The Girl Inside (Raura)

Chapter 17: Whenever You're in Trouble

Laura's POV

"What do you think you're doing?!" Courtney shrieks with fire at the two of us, mainly me. "Step away from him!"

"You're the one to talk!" I try to speak as cooly as possible, but unsuccessfully. "Who do you think you are, faking your relationship just to gain promotion?! You think you can return from the Big Apple and everything's going to fit into place like how it was before? You're a lying, backstabbing, double crossing criminal and you're not at all entitled to an harmless return."

Courtney's jaw falls slightly, knowing everything I've said is factual, and retracts her jaw before Ross can notice. "So what if everything's true?! I guess the truth is inevitable: I was with Ross strictly for publicity the whole time. To me there was no other purpose for our relationship in this past year. That fact doesn't give you any freaking right to bitch on me about it!" she shouts down at me with her hand up, ready to slap downwards.

Ross' eyes widen at the sight of Courtney standing over my small frame, and he immediately rushes to intercept our stares. "Don't lay a hand on her," Ross sternly pronounces. I hear the same compassion in his voice as he had when he carried me into his house that day I lost my parents. "You've already hurt me, but under no circumstances am I going to let you hurt Laura."

Courtney grimaces and bizarrely her expression reflects a hint of jealousy. "She's not the only one I'm mad at! Don't think you can get away unnoticed! You've been cheating on me with Laura ever since I left, haven't you?!" 

"That's not true and you don't have any proof that it is! What's it to you if I'm with Laura anyway? I'm a good-for-nothing in your opinion and all of us know it. Laura's more authentic and trustworthy than anyone I've ever met. Why don't you go find one of the Dolan twins and hit on them for promotion? Oh right; you can't do that because then you'd be cheating on Scott." 

Courtney's eyes dilate and she wrings her hands in her palms, flustered at the reveal of her secret. "H-How did you find out about that?"

I avoid any potential eye contact and reorient my vision to the patterns of the carpet I'm standing on. Ross sneaks a glance at me, since I'm the answer to Courtney's question. "It doesn't matter how I found out." 

Time stops for a second after Ross' response. 

Ross didn't put the blame on me even though I was the one who told him about Scott. Despite the lingering temptation to fib that he could've seen a text from Scott on Courtney's phone, he would never lie because then he would be just as two-faced as Courtney. Ross could've told Courtney the truth about how the disclosure of Courtney's boyfriend came to be. He could've defended himself by admitting I was the one who leaked the truth to him. Instead Ross chose to maintain harmony between Courtney and me and to prevent an unfriendly dispute from emerging. He protected me from Courtney; he truly does care for me more than anyone else possibly could.

Ross hasn't broken his stone cold glare at Courtney so far. "What's on the table right now is what you did to me. Why did you do it? What could I possibly have ever done to you so that I should've been your target?"

Courtney allows her jaw to fall slightly from her expression and at first it seems like she's going to answer. She stumbles over words that aren't forming before giving up and rolling her eyes, then turning to me. "What kind of sick mind do you have, Laura?! You're a degenerate low-life; no matter how much you think you and Ross should be together, you can't steal someone else's boyfriend! It's unbelievably immoral and profane!"

Courtney's breathing heaves with fury, but progressively her chest lessens to slow down her heart rate. "Why the hell did you two even decide to date? I wasn't hurting you, Ross; cross my heart and hope to die, I wasn't going to dump you and delete your contact information in my phone. I would've delicately broken up with you and left us on friendly terms." Any fool could take notice of Courtney's forced words desperately branching out to convince. Unfortunately Ross is more than oblivious to this game, and Courtney overpowers his mind once again. "I don't understand why you're together if I wasn't even hurting anyone and didn't plan to hurt anyone in the future."

The room falls mute due to the paralyzing trauma of passive rage Courtney releases. Our house appears to be shrinking, almost as if the walls are leaning in and waiting to hear a response. "You had no intention of hurting anyone, but without a doubt you did. Ross was being cheated on, tricked, and downright lied to by you. It's understandable one could be deceived at one point or another in life. The demoralizing part of this situation is, you did it for your own selfish reasons. Dating someone famous and cheating your way through everything isn't how things should work. If you truly want to achieve something, you have to work for it like how R5 did. You selfishly 'dated' Ross for your own vanity. The loss of character is undeniable in you. Even though you didn't plan to hurt anyone, you hurt me, maybe even more than Ross." By now I was desperately gasping to explain to Courtney. "Indirectly I was hurt because you used my best friend and couldn't give him what he wanted when he thought you were everything he wanted. We all know I had a crush on him when you started dating, but if you were a trustworthy and morally unblemished person, I wouldn't have been as bothered with the idea. Knowing you were using his image for publicity and that you two had nothing of common interest killed me. What hurt me most was that I knew all of this and I couldn't even tell Ross the truth. I couldn't tell him because he was so wrapped up in your 'relationship' that he would've believed you over me. Ross trusted you more than he trusted me for a while. He put everything into that relationship and you gave nothing."

***

Heyyyy

Did anyone see the Liv and Maddie finale? I didn't because I've been too busy so I might not watch it for a while. But honestly Disney did a remake of Successes & Setbacks and Albums & Auditions through the finale. The storyline is the same exact thing, so I'm pretty triggered by that.

I also haven't watched A&A for a long time because I know I'm gonna start crying when I see even one scene. Ugh where's our reunion at? Does anyone remember how, at the beginning of the year on Twitter, Derek Baynham promised a Raura kiss? Like seriously. He still hasn't followed through and I'm kinda having withdrawals with that. :/

Vote/comment!

Steph (yesifeelgoodr5)