Cherry Bomb

[Jared Bastian]

Her joke didn't get her very far, considering he recognized the stalling attempt, and he'd been trying to get this information out of her for too long to let it work.  He wanted to know, or he wouldn't have asked for it in the bet.  Her roundabout answer wasn't going to satisfy, either, but it was a start.

"I know you sometimes stay at your mom's.  I told you I don't give a shit if you don't want to come to my place some nights.  What I'm asking is what that 'crap you have to take care of' is," he clarified, all seriousness despite his drunkenness.  She'd said she'd tell him, and he wasn't letting his concentration waver on this one.  

[Angela Arun]

She couldn't really lie to him, because Angela wasn't a liar, so she wasn't good at it. She'd made it a point not to, though if she even knew some of the shit he'd done, she might repay the favours in kind. But right now, she was in love, and on the verge of a small panic, despite all of her Arun training to control her emotions. She was still young, and still volitile.

"I can't tell you," she said softly. "You could have asked me anything else, but I... promised that I'd never tell, and I can't go back on my word." She had promised she wouldn't tell - to herself. He couldn't conceive of this world beyond him, or them, or this town. Where creatures stalked the nights and killed mercilessly, some of them even changing others, creating a strange wake of living dead in their path. When you look at it like that, there is nothing romantic or erotic about vampires. Nothing.

She sighed a little, knowing that the feeling she had picked up on in the air was a current - a current of her damn life about to just get flushed down the tube. She started to get angry - now she was upset and angry. Bad combination for an Arun.

[Jared Bastian]

"What?" he demanded, his voice raising slightly.  "You promised who?  What the hell is going on that you have to keep it so secret?  Why can't you just tell me?"

Of course he didn't understand.  How could he, when he had no idea that he was dating a witch, or that vampires existed?  If someone would have told him they were a vampire or a shapeshifter, he'd have laughed and walked away.  He had no idea, and so he wasn't really at fault for demanding such difficult answers.  He would have still asked if he knew the sort of thing it was, but that wasn't important to this conversation.

"Are you seeing someone else, or what?" he asked her suddenly.  Women didn't sneak around at night and promise not to tell their boyfriend unless it was serious, and he couldn't comprehend the sort of serious this was.

[Angela Arun]

"WHAT?!" she shrieked, unable to curb her surprise. Seeing someone else? That was absurd. "That's fucking insane. Of course I'm not seeing anyone else. What the hell, Jared. You've known me long enough by now to know there are two things I'm not: a liar, and a cheater. For you to even suggest that is just..." she trailed off.

"Wow." She punched the side of a car, hard, leaving a massive dent in the rear quarter panel of it. She couldn't help it - that pissed her off something awful. "You know, for the only fucking person in the world who seems to get me? You just don't get it at all."

She didn't leave, though. She didn't... she couldn't. It was like watching an accident. She had to see it through, to the very bitter end.

[Jared Bastian]

It was a good thing he was as drunk as he currently happened to be, or he might have noticed exactly how hard she'd hit some random person's car.  Since it wasn't his though, he glossed right over it and remained focused on their argument.  He really should have stopped and stared at the size of that dent, but he wasn't thinking well enough for it.  

"Well, what the fuck do you EXPECT, Angela?  You vanish at night, don't ever explain where you're going, you've never answered me when I ask, and now you're telling me you promised someone you wouldn't tell me!  What would you think if I pulled that shit?" he demanded, standing up and refusing to lean on the car anymore.  Considering he hadn't seen how hard she hit the car, her display of anger didn't really do much other than drag him along with her into that mood.

"If you're not seeing someone else, that's great, really.  The last thing I want to hear is that I suck bad enough that you wanted some other asshole and didn't want to tell me or something, but you can't just say that's not it and leave it!  If that's not what's going on, then what the fuck is?"

He thought he was being pretty reasonable.  A little loud, but pretty reasonable.  He was ready to believe that she wasn't cheating or lying in an instant, but he wanted to know what was going on if that wasn't the case.  That's all.  

[Angela Arun]

"I. CAN'T. TELL. YOU." she screamed, matching his volume and raising him a few decibles. FUCK, her hand hurt. She popped a broken finger back into place in the shadows where she stood before stepping into the illumination of a shitty parking lot light, and advanced on Jared about four steps before stopping.

"Speaking of shit we always wonder, why is it that there's been more than one occasion where I'll call your work when you tell me you'll be there late, and they say that you left hours ago? I wasn't going to bring it up, but fuck it, why not?" she shouted, not even caring in the slightest that her elevated voice might attract attention. Let them come; Angela would do to someone's face what she'd done to that car.

Her fear had bled into anger, and a lot of it suddenly came rushing out. Angela had been letting this go for as long as he must've been letting her outings go. Jared would have done well to choose his next words carefully, because Angela fully intended to hit his car, next.

[Jared Bastian]

"What if I say I can't tell you?" he snapped, turning her own shit right back at her.  What she didn't understand was that he was far more willing to tell her his shit than she was willing to tell him hers.  "Why don't you bring up my paycheck while you're at it?  Fuck, I know you've been wondering about THAT for awhile, haven't you?"

He knew she had because he'd seen her hesitate when he paid for shit or gave her something expensive, but she'd never asked, and he'd never told her.  He could tell her, but she'd probably hate him for it.  At this point, he'd risk it.  He didn't think her little secret could be any worse.  

"How about this one?  I'll tell you what you wanna know if you tell ME where you go those nights and what you do?  Answer for an answer," he told her, and that was about as good as it was going to get unless she REALLY pissed him off.  Then, he might blurt his little 'secret' at her just to piss her off and let her know what a horrible person he was.  He didn't feel bad about it, but Angela was one of those good people that seemed to care about everyone.

[Angela Arun]

"Your paycheck? What? What the fuck?" she asked. Well, that hadn't been the exact thing she'd been wondering about; more like, where the fuck had HE been running off to, but now that he mentioned it, yeah, she did realize that it had bothered her before.

"No, Jared, you aren't going to turn this around on me. The difference in this instance is I have never lied to you about where I was going to be; you seem to make it a second profession." She took another step, bringing her directly under the light. Angela was damn intimidating when she was like this, but Jared had never and would never be intimidated by her. She was Angela. She was tough, but she was still small.

"No deal," she said firmly.

[Jared Bastian]

"There's no damn difference!  What?  You think I'm lying?  Babe, I haven't lied to you yet.  I told you I was working, and I was," he told her, his voice actually dropping as she got closer and he got more angry.  More...vindictive.  She wasn't going to play fair?  He shouldn't tell her anything if that was how she wanted to be, but what difference did it make?  Did he really think everything would be alright now that he had this out in the open if he just let it all go?  Hell no!  It had to be worked out right then and there, or he didn't think either of them would let it go.  They'd just stay mad.

"One of us ought to be fair though, so I'll do it.  You've never asked me about any of this until now, and I won't avoid the answer like you've been doing.  You wanna know what I was doing?  Fine, I'll tell you!"  And here was where he glared and hesitated ever so slightly, even in his anger.  He couldn't see this going over well, but he he was anyway.

"I was working, stealing cars or pieces off of cars so they could be dismantled and either sold or put into other cars.  THAT is why I wasn't at the shop those times you called, and THAT is why I make the money I do," he told her sharply, leaning in close to her.  "Now, are you STILL going to tell me you don't trust me to hear what you're doing, when I just told you something that could get my ass thrown into jail for a LONG fucking time?"

[Angela Arun]

BAM!

The sound of glass shattering as Angela swung past him and into the passenger side window of his car was a horrifying thing. She couldn't even verbally react to what he'd just said, she was so angry. Her head was swimming. She really disliked how he was pausing for emphasis, like he was trying to deliberately pour salt into the wound of the situation.

It was honestly all she could do to avoid hitting him. Angela knew damn good and well if she'd hit him in the face as hard as she'd hit his window, she would have put him in the hospital for a long time. Jared would never know the small courtesy she had just done him.

She withdrew her hand from the window, pieces of glass still embedded in her knuckles. Jared hadn't ever seen her get that angry, but the fact that she wasn't in a severe amount of pain seemed to speak volumes. Of course, when Angela was focused she didn't seem to feel pain, or so she'd lead him to believe after all this time. Still, a window?

Blood was running down her arm now as she tried to hold her hand at an angle to avoid looking like she'd just gutted someone. Lacerations from glass, Arun or no, were big messes. She just stared at him, and realized that she'd let this situation get way, way out of her control. Her skin felt static and warm - she suddenly became afraid that the truth she was hiding was going to come out whether she wanted to just tell him or not.

She took a step back, playing on the shock of the situation to look horrified at her actions. Just.. go. Please, just go, she thought to herself, though it was unclear as to whether she was thinking about him or about herself.

[Jared Bastian]

"HOLY FUCKING HELL, ANGELA!!" he roared, staring at the window of his car after she'd busted it.  She was insane!  How the hell had she just smashed his window up like that with just her FIST?  Angela wasn't the smallest woman he'd met, but she wasn't big, either.  She wasn't insanely buff, she wasn't taking any sort of karate courses as far as he knew, and she wasn't on drugs or anything.  That he knew of.  She'd just put her FIST through his WINDOW, and was still standing there, though.

That was when he looked at her, and saw the blood on her hand and arm.  "Oh, shit.  Holy shit," he said absently, his anger bleeding out even as her own blood dripped to the pavement.  He glanced back at the car, though it wasn't to look at the window, but to try to remember if he had a relatively clean towel in there anymore.  He'd cleaned the car out the day before, and he didn't think he'd left anything in there that he could use.  His coat wouldn't do anything to stop the bleeding, so he cursed some more as he tore his leather jacket off and followed it by his t-shirt.  

"God fucking damn it!" he muttered some more, reaching for her elbow without even thinking about the argument they were having.  He was still angry, but that was in the back of his head.  The fact that he loved her, no matter what secrets she was hiding, showed through in how her injury had caused him to completely put aside everything else.  He needed to try wiping some of the blood away so he could pick out any pieces of glass that were embedded in her skin, and then wrap it up.  She was going to need a hospital visit, he'd guarantee it.  "Please, Angela, stay still."

[Angela Arun]

She stood there, numbly as Jared panicked, and it wasn't until he took her hand and brought it into the light that she realized that the bleeding was all but stopped. Lucky her for being Arun. She jerked her hand back, petrified he'd see she was healing out, and took a few steps back from him. There was way, way too much shit going on at the moment, and she was fast slipping her control and concentration. The scent of blood, even though it was only her own, stung her nostrils, creating a stir in her energy and causing her to wretch for a moment.

"I can take care of it," she said harshly, holding her hand behind her back as the blood dried in spiderwebs across her flesh. Thank god that was all that had currently healed - Angela did not want to pick out embedded glass tonight. "Can we just deal with this tomorrow?" she asked, suddenly not sure why she had been so mad. She was more concerned with other things. Like getting out of public and being left alone before she unleashed the fucking fury.

[Jared Bastian]

So much for being drunk.  If there was a way to sober a guy up, it was having his girlfriend put her fist through his car window, then start bleeding everywhere.  And now she was refusing help.  Brilliant.  Perfect.  A-FUCKING-MAZING.

"Don't be insane!  You're bleeding everywhere, and now you're fucking puking!  I know you're fucking pissed at me, but at least let me get the glass out of your damn knuckles!" he told her, just as sharply as before, but this time it was because he was worried, and she had GLASS STICKING OUT OF HER HAND.  Naturally, he hadn't noticed she was healing or that her bleeding had slowed.  The light out there sucked, and so did his observation skills when he wasn't looking for it.  He'd gotten closer as well, completely oblivious of any inner turmoil the blood might be causing her.  Why would he think that getting close to her right then might inspire her to tear into him, literally?  

Exactly.  Nothing.

[Angela Arun]

"NO, Jared!" she shouted, pushing him off with her good hand. She shoved him a little harder than she'd wanted, but fuck, she was trying to protect him. "You've done enough for tonight, and so have I. I'm going to my mom's, okay? We can talk about this tomorrow." She said tomorrow very slowly, like she was trying to get a point across.

She was afraid to touch him, to kiss him, to say anything else. She was about to just... she didn't even know. Part of her wanted to run inside and grab Hailee, but she doubted the girl had ever experienced anything quite like this. Right now, Angela needed her mom, as pathetic as it was. She needed someone to ground her out before she hurt anyone, or herself.

She took a few steps back, and she didn't think he could see it (because she never would have allowed herself to if she thought for an instant he could), but she was crying a little. There was way, way too much going on for her to wrap her head around, plus the pushing of energy on her made a compressing sensation in her chest that just ached. Sort of like heartbreak.

"I will call you tomorrow morning," she said/pleaded, before turning and hurrying like mad to her own car.

[Jared Bastian]

Okay, so maybe he wasn't as sobered up by all of this as he thought he'd been.  When she pushed him, it felt a hell of a lot harder than it should have, which was why he was attributing it to drunkenness.  He had to be off-balance or something.  There was no way that Angela, with her size and build, could push him like that.

Really, what did it matter how hard she pushed him, though?  The fact of the matter was that she'd done it, and refused his help.  Had he fucked everything up THAT badly that she wouldn't even let him pick the glass out of her hand for her before she attempted driving?  Or hell, drive her over there?  He could have kept his mouth shut long enough to drive her home, if that was what she wanted, but she refused him.  She was going to run to her mom's, her parents were probably going to tell her they'd told her so and that he was a bad choice anyway, and she'd call the next day to tell him to fuck off.  It wouldn't have been the first time it happened, but he hadn't thought that would be how it'd end with her.  

He let her go.  Maybe he shouldn't have, but he didn't see how chasing after her or begging or anything else like they do in the movies was going to help his case.  He could have tried, but he didn't.  He let her go, trusting she'd call him the next day to break it off.  That was how it worked.  He didn't even bother going back into the bar after that, and instead kicked his front driver's tire as hard as he could as he cursed some more, and he whipped open his car door.  Surprisingly, he didn't just sit down, but instead reached in to swipe any glass off of his seat, ignoring the pain where a piece or two got into his skin until he'd sat down.  Then, he plucked the glass out, held his shirt in that hand to keep from making MORE mess of his car, and drove home.  

He didn't care if he'd drank way too much.  If he didn't make it home, then he'd just have to deal with it.