CHAPTER 27
I'LL MAKE IT SHORT AND KEEP IT NICE: MOVE!
As they checked in the Lyon hotel, Emily kept quiet for the rest of the night. After a hot shower, she tucked herself into bed and pretended to be asleep. Something was bothering her, once again.
Richard was unsure if he had the strength and will to ask Emily to talk about her feelings, to share her worries with him. They weren't that close yet. Or close at all.
In the morning, he kept quiet, fiddling with his phone under the covers, not wanting to wake her up. He was texting with several people and then he read a few articles online before he got bored and decided to resurface from under the covers, only to meet Emily's smirk.
They had, once again, shared a bed. It had become normal, like a habit, it felt like the right thing to do.
"Watching some dirty videos down there?" She teased him about the way he was hiding while on his phone.
"What? No!" Richard was taken off-guard.
She could tell his cheeks were changing color, but she left it at that.
He took a moment to study her next movements. She hopped out of bed, fresh as a daisy, put the hotel robe on and walked out to the balcony, letting the sun hit her face until she smiled. And it was a wide smile, a genuine one.
With a sigh, he joined her, now both looking over to the horizon.
"Are you pregnant?" It was the only reasonable explanation for her mood swings and weird emotional outbursts. And the way he just came out and asked about it so casually made it sound kind of sweet. Kind of caring. Kind of…hot.
"What? No!" She replied with the same words, same intonation, same confusion on her face, as when he had replied to her just a few minutes earlier.
"Because, if you are, and if it is giving you any kind of problems, for whatever reason…" His hand trailed up from her mid-spine, to her neck, giving her the tiniest, most gentle massaging squeeze. And also, goosebumps.
"…You should know that I love kids. And kids love me." He smiled and she just wanted to take a picture of that face in that very moment and print it, frame it, blow it up, put it up on a wall in her office back at Quantico and look at it every time life gave her lemons, or in Emily Prentiss' case - serial killers. That smile could heal, if not physical harm, then simply just her heart. Emily would take that.
"No, I…" She licked her bottom lip and looked down.
As her eyes diverted from the beauty of the rising sun, over the city of Lyon, she felt another wave of overwhelming sadness. No matter how good things got, there was always that annoying moment that ruined everything and she could not fight it. It was becoming a fear – one of sadness lurking around every corner; that might turn into paranoia – one that might prevent Emily from living a healthy, normal life and experiencing both the highs and the lows of it. Lately, the higher she got, the lower she fell, then the harder it was for her to pick herself up on her feet again. She was over and done with this vicious circle. She just needed it to be broken.
"I don't believe I'm pregnant…" She said, knowing what the symptoms were. Remembering those symptoms.
She bit her bottom lip, because simply licking it earlier hadn't done any good at calming her down. Her right hand subconsciously rested on her abdomen for just a second, but Richard noticed it. And then she looked away. It didn't take a genius for one to figure out what this woman was communicating. Richard knew he had to change the topic. Immediately.
"I guess you're not in the mood for an abundant breakfast either?" So far, he had figured out one thing about Lauren - the woman had to be bribed, if he wanted her to do anything, even if she was doing it for herself, such as feeding herself.
Lauren liked the game. Lauren was tough. Lauren would never come out and say she wanted something. She would create a game and play it by her own rules. She would need to be stimulated, she would want to be chased. She wouldn't play the game if her opponent wasn't at least as smart as her, if not smarter. She found regular people boring – their intellect could not measure with hers; their needs were nothing that interested her; their lives were just a mesh of boring grey colors, with no interesting image being formed by those colors.
Lauren, however, was a colorful mess, a splatter of everything, sporadically thrown on a surface, maybe washed out by a few storms, through the time. She was complex, like any other human being, but she was something else. In the game of life, Lauren was a baller. And also, the referee. She would call the shots and she would disobey the rules, bend them to fit her as she pleased and then deny any involvement in foul play. Lauren knew how to get herself out of any situation. She was a boss, a Girl Boss, and she would take crap from no one.
"That is correct." She smirked, pretending to not care about breakfast.
Unfortunately for her, he heard her stomach churning just a few seconds later.
"Fine, maybe a croissant…or five." She shrugged innocently.
Yes. Lauren was definitely someone who enjoyed the game.
Richard ordered room service, asking for almost everything on their breakfast menu, wanting to impress Lauren. Little did he know, Emily was very familiar, and also very fond of the Lyon cuisine.
She dipped her croissant in a bowl with some traditional cream and she enjoyed every second of every bite she took before she ended up licking the side of her pointy finger, as she had gone a little too deep when dipping.
"So, the last woman I dated dumped me because she said I was a dick." Richard said, out of nowhere.
Emily paused her joy, holding her food in one hand and her coffee in the other, while she assessed the situation.
Discussing previous relationships was a universal recipe for a disaster.
Did he really just go there?
In the end, she simply laughed.
"I can see that." She said cheekily.
"Ouch!" Richard put his left hand to his heart, pretending to be wounded.
"Seriously though, why would she say that?" If Richard was willing to give out personal information, Emily would sit there and gather it all. So, why not ask him that?
"I suppose it is because I called her a gold-digging bitch." He said with a smile.
Any woman would be taken aback from his brutal honestly. Any woman in the world, apart from two - Lauren Reynolds and Emily Prentiss.
This was the first time Emily realized that she liked this Richard guy, with both of her identities. So far, she had let Lauren be happy, but then Emily's daemons had always gotten in the way. But this was the first moment that both of her sides agreed that Richard was cool.
"Which, in all honesty, she was!" He continued. "I mean, you should have seen some of the texts she sent me. Like: Hey, I just saw some TV show about the world's best rated hotel and you absolutely have to take me there!"
"Wow, for real? I've seen straight-forward women, I mean, I myself am one, but this…pfff, this is extortion!" She laughed.
"What did you do?" Both Emily and Lauren were curious to hear how that turned out, because both Emily and Lauren were good at investigating and would not sit down quietly without hearing the last of it.
"Oh, you better believe I took her there. We were sitting on the balcony, quite like we are right now, only that it was dark and she was, well, not as covered as you are…" He trailed off.
Emily looked down at herself. She was in her underwear and the robe she had thrown on was barely covering anything at all. So, she could only imagine what the other woman looked like.
"So, we are having champagne and she goes on and on about the things she wants from me. And, don't get me wrong, I have money and I love to entertain a beautiful woman, but I don't like being taken advantage of. So, I let her speak and I'm just sipping my champagne, looking at the twinkling lights of Dubai. I feel the breeze on my face and I feel nothing else. And since I feel nothing at all, I don't care what happens next. So, when she is done enlisting all the things that I have to buy her, I tell her that she is a gold-digging bitch and she decides to dump me. I stand up, I finish my champagne and I let her know that she could find herself another man who would take her back to the States, as I've only booked one-way tickets. And then I leave the room that, the next morning, got cleaned and given to a new guest, so she literally got thrown out by the management. I clearly never heard from her again." He chuckled, it felt weird to put this whole thing into words.
Emily opened her mouth, but then realized she had nothing to say. And then Lauren laughed, because out of both of them, Lauren was the spontaneous one, the one who would laugh out loud whenever she felt like it.
"Man, and here I thought my love life deserved its own TV show." She shook her head, almost not wanting to believe he had been so forward with this woman.
"Why were you even with her if she was such a horrible person?" She asked curiously.
"Well, uh…" There goes the part that only a man would understand. "You know…she was hot…" Richard shrugged after his confession.
This time it was Emily who started laughing, because those words reminded her of a dear old friend of hers, Derek Morgan, back in his macho man days.
"I guess it's my turn now…" She sighed and took another sip of her coffee, strategically trying to make sure there was no food residue on her teeth, as she was about to speak.
"Alright, uhm, it was not the last guy I dated, but it was recent, as in from the past couple of years." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and she licked her lip.
"Okay, so I met this guy through friends. It was actually a blind date and we all know these don't ever work. So, my friend Je-…" She trailed off, realizing she was about to spill JJ's identity. Not that it mattered, but still.
"Jessica, so she had been to a bar with another friend of ours, Patricia, both blondes, fishing for a guy for Patricia, as Jess is married. Pat found a guy she liked and she made her way to the table, leaving Jess behind and a minute later, Pat's guy's friend was crawling to the table where Jess was, alone, sipping her fruity cocktail like a good girl. So, one thing lead to another, Pat and the guy did not head it off, but Jess actually enjoyed talking to this other guy, the friend, Larry. So, Jess tells him that he sounds like the type of guy that a friend of hers would date, and she offers to fix us up on a blind date. Problem is, Larry liked Jess, even after Jess told him she was married and she was only there as back-up for Pat. So, Larry strategically decided to say Yes to a date with me, only to be able to see Jess again, assuming she would at least accompany me to introduce us. So, a few days later, Jess and I enter the same bar and, unfortunately for Larry, he had failed to catch it when she told him that it would be a quadruple date and that she was bringing her husband along. So, this whole time Larry kept on drinking and when he got some liquid courage, he started saying weird things and giving Jess some suggestive looks. I mean, I was enjoying it all and I wasn't even interested in this Larry guy. Actually, the only reason why Jess thought I'd like him was because he was a dude, so there is that. I guess my standards, at the time, were quite low. Later on, Jess' husband and I start giving each other looks and I try to calm him down, as my date has literally been hitting on his wife since we sat at the table. But he's just too pissed…" Emily chuckled, remembering Will's face during what happened next and how much JJ was taken by surprise.
"So, I turn around to order myself another drink, because four were not enough, and then the next thing I see is the husband flying across the table ad tackling Larry to the ground. This whole thing goes on for about ten seconds before the bouncers break them apart and help them stand up, both being dragged to a different corner of the bar. Jess goes over to her husband and I just don't know what to do, because I clearly did not fit in with anything that night. But yeah, the drinks were good. So, I do what I do best – I stand there awkwardly and hope that nobody is looking at me. Suddenly, I hear some random drunk ass screaming that he'd fight for me, too. And I start laughing, because, as I said, nobody even wanted me there to begin with. I just, somehow, ended up in the middle of this scene. And before I know it, after four drinks, I decide it is a good idea to jump the drunk guy and let him know his opinion was unwanted. So, there's me, yelling at a guy who is barely standing on his feet, while Larry's mouth is dripping blood and Jess is making sure her husband is okay, which he was, because he is a tough guy. So, the bouncers are now by my side, de-attaching me from the drunk guy, whom I was apparently straddling on the floor while screaming about feminism. I don't remember any of that." At this point, she started chuckling uncontrollably.
"You don't remember straddling a guy?" Richard asked, amused by the way she used words to tell her story. She was good at it.
"No, thank God I don't remember all the guys I've ever straddled!" Emily rolled her eyes, in the back of her head thinking about straddling men, serial killers, in the sense of fighting for control and submission, even survival.
Richard, however, understood her words in a very different way and the ease with which Lauren spoke about not remembering guys she had straddled made him blush.
"So, the next thing I know is that I am freezing. I look around and it turns out I had been thrown out of the bar, as if it were all my fault. Jess and her husband are still inside, blocked by the bouncers, until the Larry guy would leave, and they are desperately trying to get a hold of me, but my phone is in the pocket of my jacket, in the cloak room, as it is quite a fancy bar, and the little ticket for my jacket and my bag is inside my bra. So, it's a mess." Emily kept on laughing. Until that moment, she had forgotten about this Larry guy and the whole disaster that this blind date had been.
"Oh, no! Please tell me you had money on you, to go home?" Richard, being the cutest thing ever, worried about her safety more than hearing the rest of the story.
"Just wait for it." Emily smirked. Or was it Lauren? They were battling for dominance throughout this story.
"Since Jess and her man are inside, I just sit there, my ass freezing and aching from the lack of comfort, as I balance on that metal tube I found to sit on. It starts raining and it's freezing outside. Two bouncers are assigned to stay by my side, as security, as the other few walk back in to go grab Larry and escort him out, without him seeing me. Only that they were quite dumb and they walked right past us. Larry looks at me and dares to speak…" Emily trailed off, creating some suspense.
"Oh, come on. Spill it! What did he say?" Richard was literally on the edge of his seat, expecting anything from Lauren.
"Uhhh, since yo' friend don't wanna, how 'bout we go snuggle and snooze a lil' bit tonight?" Emily gave him her best impression of that idiot, as she repeats his same exact words to her that night.
Richard lost it and laughed out loud. "Snuggle and snooze? Who says stuff like that?"
"I know, right!?" Emily grabbed her coffee mug once again, sitting back in her seat with a smirk that let him know that maybe the story was not over just yet.
"Oh, God. What else?" He asked curiously. "Plus, you cheated! I told you about a woman I actually dated for a little bit and you only told me about a failed first date. That's not juicy enough."
Emily bit on her tongue hard, trying to keep herself from making some comment about making it juicier.
"As I said, wait for it…" Emily smirked, looking relaxed and chill.
"Larry leaves with a cab and I'm sitting there, freezing and, at this point, I care about nothing – no self-respect left in my frozen body. So, a guy walks out to smoke a cigarette and I ask him if I could take a sip of his drink. The guy mutters something and walks off, but then I hear one of the bouncers laughing. I turn around and all I could hear is the sound of my palm against his sweaty cheek. He grabs my hand and then the other one, pinning me against the nearest wall and telling me to shut the Hell up. Then he lets me go and I'm just bored and over it at this point. It all seems unreal and my shoes are hurting my feet, so that's the biggest worry of mine, at the time. I hear the other bouncer walking back into the bar before this tough guy comes up to me again and sits down on the metal pipe as well. He's tall, well-built and, clearly, the pipe did not support his weight, along with mine, so it breaks in half, taking us by surprise and leaving us on the ground. Mind you, it had rained earlier, so everything is muddy and cigarette butts were all around us. Once again, I end up straddling some guy I don't know, and I just start laughing, wondering if it is all a dream. You know, when things are so weird and with too many details, there is a chance they are not real, but just a hallucination, or a dream. The next thing I know is that he's saying he's sorry about my bra and I realize one of the straps is now broken. He tells me it snapped when he held me back, while I was inside, straddling the drunk guy. I don't give a crap about the strap, so I just keep on laughing. And then I notice that he is actually quite good looking, maybe a bit younger than me, but hey…" Emily shrugged innocently.
"No, you didn't…" Richard gasped, his intuition already telling him where this was going.
"I ask him if he wants to break the other strap as well and he suggests we do it at some place more private. By this point, we don't even realize that everyone is leaving the bar, as it is time for them to close. So, we are surrounded by people, none of whom are my two friends, and we are covered in mud and cigarettes. Now, I don't know when he managed to go back inside, leave his uniform, grab a bottle of fancy vodka and leave, but the next thing I know is – we're in his apartment. It's small, mind you, I mean the apartment…" She smirked, because neither Emily nor Lauren could hold back from making suggestive comments like that.
"It smelled like shampoo, you know those minty male scents? Like in college. So, yeah, I end up casually snuggling and snoozing with him for a few weeks to follow until I…" She trailed off.
"You left." Richard added, not even making it sound like a question. It was an affirmation. He was sure that this was how things ended.
Emily shrugged, confirming his words.
"And that is an accurate representation of my love life." She smirked, finally being able to take a bite of the next pastry that was in sight, on the table in front of them.
"Wow…" Richard was a smart man, he spoke languages and he always knew what to say. However, at that moment, no words came to mind.
"Oh, and then there's a guy who tricked me into dating him, posing as someone else, but that got shot down almost immediately. Fool me once, you're either dead to me or simply just dead." Both Emily and Lauren saw themselves saying something like that, although if she had to choose one, she'd say those feelings came from Emily's heart.
Richard choked on his coffee lightly, but masked it up as just a cough.
Emily noticed his face changing and that he became a bit more tense, but she figured mood swings were normal. At least to her, they were.
"What is the worst thing a woman has ever done to you?" She asked curiously. Basically, her previous statement told him that the worst that a man ever did to her was to pose as someone else and to try and delude her. So, it was now his turn to spill the beans.
"She died." He said casually and Emily gasped at his honesty. "It's okay. It was so many years ago. I mean, I loved this woman with all my heart and we had so many plans for the future. And in no way do I blame her, but I guess I mean that the thing that hurt me the most in life, was that I lost her. Other than that, women are catty and weird and I don't really get them, so I don't get too upset with whatever they do. I just don't care anymore."
Emily's hand topped his own, as it rested by the fruit bowl, on the table.
"Hey, it's not that you don't care. I know very little about you, but I can tell you have a big heart. I just think that, after this woman left you on your own, maybe you closed yourself off and you don't want to let any other woman close to you, close enough to be able to annoy you, to hurt you…to leave you again…" Realization hit Emily - she was basically crossing both of her names out from Richard's lifeline, by just suggesting this theory.
"Probably. Who knows?" He was very casual. A bit too much. She wasn't buying it.
"Who knows, maybe one day you will find a woman who makes you happy and who wouldn't…" Emily felt a huge lump in her throat. She tried swallowing, but it didn't help. It was as if her body did not want her to finish that statement.
Both Emily and Lauren were women who would leave. She knew exactly when she would be leaving Richard and, while Emily was intrigued to know more about him, Lauren had no intentions of having any further contact with this boy-toy, as she had once liked to call her love interests. Especially the French ones.
Richard shrugged. It was quite weird to be discussing all of that with a woman, let alone one he had just met and one he really, really liked.
"Now, what was the best thing a man had ever done for you?" He changed the topic again and Emily noticed a pattern in his behavior.
Richard was prone to letting things out as he spoke and he wouldn't even realize he was doing it. Emily had already gathered some information about him and she was going to use it against him, if she needed to. Even if she didn't want to.
"That's an easy one! My friend Dennis covered for me this one time when I screwed up really bad at work." She replied immediately, thinking of the time when David Rossi had taken the blame for a shot that Emily had fired during a case, without having secured the room first. The shot had shocked one of the victims, causing them to faint and hit their head against a chair. Emily could have lost her badge for it, if the Superiors had been in a bad mood that day.
"No, I don't mean friends. I mean guys you've been with." Richard corrected himself, making it much harder for Emily to reply.
"Oh, uhm…" She started off, but then made a very long pause.
She excused the silence by the need to eat and drink some more, but once that was done and her mouth was not full anymore, she had no further excuse for the lack of words.
She bit the inside of her bottom lip as she squinted her eyes, trying to think harder.
Morgan had done a lot of nice things for her, so have all the other guys on her team and also the guys at Interpol back in the days. But guys she had dated? She could not recall a single nice thing, except in terms of naughty business, in which case most of it had been quite nice.
"Uh…" She exclaimed once again and felt like a complete idiot.
How could she ever think of herself as a tough woman, if it was so damn obvious that men did not respect her. She did not seem to be liked by guys, if not for some snuggle and snooze. Was that what Emily Prentiss stood for? Was that why she had bust her ass her whole entire life, trying to get out of the shadow of an incredibly powerful female parent, getting a degree from Yale, working for several secret services organizations around the world, becoming a profiler at the FBI? After all of that, even after surviving numerous serial killers and life threats, was Emily Prentiss just a girl-toy for the men around her? What if she hadn't been playing with boy-toys all along? What if the toy had a female figure, tall, slender, shoulder-length straight dark hair and a piercing gaze? What if she had been the toy all along? What if that lack of human connection was her own fault? Could she really expect people to treat her nicely, if all she ever did was run away?
"I mean…" She shrugged, deciding that it was better to sound like an idiot school-girl, than to say nothing at all. "There's this guy who was really nice to me. He took me to cool places and stuff, but the nicest thing he ever did was that he listened. Whenever I had a meltdown, he just shut up and listened. He also held me. Whenever I cried, he held me so tight that my body stopped thinking about the pain it had accumulated on the inside and just focused on his touch." She spoke slowly, shooting glances at Richard as if to check when she would be busted.
As she spoke, her hand was still on top of his, on the table. With one swift motion, his hand was now on top and she let it stay there. His fingers vibrated as he squeezed her hand when she spoke. She could swear, she was able to feel every twitch of his body, every breath, every gaze.
"His hands were big enough to fully wrap mine underneath…" With one more glance, she realized he was warming up to what she was saying.
"And the way he looked at me was different than any other guy I've been with. He was…" She gulped, realizing how Richard's eyes had darted to their hands just as Emily spoke about this unnamed man's hands, before he looked at her curiously.
"He was genuine. Real. I guess. I didn't know much about him, but at the same time I had this feeling I had known him for years. You know? He made me feel strong and that, exactly that was the best thing a man has ever done for me." She ended off, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, as to steady her wild heartbeat.
Richard's free hand went up and caressed Emily's cheek. She was so beautiful to him, the way the sun illuminated the cheek that he was caressing, while the other cheek stood in the perfect shade. It almost felt like he was looking at two women, at the same time. One, sunny and very bright, with a bubbly personality; a dominant kind of person. And the other, a more closed up one, hiding in the shadows, but hiding the strength of a woman with incredible intellect and vast life experience. That one, the one in the shadows, had potential, but she would never be able to shine like the other one, if she didn't possess the same qualities as the bright half.
If only those two halves formed into one woman, that woman would be unstoppable!
Richard felt pride, there was something rewarding about the fact that he was the one man in Lauren's life to have given her the best thing she had ever received. And it was also liberating to know that, out there, exist women who don't connect the best gifts in life to a thing that could have a price tag on it.
However, was he Lauren's best thing? Or was he Emily's? Which side of that beautiful face was now smiling because of him? Was it the sunny one or was it the one hiding in the shadows?
Saturday morning was a great time for everyone at the Academy. They had only one hour of training that day, which meant that everyone had enjoyed one additional hour of sleep in the morning. Everyone but Angie.
She had spent the entire night, darting between the bed and the bathroom. At some point she simply gave up her hopes of getting any sleep, and she threw on a large t-shirt, fixed her hair in a tight bun and sat on the bathroom floor, waiting for the next wave of nausea to hit her. Bryan was sleeping in his own dorm, so she was all alone, but it was okay, because the thought of asking anyone for help never really crossed her mind. She had only had herself for as long as she could remember, so opting for help was just a shameful downfall, in her eyes.
Plus, after hearing the rule about no cell phones in class, she had taken that to a whole new level. She had abandoned the old cell phone that she had been carrying with her everywhere, while in sports camp, right before the Academy. It was now switched off, thrown at the bottom of a shoe or a bag, or maybe in her locker. She wasn't sure and she didn't care. There was no outside world that she needed to connect to. The FBI was her new reality, her whole world at that moment.
She barely heard the alarm clock go off, as it was next to her bed, while she was, once again, hovering on top of the toilet. She then forced herself to get up, take a shower, put a tiny bow in her head and go survive that one hour of physical training.
She waved at Bryan, who immediately noticed her pale face and the way her body was swaying in the air. Angie had always had a very confident strut, but she seemed in pain now, weak. He knew better than to ask her if she was fine, though.
Bryan kept an eye on her for the next sixty minutes. Angie had been struggling in physical fitness for a couple of days now, but that day was the worst he had ever seen her. Her eyes were constantly closed and he could tell she was biting her lip, to prevent herself from thinking about the pain. She had only stopped twice, both times in order to run to the nearest bin when she was being sick. But through all of that, she had a brave face on, a tiny smile even. If someone just looked at her, they would never be able to tell that she was actually feeling like shit. Whenever Angie noticed someone's eyes on her, in the brief moments when she had decided to open her eyes to check if the group had maybe moved on to a different exercise, she had smiled to the people around her.
Bryan found that both great and disturbing.
Great, because having such a strong poker face and high tolerance to pain, meant that she would be an amazing Agent one day, an Agent that anyone would be proud to have on their team.
Disturbing, because, on a personal note, her poker face only reassured him that, in their friendship, he would never be able to believe a word she would say to him. And that did not sit well with him.
After training, Angie disappeared. Bryan tried looking for her at the rest-rooms on the first floor, then the second floor…the third floor. He even went up to the rooftop, thinking maybe she needed to feel the breeze and to breathe in some fresh air, but she was nowhere to be found.
In reality, Angie had gone to the FBI building and begged the Ballistics division to allow her to work, even if it was not the time, not the day that she was supposed to be there.
She knew that feeling sick like that would be a problem that would hold her back from studying properly. So, in order to get better, she needed more food. And that meant – extra work.
She managed to score a food coupon for a short 45 minute shift, cleaning guns, before she ran to her first class of the day.
"Oh, holy patience, don't leave my body or I swear to God, this bitch is leaving in a body bag!" She said through gritted teeth, noticing how some other Trainee was just getting comfortable at the only seat Angie had ever sat in since she first stepped foot in the auditorium.
"Okay, I'm going to make this very short and keep it nice, too…" Angie said with attitude, as she walked towards the girl.
"MOVE!" She raised her eyebrows threateningly for just a split second and it was enough for the other girl to get the point that Angie was not joking around.
Something had changed, for some reason Angie was showing a different side to that bubbly girl everyone knew her as. She had low tolerance and she acted out against someone she saw as a threat, even if the subject of this fight was a stupid chair.
"I said…" Angie walked even closer, grabbing the girl's shirt and slowly forcing her to stand up. "Move!"
The girl dared to laugh in Angie's face. At that same moment, Dan walked in, along with a new teacher for a whole new class that they would be starting that day.
"This is my place, comprendes?" She mixed in some Spanish, just because when she was mad, she never knew what language she was speaking and usually ended up using a mixture of at least two.
"Relax, it's just a stupid seat." The other girl kept on chuckling and the only thing standing between Angie and sanity was the fact that Dan was now there. And if Dan ever disliked someone, said someone would be sent packing.
"Say that to someone who tried to kidnap your child, some day. Now move!" Angie said with attitude and, finally, the girl moved.
Angie was most certainly as attached to her favorite seat, as one would be attached to their child, but at that moment it felt this way and she could not hold it in.
Dan smirked from distance and his gaze followed the other trainee as she walked out of the auditorium.
Angie had never seen her. She was not bad with faces, she could recognize most of her fellow trainee classmates, but this girl had a new face and Angie could almost say with certainty that she had never seen her before. Also, was this girl so weak that she would leave a class after just a small misunderstanding with a classmate?
Angie shot a glance at Dan, noticing how he was eyeing the girl as she left. That was the moment when Angie decided that Dan was on her list. And the Angela list was not a place anyone would ever want to wound up on.
