But do you like her...

Chapter six: Cold

"Hey you alright there son?"

"your lucky you don't move much in your sleep, otherwise you'd gone over the edge"

"Where am I?"

"your at the edge of the cliff. You uhhh want me to call someone for you?"

"ow, my head... What time is it?"

"Why it's a fifteen minutes past noon, hard to imagine you slept here all night. You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I think I'll just go home"

"He stood up and dusted himself off trying to remember what had happened the night before. He looked over the edge of the cliff and chuckled at the thought of him jumping off.

When he finally made it home and charged his phone he noticed he had 14 missed calls and 5 new messages from Rico. He called him back and reassured his friend that he was fine. He actually felt better than ever. He thought about Bella and everything she had done to him but for some reason he didn't feel sad. He looked at himself in the mirror and wondered what was wrong with him. He stared at his reflection as he felt different. He brushed it off and went about his day.

He had promised Isabel to take her out to the bar that day and despite his refusal, she still made him own up to his promise. He went with her but he felt like if something was seriously wrong. He ran into some of Bellas friends and instead of trying to avoid them he greeted them.

He looked at his reflection in the glass behind the bar and felt like he was looking at a completely different person. He and Isabel talked about what had happened the night before. Everything he did as well as everything he took. Maybe what he felt was a side effect of all of those chemicals that entered his body, so he  brushed it off and figured it would wear off eventually but it never did.

He knew he should feel bad because of Bella but he didn't. Isabel was with him and for the first time ever she looked appealing to him. He wanted her but how could he get her to do what he wanted. It took him a while to get it right but he somehow managed to fake being sad. He began to fake more and more emotions and eventually got her sympathy. She wanted nothing more than to make her friend stop crying. She wanted to help him and so she did what she felt would make him forget about Bella. 

He continued to go out time and time again but despite everything he still couldn't feel anything. He didn't feel sad about what Bella had done. He didn't regret having lied to Isabel to get her to lay with him. He didn't feel anything and it wasn't just towards them. It was with everyone. He couldn't feel anything anymore. It was as if all of his emotions had just disappeared.

Without his emotions holding him back he grew more and more cynical. He no longer cared for the people around him, he merely saw them as tools of entertainment. Life was but a game of chess to him and in chess there is only one king.

While he struggled at first, he eventually rationalized his experience with Bella as him just having lost a game and he vowed never to lose again, but he couldn't do this without feeling anything so he began to learn everything he could in order to fake them. It wasn't too hard for him. He had experienced every single one and he even learned how to read them. He would use this to his advantage. He had new weapons at his disposal and he was going to unleash them all on Bellas friends for he planned to one day challenge her to a rematch.

Being emotionless meant he didn't have to worry about anything. He could manipulate people into doing what he wanted. He could control them. He began to amass a bit of a following. Bellas friends were no longer her friends. They were now loyal to him and he used them to keep tabs on her and anyone else he felt like messing with. His biggest follower was of course Mike. Mike looked up to him. He wanted to be like him. Mike idolized him just like he once idolized Bella.