was happy. She smiled – that smile that convinced all of it's viewers that they wanted to smile too and forget about the underlying meaning to her joke. As he looked at her smile, seeming relaxed and unforced, he didn't want to smile, he wanted to scream, knowing just how many times he had been able to dismiss her pain because she had put on that mask.

She finally turned away from him and walked over to her couch and laid down on it. She clicked the television on and then folder her arms, using them as a pillow. She had her head tilted so it looked like she was watching the television screen, but Xander looked at her eyes and they were staring down at the ground. Xander turned to leave, and forcing himself to not look back at her, he walked out of the door.

Xander walked slowly to the elevator and once inside, pressed the button for the bottom floor. The elevator jerked into its descending speed and then lurched to a stop again at the bottom. He walked out of the elevator almost like a zombie and out to his truck parked in the adjacent convenience store parking lot. He turned on the car and a song he hadn't heard in years played on the radio:

Desperate for changing

Starving for truth

I'm closer to where I started

I'm chasing after you

I'm falling even more in love with you

Letting go of all I've held onto

I'm standing here until you make me move

I'm hanging by a moment here with you

Forgetting all I'm lacking

Completely incomplete

I'll take your invitation

You take all of me

Now I'm falling even more in love with you

Letting go of all I've held onto

I'm standing here until you make me move

I'm hanging by a moment here with you

I'm living for the only thing I know

I'm running and I'm not quite sure where to go

And I don't know what I'm diving into

Just hanging by a moment here with you

There's nothing else to lose

There's nothing else to find

There's nothing in the world

That could change my mind

There is nothing else

There is nothing else

There is nothing else

Desperate for changing

Starving for truth

I'm closer to where I started

I'm chasing after you

I'm falling even more in love with you

Letting go of all I've held onto

I'm standing here until you make me move

I'm hanging by a moment here with you

I'm living for the only thing I know

I'm running and I'm not quite sure where to go

And I don't know what I'm diving into

Just hanging by a moment here with you

Just hanging by a moment

Hanging by a moment

Hanging by a moment

Hanging by a moment here with you