Can't Compete

sixteen

"ARE YOU DUMB mad?" Christian barged into Ella's room. Ella looked at him from her laptop and waited for him to elaborate. "I just heard that you been out with Cap. In the HOOD. You fuckin' with the opps. This— No. This is not happening,"

"Opps?"

"The enemy." He slumped down at the end of her bed. "My scolatti, you bustin' it."

"You're not in a war. You don't have enemies,"

Christian sat up, looking at her as if she had two heads. "Ella. You are fucking with the same people that want to see me fail,"

"That's half of New York," she nonchalantly replied, turning her attention back down onto her laptop

"No. He— The fucker assassinates people,"

Ella looked up from her laptop. "Kill?"

"See, you been hanging around him and now you're dumb."

She kept the frown from forming, although it now made sense to her why he always clutched onto his gun like second skin. She would too if she knew how to use it and there were people out aiming for her to get their revenge. Then, she realised Christian killed people too and was wondering why he thought he could say anything against Cap.

"I was staying with him while you were in Miami because I didn't have anywhere else to go. I haven't seen him since he dropped me home the other day,"

"Nowhere else to go? This why I tell you to keep cash on you always, but your bougee ass wanna swipe your daddy's card." Christian crossed his arms and his face taut into an 'I told you so' look. "Next time, just go into my room and I keep stacks behind the photo of Lily and me."

"Lily and I," Ella corrected.

"My English bad. I get it."

She shrugged. "It would help if you stopped speaking slang,"

"I'm used to it. I can't be speaking proper at those hood boxing rounds, I'll be a clown."

"You are a clown."

Christian narrowed his eyes. "Anyways. If Ash finds out—"

"Nothing. If he were to find out, he has no business to say anything, just like how I have no business with him and that new girl," she cut him off.

"How you gon say that when we all friends,"

She shrugged. "Ashton and I were never friends. We dated and now it's over,"

If she was being honest, the mere mention of him brought heavy pain onto her heart. It also hurt her so much knowing his energy shifted every time she was around him. She believed they were soulmates, and it made sense the way their spirits connected with each other.

It was a beautiful bond that she tried to tether but still stayed intact, weakly.

"I think there's something you not telling me,"

Ella looked at Christian's eyes and questioned his loyalty. She sighed and eventually gave in with the winning debate that he was always there for her since diaper days.

"My father made me do it,"

"You saying your father made you strip half-naked and make out with a pedophile." He said, dryly. "Try again,"

"He made me break up with Ashton, and that was the only way I could think of to get rid of him without speaking because Ashton knows when I'm lying."

He's my other half, Ella dolefully thought.

Christian sucked in a breath. "So disgusting him and him thinking you a treesh is better. But why you didn't come to me?"