vexatious (infuriating sequel)

chapter seventy-four

"hello?" i call out when i reach the inside of my house. the air inside is dense, and warmer than usual. my heart is beating quick as ever, and i quickly rush to the living room upstairs, looking to find aaron, corey, or anyone at all in the dead silent house. it's almost too quiet to be real life. did i fall asleep in the car? is this just a dream?

"hello?" i call again before running into katrina and julia, who followed me quickly, into my house. we make eye contact for a second, and katrina holds a suspicious facial expression.

"have you checked in coreys room?" she urges me, and it is now that i notice her phone sticking out of the pocket of her hoodie. sam did the exact same thing when him and colby pretended someone broke into my apartment with tara. it didn't make sense why katrina would drive me all the way home instead of taking me back to sams to get my car, but i get it now. aaron isn't actually hurt, it's some sort of a prank. and i'm gonna give them a reaction they don't expect, since they think they can prank me again.

"no, let's go," i rush down the hall and knock on coreys door, loud. no response. when i force the door open, not wasting any time, i see aaron sprawled across the floor in front of corey's bed. his position looks unnatural, as if he had fallen over after taken a blow.

"what happened?" i ask corey, who is standing in the corner of his room. i get down on my knees to investigate aaron, who is clearly faking his injury upon further inspection. there is fake blood on his face, but the way his eyelids are twitching give him away. he's wide awake, and i'm not a complete idiot. maybe if he was face down, he'd have a better chance at fooling me.

"i... he... he was talking about devyn and i... i messed up..." i have to admit, corey's acting is a little too spot on for my liking. aaron couldn't be any more obvious, but the way coreys voice breaks and bends to his words almost has me reconsidering my judgments. when i make eye contact with a camera in the corner of the room, a small red light blinking on it, i have to remind myself that this isn't real. they couldn't be any more obvious about this.

"you hurt him?!" i force my eyes to go wide, even though i am not phased by any of this.

"i didn't mean to!"

"he's unconscious! what the fuck do you mean you didn't mean to!" i yell out and he backs up in surrender to my volume. i didn't know it was that easy to intimidate him. i admit, the vulgar word is unnatural coming out of my mouth, and i'll have to tell amara to make sure my mother doesn't watch this video when it inevitably ends up on the internet.

"he was talking about her!" he defends his actions that he didn't really partake in. why would he hurt aaron over that? i hope it's just an act, because i'd like to think all of us are closer than to physically harm each other over some silly smack talk.

"you're sick! get out!" i yell again, straining my voice to get my point across. his mouth is wide open and he looks completely dumbfounded by my anger. i would never actually act this way. he must be shocked because this is definitely out of character for me. if this was real, i'd never react with such hostility. id probably be terrified and have an anxiety attack if i hadn't noticed the cameras and aaron's eyes.

"andro!" katrina jumps forward towards me when i step in corey's direction, cornering him. do these people honestly believe i'd ever step towards someone who knocked another guy unconscious?

"andro it's a prank!" she yells out and i can no longer fight my laugh. "i know! i saw the cameras!" i gush out and watch as they all sigh in relief. it was getting hard to keep up the act, i'm glad she tried to stop me, because i don't know what my next move would have been from there.

"prank gone wrong?" julia jokes from the doorway, and i smile at her. i watch as aaron gets up from his spot. "i knew she didn't believe me! i was about to laugh, but she started yelling at you and i had to keep pretending i was dead!"