The Warrior Spirit

Ten

The car was unlocked when I arrived. I opened the door and joined the girl with purple hair seated at the driver seat, shutting the door once inside, while mentally preparing myself to receive the disturbing news she was about to reveal.

"So..." she said, clearing her throat as she took off her sunglasses to display a pair of swollen red eyes that seemed to have not been rested for a while. "You're ready for the ride?" She turned the key in the ignition, starting up the car.

"Not really," I responded, interpreting her question in the only way I could right now, by considering her usage of the word 'ride' as a metaphor for whatever she was about to tell me.

"Well, neither am I." She drove down the asphalt at a normal speed, getting onto the roadway before increasing the speed of the vehicle, swiftly driving down 54th Street towards the endless woodlands.

"Sarah, what's going on?" I said, noticing that she'd been unable to make eye contact with me ever since I got into the car. "And... can you maybe slow down a little? You're not the only one on the road."

"They're saying you killed him," she said, her eyes glued to the road, her expression cold and unforgiving.

"Yes," I sighed, looking out the window as the look on her face became too stern to observe. "And I take it you believe them?"

"You threatened to kill him," she continued.

"Yes, after I caught him screwing my ex. But that doesn't mean I actually killed him," I said, casting a quick glance at her.

She was still vividly upset. I could sense the resentment she held against me, just like I did when around Bilal and Travis.

"You really think I killed him?" I said, surprised as she continued to hold her silence.

She reduced her reckless driving as we drove down the isolated road on 54th Street sided by enormous trees of different kind. Her gaze was soft as she looked away from the road to finally glance at me, saying, "You knew, didn't you?"

She said that with so much accusation in her voice that I found myself wondering if I actually was aware of what she was talking about. Yet clueless, I was compelled to ask, "What exactly?"

"About Gregor," she said, quickly breaking our eye contact. "You knew I loved him."

"Yes, but he told me you guys never really dated," I expressed with earnest.

"But you never were convinced, were you? You always felt threatened by him."

"What are you talking about?"

"I've seen the way you looked at me when I talked about him," said Sarah. "It bothered you. I've noticed."

"Yeah, it did, because you never seemed to enjoy talking about anything else like you enjoyed talking about him," I confessed.

"So you decided to get him out of the picture?" She cast a vicious look at me as she said that, scalding my heart with the words she'd just uttered.

"Wait a minute," I said, sitting up straight. "Not only do you think that I killed him, but you think I did it because I was jealous?" I laughed through my fury, saying, "How much more deluded can you be? I wouldn't hurt Gregor to save my life, and you think I'll kill him just to have you to myself?"

"I had Bilal and Travis swear they'd never expose what happened at the party to the cops," said Sarah. "It was the first thing I did when I heard about the threat, after the murder. But then they started telling me about how possessive you've always been over me and then I thought... Of course, no girl in Skye High was willing to put up with you before we started dating. No one was willing to settle for the crippled best friend when they could have the perfect athlete to themselves. You knew you'd never find someone like me if I left you. It's why you couldn't get over the fact that I used to have a crush on him. You became so obsessed that you began to find fault in everything he did, even going as far as to assault him for kissing that Egyptian girl you once dated online."