It All Started With A Payback

Six: Second Thoughts on Second Chance

                      dedicated to Kitty

A/N Sorry, took me a while to update.  Here's a long one. Happy Holidays         everyone!  Also, guess where Tori Kelly  and Ed Sheeran's I Was Made For Loving You should start playing 😉

Tori touched her fingertips to her lips.  It was still swollen and warm from Louie's kisses. She felt his reluctance to let go of her and leave her to fix some problem in his coffee shop.  

He had every reason to.  Only a minute had elapsed since she ushered him out of her unit and she was already having second thoughts. She sighed.  Still unsure whether it was a sigh of contentment or frustration.

What the hell just happened? She must have asked herself the same question at least ten times by the time she got to her studio. She decided not to dwell on it anymore.

Paint....she would paint to clear her head before analyzing what just happened.

She methodically arranged her brushes, paints and palette beside her easel so as not to interrupt her work flow.

She began making an outline on the canvas. Her deft hand glided smoothly on the canvas as the paint gave life to the outline she made. She had no idea how long she had been painting but her half finished work made her exhale in utter disbelief.

Aside from being her bread and butter, painting was supposed to be her outlet. A release of some sort when she didn't want to think or analyze things that troubled her.

This time it failed...for she now stared at an image of a guy who stood a few steps away from a girl with her back against the trunk of a tree.  It was the day that started it all.

Tori dropped her backpack on the grass next to her. She always preferred the peace and quiet of this tree than the noise and crowd of the cafeteria. Even before the bitchy and bratty Brooke spread the rumors about her.

Thanks to Brooke she lost one of her closest friends. She couldn't blame Carol for staying as far away from her as she could.  It was bad enough her parents were getting a divorce, she didn't need to be talked about or picked on because she was associated with her as well.

Mark, her bestfriend since kindergarten, had a flu and so she had the entire tree to herself.  She plugged her earphones and started going through her playlist as she reached inside her backpack for her sandwich.  She was about to take  a bite when a shadow fell on her.

She looked up, and immediately plastered a look of annoyance on her face.  She was irritated with herself for letting the guy's thick dark hair, narrow forehead, straight-edged nose, strong jaw and possibly the sexiest mouth she had ever seen affect her. 

And what's up with the long and thick eyelashes? Girls are supposed to have that, not a guy who had shoulders as broad as a doorway! 

This was the third time she had seen him upclose and the effect of his presence was still as alarming and irritating as the second time.  The first time he was near her she was too preoccupied with Brooke to pay any attention to him.

Yesterday he was reading the words painted on her car. There was a small smile on his lips.  She had added a few words to what the cheerleader from hell wrote, it now read 'Brooke sucks, this dyke rocks'.  Hell would freeze over (preferably with Brooke in it) before she gave that girl the satisfaction. 

She didn't give a hoot if they all thought she was gay.  What made her feel awful was her dad's reaction when he saw her car.

He told her that there were two things he regretted the most: marrying her mother and having her.  He had asked her if she would ever stop being a disappointment to him.