Awesome, I managed to finish it this night, yay xD! Ahum, sorry to keep y'all waiting! But y'know, since SWG is soon over I've been focusing more on it ^^! Anyway, here's a very long (and pretty dang emotional feat. a VERY disappointed Corny) chapter :3!
*** Chapter Fourteen : Just Friends? ***
For what seemed like an eternity, Bentley was drifting in and out of consciousness. He had one bizarre dream after the other, sometimes he couldn't even tell what was real and what was just his imagination! His back constantly burned in a relentless fire, and the pain would sometimes be intense enough to wake him up in the middle of the night, screaming and tossing like mad.
One day, after a week of incoherent slurring, feverish hallucinations and just all kinds of pain in general, his eyes slowly fluttered open with a weak groan. He lay face-down on his belly, in a room he, after a while, registered as his own on Amas attic and someone was sitting next to him. The person seemed to have been close to falling asleep so when Bentley moved, she jolted in surprise.
"Bentley?" She carefully asked and leaned closer. When he slowly lifted his head up from his pillow, she gasped and happily clapped her hands together. "He's awake! Hey! E'vryone! He's wakin' up!" She yelled and soon, scrapings of chairs getting pushed away from the table was heard from the kitchen below.
"E-Ellie?" He replied with a faint, hoarse mutter and tried to get up on his elbows, but a furious jolt of pain coursing through his back made him flop back down with a pained wince.
"Be careful! Ya shouldn't be up n' 'bout yet!" Ellie said firmly and carefully placed a hand on his forehead. "Yer fever's goin' away too! Great! How are ya feelin' so far, Bentley?"
He groaned and rubbed his forehead where she just touched him, with his palm. "Like I deserve... I guess... W-what's happened?"
Ellie was about to answer, but then the thundering steps of many feet rushing up the staircase interrupted her, and within seconds; Finn, Chuck, Ama and Toby was standing by her side and looked down at Bentley with relieved and rejoicing faces.
"Man! You're back!" Finn would've given him a brotherly punch on the back, but that didn't seem like the smartest move right now.
"Yeah! I actually...!" Toby discontinued and nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "I, uh, I didn't think you'd make it actually..." The striped hyena mumbled and looked down at the ground. "You were lookin' real' bad there for a while..."
"Of course he'd make it! I know this guy, he ain't givin' up that easily!" Another voice and pair of feet from the staircase joined the others, and Bentley flinched when he heard it.
"I-is that...?" He tried to turn his head to peek at the staircase, but his back wouldn't let him. "C-Corny?" He said that as soon as the redhead poked her head up through the staircase.
"Duh, who else? Bloody Mary?"A wide grin spread on her face when she saw her friend finally woke up and was able to communicate with others! She walked up to him and joined the others with her arms folded across her chest. "Told y'all he'd be fine!"
"Wh-what? What're ya doin' here?" This time Bentley managed to crawl up on his elbows, even if it put a lot of strain on his back. He winced in pain before looking up at Cornelia and almost flinched at the wound that stretched from the left side of her forehead, down over the eye and ended right under her cheekbone. "And what happened to yer eye!?"
She blinked in confusion and gently tapped the wound with her fingertips. "This?" Bentley nodded, and she shrugged nonchalantly. "I dunno, scratched myself on the bushes or somethin'..." She answered, but he could see that the slaves were exchanging meaning looks, as if they wanted to say something but couldn't as long as she was there.
They continued to tell Bentley about everything that had happened, and when he heard that he had been out for a week, he nearly fell off the bed. No wonder he was so hungry! Cornelia had helped by bringing them medicine and bandages whenever she could, probably saving his life by doing so! Her parents knew where she was, and had more or less given up on her by now. She hadn't been sleeping in the residence for days now, the only times she had been there at all had been whenever she had to fetch something. And she was happy to announce that her and the Willows sons wedding had been called off. At least for the moment.
Bentley couldn't stay awake for more than a couple of minutes, so they hurried to feed him some cold soup and managed to convince him to take a spoonful of some weird, disgusting liquid Corny had brought from the residence. It said it was supposed to taste like orange, but it didn't. Bentley thought it tasted like death and nightmares. He fell asleep not long after the others left the attic, and was thrown back into the weird and bizarre dreams. One in which he saw an older version of himself kissing a shadowmaid.
Next day when he woke up he found Cornelia sitting on a chair by his bed. She looked to be close to falling asleep herself, but when she noticed that he woke up she snapped back to reality and let out a loud yawn. Bentley was about to say something to her, but the sharp, burning pain awoke in his back as soon as he moved a muscle. He fell back on his stomach with a painful wince.
"Hey, how are you holdin' up, buster?" She said and stretched her arms above her head.
"I've been better, to tell ya the truth..." He winced and managed to push himself back up on his elbows. "What're ya doin' here, Corny?"
She snorted and folded her arms. "What? Ya want me to leave or somethin'?"
"No!" Bentley hurried to respond. "I just meant; what're ya doin' HERE? On this side of the fence? Ain't yer parents worried 'bout you?! An' what if they decide to blame it on us?!"
"I dunno" She shrugged. "They were far too mad at me when I left, and I DID tell them that if they wanted me to come back they'd better come here themselves an' git me! B'cause I sure as hell ain't comin' back to 'em!" She muttered and lowered her head. "I fuckin' hate 'em... I couldn't care really care less if they're worried 'bout me or not! And if they let you guys suffer more for this I'll fuckin' murder them in their sleep!"
"But Corny, they're yer parents-...!"
"No they ain't!" Cornelia hissed and snapped her head to his direction. "I might be their offspring, but they ain't my parents! They've never been a part of my family!" She lowered her head and stared straight ahead again. "Not like you and Lucy has been..." She glanced over at his bandaged back and for a moment he thought he saw tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Bentley... I'm so very sorry!"
He blinked in confusion at her and tilted his head slightly to the side. "Eh?"
"This is all my fault... What they did to you was all b'cause of ME!" She sounded angry, but looked sad. Bentley had a vague feeling that he knew where this was going.
"Corny, it's okay! Please, don't freak out!" He said with a shaky voice in an attempt to calm his friend down before she got into an epic fit. "Y'know, I'd rather go through that again than to-...!"
"It's NOT okay! It's ev'rythin' BUT okay!" Cornelia angrily balled her fists and didn't notice that she was digging her nails into her palms. "M-my dad has always told me to stay away from the slaves... I never really understood why, and it made me curious. I wanted to know what it was 'bout y'all that scared my dad so much, so I used to spend my free time spyin' on y'all when you were workin' on the fields outside the house, but I could never get close enough! That is, 'til I found the loose board in the wall and could get over to this side. But I knew I'd get into so much trouble if anyone ever found out I've been here on my own, so I just kept stalkin' people through the bushes. But I just couldn't get close enough to find out more 'bout them 'til... Well, 'til I met you!" She paused when she managed to calm down and stared down at her feet. "I'm sorry, Bentley. I shouldn't even have started talkin' to ya that day! I... I just wanted a friend... Someone I could talk to, someone who'd listen! And you were so quiet and timid, I thought you'd be a real' pushover so I... I kinda chose you as my friend..."
"And it was the best thing that's ever happened to me!" He hurried to say, but unfortunately it didn't seem to make her happier. If anything, she pulled up her knees to her chin and lowered her head further.
"No! It wasn't, ya dumbass! It was a mistake!" She growled, angry at herself. "I was an idiot for thinkin' that I would be the one to get in' trouble if they found out! If I had known that THIS would happen...!" She glanced at his back again and went quiet for a while. With a sigh she stood up and began to slowly walk towards the stairs. "Never mind, you're up now... I better go and get that old voodoo-lady..." She muttered lowly.
"Wait!" Bentley said and lunged out his arm and grabbed her wrist, forcing her to stop. Although the sudden move made him stretch his back and he felt some of the scabs crack and the bandages covering his back got wet with blood. "W-wait...!" He said again and winced in pain. "Don't go j-just yet!"
"Don't strain yourself like that, ya moron!" She said and yanked her arm free. "Look, now I gotta go and get new bandages for you too!" She sighed again and rolled her eyes as she continued to walk towards the stairs. "Don't get yourself killed while I'm gone!" She hollered just as he saw her red hair vanish below the floor.
He fought the pain in his back as he tried to lay back down on the mattress. "Fine..." He muttered as a response to her comment and rested his head on his arms. He was tired and hungry, but the pain kept him from falling asleep and lowered his appetite. A few minutes after Cornelia left, Granny Ama came walking up the stairs with a bowl of gruel in her hands.
"Do I dare to ask what her shouting was about?" The elderly lizard asked and sat down on the chair that Cornelia used to sit on. Since Bentleys hands were shaking too much to hold the spoon and it put a lot of strain on his back whenever he moved, he had to be settled on being fed.
"Well... I think she's blamin' herself for, eh, this..." He sure was hungry, but he still had to struggle to swallow the gruel. "She's angry at her parents, and I think I can understand her for that... But she thinks this is all her fault too, and it's frustratin' b'cause I know there's no use in tryin' to convince her that this ain't her fault at all!" He paused when Ama began picking with the bandages.
"I see..." Ama nodded seriously. "Then it's nothin' new. We've also tried to tell her that none of us blames her, but she won't believe us" She stopped picking with the, now bled through, bandages and sat back down on the chair and continued to feed him the gruel. "Do you wanna know how she real' got that slash over her eye?" Bentley blinked in surprise before nodding slowly. She hesitated before continuing with a serious tone in her voice; "She got it when she saved you. She got in between you an' the whip an' the whip hit her straight across her face"
Bentley stared in disbelief at the old lady. "C-Corny...? Sh-she... She saved me...?" Ama nodded again. "W-why didn't she just say that then?! That's somethin' she should have been braggin' 'bout! Not lie 'bout it!"
The lizard shrugged. "I dunno why she didn't wanna tell you that, to tell the truth. And she asked us not to say anythin' to ya either..." She cocked a scaly eyebrow at him, and he instantly agreed on not telling the redhead who told him. "She hasn't left yer side for a week either" Ama continued after a while and tried to scrape up the last gruel on the bottom with the spoon, somehow Bentley had managed to scoff it all down. "She came here already the first night, beggin' us to let her help! At first we were scared to let her in, thinkin' of what her father might do if he found out where she was. But as you were strugglin' harder an' harder to survive the night, we decided that we needed all the help we could get" She paused and smiled carefully. "It was funny to see how a child we all knew to be spoiled an' selfish care for a simple slave like that. Y'know, it took days b'fore yer fever was under control, an' she never left yer side durin' all that time!"
"Well... She's my friend... A-and I would've done the same if things were different!"
"Are ya sure 'bout that, hun?" Ama said and when Bentley looked up at her in confusion, he was met with a sly smile. "Are ya sure you're just friends? B'cause it seemed on her that you two were more than that!"
He didn't know what to answer, so he just stared down at his pillow with mixed feelings. Did Granny mean that they loved each other? Like, LOVE loved each other?! "G-granny, Y-you've got it wrong! Sh-she's just a friend to me! My BEST friend of course, but that's all!"
"Of course" The elderly lizard chuckled and picked up the bowl as she stood up. Bentley almost groaned out loud; she didn't believe him! Ama returned downstairs to wait for Cornelia, while Bentley thought about what granny just told him.
What if she was right, and Cornelia saw him as something more than a friend? That thought scared him. She was a sore loser, a VERY sore loser, and if she found out that she was nothing more than a close friend, well, who knows how she would react?
Cornelia and Ama returned after a few minutes with Ellie and a bunch of ripped sheets. Cornelia hadn't found any bandages, so her great grandmothers sheets had to do! Oh how she had enjoyed the look on her mothers face when she started shredding the old sheets.
Ellie and Ama helped to change the bandages on his back, while Cornelia helped him to sit upright on the bed. He couldn't help but to glance over his own shoulder to get a look at his back. He didn't see much, but what he could see worried him; big chunks of his mane had fallen off and lots of deep, red gashes covered his entire back. He even had a few lashes on his shoulders and arms. He was worried how it would look when the wounds healed up, if the fur would grow back at all?
Cornelia put her hand on the opposite side of his face and made him look straight forward again. "Just don't look..." She mumbled and draped her arm around his neck to pull him closer and leaned her forehead against his head.
"Too late..." He answered with another mumble and looked down at the floorboards. "I swear I'll look like a turtle for the rest of my life..."
…
More days passed and turned into weeks, Mr Aventine had ordered Bentley to be back out on the fields as soon as he could walk again. But Cornelia told him not to worry, since she would chop off his legs if he returned out to the fields before his back was fully healed. To her surprise but not everyone elses, it DID worry him.
He was sitting on the edge of his bed, hungrily gulping down soup like there was no tomorrow. Cornelia had already finished her bowl and was sitting next to him with her knees pulled up to her chin and tail curled up in front of her feet. She actually liked the food the slaves got more than the dinners at home. And dining with Ama and 'her hyenas' were a lot more fun than having to sit by a big table and being forced to listen to uncle Matt and his adventures in foreign and feral lands. Although today, she had chosen to sit in the attic with Bentley and eat with him. He couldn't get down the stairs without ending up writhing in pain of the floor, but at least now he didn't have to be fed anymore.
"So, how's yer back?" She asked him, and he nodded before gulping down a mouthful of soup.
"It's gettin' better!" He said and loaded his mouth with more soup.
"Y'know, Lucy keep naggin' on me to not eat to fast or I'll get a stomachache!" She teased, commenting on his gluttonous eating.
He laughed out a short laugh. "Well, I guess y'all can't have guts of iron like me!" He said cockily and tilted his chin upwards as he petted his stomach.
"Dumbass..." She chuckled and scooted closer. She stuck her arm through his and leaned her head against his shoulder, making him tense up and stop with the spoon half-way to his mouth.
"Corny?"
"When will you finally stop callin' me Corny?" She hummed and started picking at the end of her long ponytail with her other hand.
"Probably never! But seriously now, Corny..." He glanced down at the gash over her eye, which now had healed into a scar. He paused, trying to find the right words. She noticed that he was slowly getting nervous and raised an eyebrow at him.
"What?" She asked with an impatient hint in her voice.
"Well... I..." He cleared his throat. "I just... Well, wh-what are we?"
"... What?"
Bentley did a deep, restrained sigh on the inside. Oh fuck it... "Corny, what are we to each other? I mean, what do I mean to you?" Well, THIS isn't awkward at ALL! Great job, Bentley! Great job!
"... What kind of dipshit are you?" She laughed dryly and leaned her head back on his arm. "Whaddya think?"
He let out a careful, awkward laugh as well. "Yeah, I-I know... I AM a dipshit, huh?" He turned back to his soup. "I mean, what else can we be than friends, huh?" But just as he said that, her eyes sprung wide and he felt her flinch. Slightly worried by her reaction he glanced down at her and noticed that she was staring straight at him.
"Y'know, we could be more than friends, buster..."
"Uh, y-ya mean like BEST friends?" He chuckled nervously and tried to scoot away.
She shook her head. "No..."
"U-ultra best friends?"
"No!" A hint of irritation was heard in her voice
"Eh, BEFFs?"
"No for fuck sake, ya moron!" She flattened her ears to her neck and shook her head violently from side to side. "That ain't what I meant!"
He gulped when she turned to face him entirely. "Th-then whaddya mean...?"
Quick as a flash, she had gotten up on her knees, lunged forward and pressed her lips against his. If his back wasn't busted, she would have pushed him back down on the bed and straddled his hips. Instead, she held his head in a firm grip between her hands while kissing him. But when she noticed that he wasn't kissing her back, she stopped and pulled back. Both were staring at each other with wide eyes.
"B-Bentley...?"
"I-I'm sorry, Corny..." He slowly shook his head. "N-no, I can't... I... I just can't! C-Corny...?" He stuttered when her sea-green eyes were getting filled up with tears. She was about to jump down from the bed and bolt away when he managed to grab her and throw his arms around her to hold her back. "No! Wait a second!"
"Lemme go!" She hissed and lashed out with her claws at his face, but missed.
"I will in a moment! Just wait and hear me out, 'kay?!" He pleaded and she stopped squirming in his arms. "I'm sorry, Corny! I-I'm really sorry! They told me ev'rythin' that happened; YOU took my 75th lash and stopped them! YOU saved my life! No ones has ever been more grateful to another person that what I am to you! I love you, Corny, b-but as a friend!" He heard a faint sob coming from her, so he hugged her even tighter and began to carefully rock back and forth. A heavy lump of guilt began to form in his chest. "I remember when you said I was a nobody, even if you didn't mean it back then you were right; I AM a nobody! No, I'm lower than that; I'm just yer fathers slave! I ain't even close to far from good 'nuff for ya!"
"Bullshit... Y-you just don't love me... At least not the way I l-love you..."
He clenched his eyes shut and rested his chin against the top of her head. "N-no... No I don't..." He said lowly, even if it was painful to say it. She bit her lip and buried her head in his throat, making him feel even more awful. "But that doesn't make ya any less important to me! You're my best friend, Corny! You mean a LOT to me!"
"Let me go now..." She muttered with a thick voice.
"Without you, I'd be even more of a loser than what I already am!"
"Fuckin' hell, lemme GO!" She repeated louder with a hiss, and he reluctantly let her go.
"I'm so sorry, Corny..." He said, close to tears himself. She already had tears rolling down her cheeks as she picked up the two wooden bowls. "I didn't mean to hurt you! I just-...!"
"I should've let my dad kill ya, asshole!" She hissed and with that she turned around and retreated down the stairs.
Bentley threw his legs over the edge of the bed and was about to follow her when the pain in his back finally caught up and he was forced to lie down on his stomach while his back was on fire once again. "I'm sorry, Corny... I'm so, so sorry...!" He whispered and covered his eyes with his palm. "I'm such a dumbass! I really am!"
Cornelia flew down the stairs and out into the kitchen. She slammed the bowls down in the sink and stood leaning over them. The tears were fogging her vision and her shoulders were shaking. Ama, Toby, Ellie and Finn had been sitting around the table and just finished their dinner when the young redhead had stormed down through the stairs and slammed with the dishes. Whatever they had been talking and laughing about, immediately ended when they saw her. Ellie frowned worriedly and left the table to walk up to her and put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"What's wrong, Miss?" She asked, honestly concerned about the upset teen.
But Cornelia slapped her hand away and backed a few steps. "Get yer hands off me, hyena!" She spat before turning around and bolt through the door. Leaving them behind in the house. The ones downstairs confused and worried, the one in the attic just as sad and frustrated as herself.
How DARE he?! Cornelia wanted to smash something. To ruin something! And the best place to do that was up in her own room, so that's where she was headed. I shouldn't have saved his skin! How DARE he to reject me like that?! I fuckin' OWN his sorry ass! He CAN'T reject me!
She ran up to the residence and threw the doors open. In the great hall was Lucy. She had been busy with cleaning the floor so when Cornelia stormed in she yelped and almost dropped the brush. She saw how she ran past her without giving her as much as a look, and ran upstairs to her bedroom. Lucy instantly felt that something was wrong and threw the brush she had been using into the bucket of water by her side. She picked up her long, dark brown skirt and ran after Cornelia, and caught up just as the redhead slammed her door shut in the cheetahs face.
Not long after that, she heard loud shouts and curses, and heard how Cornelia threw things around in her room in one of the worst tantrums yet. Knowing how dangerous it could be to walk in on her while she was upset like this, Lucy decided to wait out the storm.
It took a while until the ruckus ended completely, the last thing Lucy heard was how something big made out of glass was smashed, followed by loud sobs. Her stomach churned in worry as she turned the knob and carefully walked into her room, and was met by the sight of smashed books and pillows, feathers littering the place and even her writing desk had been flipped upside down. Cornelia herself stood in front of what once had been her full-figure mirror, her head held low and blood was dripping from her right, balled fist. Mirror shards were littered all around her and her relentless sobbing was echoing through her room.
"M-Miss Cornelia?" Lucy slowly and carefully walked up to her young ward. "Cornelia?" Cornelia slowly turned her head to her old nanny for a short while before her head drooped again and began to wail loudly. Lucy hurried to put her arm around her. "Cornelia honey, what happened?!"
"F-fuck off, Lu!" The redhead sobbed and tried to shake the cheetah off. "J-just leave me alone!"
"Not 'til ya tell me what's happened!" Lucy said with a determined voice and led her over to the bed, where she made her sit down so she could take a look her hand, which obviously got cut when she smashed the mirror. "Look what you've done, Miss; ya just gave yourself seven years of bad luck!" It was a pathetic try to lighten the redheads mood. The only time Lucy had ever seen Cornelia all torn up like this was when her parents refused to give her a third roadrunner for her eleventh birthday.
"He doesn't love me, Lu..." She sobbed, which made Lucy stop cleaning the blood off her hand with a napkin for a moment and look at her with a concerned face. "Bentley doesn't love me!" The tears wouldn't stop running down her cheeks, and she used her shirt to wipe her nose.
"Oh, Cornelia..." Lucy mumbled and put her arms around the teen in a comforting hug. "There, there... All will be fine, you'll see!"
"N-no, it won't! I want him, Lu! B-but he doesn't want me!" She sniveled and wiped her nose again. "I saved his sorry life, but that fuckin' asshole friendzoned me!"
Lucy couldn't help but to feel sorry for her young ward as she tried her best to calm her down. She had always gotten everything she wanted, except for the roadrunner on her eleventh birthday. To suddenly be rejected by someone she felt so strongly for must have been quite the shock...
"I told you so..." Gabriel Aventine suddenly appeared in the doorway with his arms folded across his wide chest and a serious look on his face. His wife and brother joined him as well.
"We were just waiting for this to happen..." Grace said sadly and shook her head. "We're so awfully sorry, darling. You should have listened to us!" Cornelias sobbing slowed down and she looked up at her mother with bloodshot and teary eyes. "We told you to stay away from them since they could hurt you, and look what happened!"
Her daughters face turned red as she hung her head and began to cry again. The guy she loved had just broken her heart, and worst of all: her parents had been right all along; mingling with the slaves would get her hurt sooner or later. And there's a lot of different ways to be hurt in.
"Get out..." Cornelia hissed between her sobs at her parents.
"In a moment, there's somethin' we need to tell ya first..." Gabriel said and signed for Lucy to leave the room. "Lucy, finish up downstairs. We need to talk to her alone!"
"I-I'm sorry, sir, but can't it wait?" Lucy said and looked up at Mr Aventine as she still held the upset Cornelia in her arms. "Look at her, she's all torn up! I say we give her 'til t'morrow...!"
"YOU say?! An' I say that if ya disobey one more order from me I'll give ya to the Sues as a gift faster than ya can say 'help me'!" Gabriel snarled at his slave. "Have I made myself clear? Or do I have to spell it out for ya?!"
"N-no, sir..." Lucy mumbled in response and averted her eyes. "I understand..."
He pointed with a stiff finger at the door. "Then GIT!" The cheetah hesitated before giving Cornelia one last quick hug and scurried out of the room. Matt closed the door after the her before turning to his niece.
Cornelia buried her face in her hands and tried to stop crying, but didn't succeed that very well. She felt her mom sit down next to her and try to do the same thing Lucy was doing, but she hissed at her and shrugged her hands off. "I said get out!" She hissed at her parents and uncle. "Leave me alone!"
"We've got somethin' to tell ya first, Cornelia..." Her father said. "A couple of weeks ago yer mother sent a letter to her ol' boardin' school, an' yesterday we finally got the good news that ya have been accepted!"
Cornelia slowly lifted her head and stared in disbelief at her father. "W-wha? What're ya sayin'?"
"We're sayin' that you'll git to go to a real school for girls! I fear that spendin' so much time with that slave has given ya a twisted view of our world an' how it works. But I know that Mrs Cohen will take those ridiculous ideas out of yer head!" Her father explained, and Matt nodded in agreement.
"An' who knows? You might turn 'to a proper lady within' a few years?" Her uncle added with a chuckle.
Cornelia kept staring at her father. "Are ya fuckin' kiddin' with me?" Was all she managed to say, still refusing to believe what she just heard. She had stopped crying, all she could think right now was: This can't be happenin'! "Y-you're sendin' me away?!"
"Don't worry; you'll thank us later, honey!" Her mother said as cheerfully as she could. "We were right about the slaves, weren't we?! Then I promise you that we will be right about Mrs Cohens Boarding School for Girls"
"Boardin' School?! For GIRLS?! You have GOTTA be fuckin' kiddin'!" She growled and stood up from the bed. "Git the FUCK outta my room! NOW!" She yelled and stomped her foot on the ground. "Git! And send Lucy back here!"
Her father nodded and signed for the others to follow him out. "We'll wake you up early in the mornin'; the day after tomorrow a stagecoach will pick ya up to take ya down to the train station. It will probably take all day for the women to git that hyena-stench offa ya!"
"Hyena-stench?! I'll give ya for hyena-stench!" Cornelia exclaimed angrily. "JUST FUCK OFF ALREADY!"
Grace sighed and shook her head so her red curls swayed. "Oh I hope Mrs Cohen could git her stop talkin' like that!"
"Don'tcha worry, Grace! She will!" Her husband said and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder when she returned to the men. "She got'cha to stop draggin' yer feet when walkin', y'know!" Her mother seemed both reassured, and embarrassed, to be reminded of that.
Just as the adults were leaving her room, she hollered for them to stop. Curiously, they turned around and watched as their daughter angrily balled her fists. "I'll tell y'all one last thing, b'cause as of t'morrow I ain't speakin' with any of ya ever again!" She growled. "I know y'all have heard the news; there's a war goin' on not too far away. A war that will decide the freedom of all slaves, if the right side wins that is. I'll let y'all know, that I stand on the right side, and we WILL win! And when we do, I'll be standin' out there so I can watch the people you've used, my friends, finally be able to walk free! And so I can watch the looks on yer fuckin' faces as yer only source of income goes down the shitter!"
"Friends?" Uncle Matt said with a snort. "You mean friends like the hyena who broke yer heart?"
"FUCK OFF!" Cornelia screamed and stomped with her foot on the floor again. "And give me Lucy!"
…
A couple of hours later, when the sun had set and the night covered the land in shadows, Bentley couldn't sleep at all. He just couldn't get rid of Cornelias brokenhearted face, and he couldn't do anything to stop her from still crying in his mind either; he had done a horrible mistake. He couldn't stop cursing himself for hurting her like that! He should've just played along, and accepted her. Sure, that would have been like lying to her, but rather that than to hurt her like that! But then again, if she were to find out that he had lied to her, she would probably react even worse! No matter how much he twisted or turned on it, he would just end up hurting her anyway.
"I'm so sorry, Corny..." He thought out loud for probably the 100th time that night. "I didn't mean to hurt you!"
"It's alright, buster..." Her sudden voice made him jolt in surprise and clumsily turn around to see where the voice came from. He saw her standing by the top of the stairs, her arms were resting along her sides and she had a weary look on her face. Small, white feathers were stuck in her hair, and her eyes were bloodshot and puffy after all the crying. "I... I'm the one who should be sorry, y'know..." She said lowly and averted her eyes. "I overreacted..."
"I'm sorry!" Bentley said anyway and slowly managed to sit up straight on the bed, even if his back hurt like hell. "I didn't mean to hurt you, but I couldn't lie to ya either!"
"I'm glad ya didn't..." She said and managed to pull off a tired smile before averting her eyes. "And don't worry 'bout me, I'll live!" She rubbed the back of her neck and picked out a feather out of her hair. "I... I just came here to let ya know that... That I ain't mad at'cha... I don't hate ya, I just overreacted a bit..." She looked over at him again. "That won't happen again, I promise!"
They went quiet for a while, the only thing that were heard for a long time was the crickets on the outside. They were just staring at each other, and of course it turned awkward after a while.
"Soo... Where do ya go now, Corny?" He asked carefully, she shrugged in response.
"I dunno... I don't wanna sleep at home, but I don't wanna have to wake Granny up either..." She chuckled. "Think there's room on the loft?"
He looked around for a while before his eyes fell on his bed. It wasn't exactly king-sized, but two people should be able to fit on it. "Well... I guess there's room here with me, if I just scooted over a bit...?"
She chortled out a sudden laugh and rolled her eyes. "THAT is like, the oldest trick in the book, bloody pervert!"
"What? Wait... What, no!" He did a mental facepalm. Another job well done, Bentley! "I just meant that since ya didn't wanna trouble Granny-...!"
"I know, I know!" She laughed and rolled her eyes a second time. "I'm just messin' 'round with ya! And NOT messin' 'round like THAT!"
Bentley couldn't help but to laugh as well. "I think we're both gettin' too tired for this discussion..."
"Yeah, just scoot over already, fatty!" She snickered and made her way up to him.
"Sure, as long as you doesn't try anythin' funny there, sister!"
"Same goes for you, buster!"
And a moment of silence for our fallen sister in the Friendzone...
…
Perhaps this might also explain a bit why Bentley always has such a hard time to gather enough courage to tell Priss his feelings for her, and why it ended with HER having to be the one to say the L-word first x)
Once again; sorry for the wait!
