Trouble in Hell

Chapter 5: Tessa part 2

•Tessa's POV•
~Sunday, 3 weeks later~

"You are so pretty," Bella said

"Mmhmm," I said while I stirred the little bit of liquid in my smoothie cup with a straw.

"Like, drop-dead gorgeous."

"Thanks, Bell."

My best friend Isabella Shaydes. Bella for short. She has jet black hair, dark brown eyes that looked almost black and a chocolate coloured skin complexion, beautiful African-American. She's charming, arrogant, sneaky, badass, drop-dead gorgeous, dangerous and a street fighter like me. She was being bullied by the big kids in first grade and I tried to chase them away but also got bullied. After the teachers chased them away for us, we just became friends. She told me about how in her family, she was bullied by her brother and told me about not being enough for her mother while I told her about my abusive dad and a disappointing missing mother. We promised each other everything we shared was only for the two of us and if it was shared to other people, we would split. Since then we haven't broken that promise.

Then when I was twelve, I started learning karate to control my emotions and started secretly learning street fighting and all with Felix to get money after my dad left us broke. It was like my job. Felix paid me to learn how to fight and become his next big thing since lemonade stands, garage sales and get money for recycling wasn't enough.

Nuts Right?

I told Bella about the karate but not the street fighting, she found out that herself. When I got to high school and started wearing the brown contacts, freckles and glasses and she asked why I told her I wanted to reinvent myself and look more like my siblings myself. Then when I was fourteen she started getting suspicious when I came to school with bruises but my dad wasn't there anymore. She asked me about them and I told her I still had karate lessons but she never believed me.

One night she followed me down to the arena and caught me fighting. The next day she confronted me, telling me that we told each other everything and had no secrets against each other but all I could say was how sorry I was and wasn't allowed to tell her that one. She was angry at me for weeks, ignored me and even switched out of two of the classes we shared. When I told her constantly how sorry I was, all she said was 'is that supposed to be another lie?' Then one day she came up to me and offered me a deal, she would forgive me if I thought her how to fight and I accepted. Life was hell without my only friend.

So every day we trained. I thought her everything I knew from the different defences and pressure points to the different types of fighting I knew from trainers that helped me in the arena. Soon she and I became a tag team in the arena, then in two years time, she became THRO-SHAYDE and fought by herself. We fixed our relationship problems but we weren't the same anymore. After having her first match on her own and won, she became bad.

She's the baddest ass in school now. No one breaks her walls down anymore. When she wants something, she can get it in many ways while I fight for my needs. She has broken many hearts and I've rejected every single one that's come by me. She loves crowds and attention and I prefer to stay in the shadows. She loves to flash her charming smile at everyone and I haven't smiled in 5 years. The only thing that she kept a secret is the Arena. No one is allowed to speak of what happens in there with outsiders.

"You know what makes you so beautiful?"

"Tell me?" I said uninterestedly.

"Taking off those contacts, shaking out those freckles and putting those glasses away."

Bella thinks my 'changes in personality' are a waste of time. I've gone through years of her complaining about me hiding my real life and me not letting everyone see how beautiful and badass I was. When we were alone or in a place where there were boys she'd start asking me to take it off. Unluckily for her, I don't get charmed easily.

I finished off my smoothie and looked up at her with my brown eyes. I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms. "No."

"Oh come, please?"

"Uhh uhh."

"No one's even here today and it a Saturday. In a mall!"

I looked around at the lack of people in the mall. There was a little number of people sitting in the food court around us as we finished off our smoothies.

I looked back at her. "What's your point?"

"Tess, please?" She put her hands together in desperation.

"It's not happening."

"Please?"

"No"

"Please?"

"Uhh uhh"

"Tess, Please?"

"Nah"

"Tessa, please!?!"

I give her the look.

She slouched over in defeat and picked up her smoothie. She slurped it loudly and looked away innocently.

I know what she's doing. She's using one of my most aggravating weakness against me. The few people in the food court looked at her annoyed. I avoided looking at her and read one of the menus nearby. She slurped even louder and I ignored her closing my eyes and blocked my ears. I felt her lean forward and she slurped right next to my ear. After a couple of seconds, I gave up and yelled out frustration.

"Fine, I'll take it off!" I yelled.

"Yes! Yes! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" She fist-pumped the air.

"Just hurry up and we can go." I groaned.

"I am done. Let's go." I rolled my eyes and stood up. We threw our cups into the trash and walked to the nearest restroom. Once we got there I stopped in front of the door and looked at Bella. She looked at me seriously and pointed her finger at the door. "Don't look at me like that. Get in there." She demanded.

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever." I walked through the door and saw the rows of restroom stalls. Choosing the private with a mirror, faucet, baby changing station... basically everything, I locked the door behind me and got to work. I took off my contacts and glasses, put them away then got to work on wiping off my freckles.

After 3 minutes of constant wiping on my cheeks, nose and forehead, they came off, taking some of my makeup with. I reapplied a light layer for mascara and went back to Bella.

She looked at me like her lost sister and jumped on me, hugging me tightly. "I missed this face so much, I could have died. I haven't seen it in so long."

"You saw it last night, before your fight and after."

She let go and looked at me again. "Still a long time." I grabbed her hand and began walking to one of my favourite stores. "Where to?" She asked putting some of her hair behind her ear.

"You'll see."