“So glad I just decided to pull out an old favorite for the dance tomorrow,” Dorian admitted. “Still fits and is probably one of my favorite costumes....”
“I think most of us are, Dorian,” Adelaide pointed out. “Not a lot of us have a reason to get something completely new for this, do we?” He shrugged and looked to Reina. Her smirk told him that she was still set in her choice, and how she knew his secret might get out eventually. “Anyway, I think it’s nice that we’re meeting up for actual Halloween. I mean...we all pitched in some funds, didn’t we?”
“Yeah,” Wolfgang agreed. “Good thing I know that place where we can rent a room for a few hours at a good price.”
“How did you find that place, by the way?” Analisse asked.
“Cousin of mine mentioned it. Said she and some her friends had gotten a room for one of their birthday’s or something like that,” Wolfgang answered. “She told me about it just in case...guess now I’ve got a pretty good reason to bring it up now.” With their agreements, Dorian felt a tap on his shoulder, looking at whoever it was.
“Yes?”
“I was asked to come over and get you,” they said, pointing back the way they’d come. “That girl over their wants to talk to you....” They all shied away from Dorian as his gaze hardened as his eyes rested on Cass in the distance of the courtyard.
“Dorian?” Reina began, putting a hand on his shoulder. She could feel the tightness of his muscles and almost the pounding of his blood as his anger came to a boil. When he turned back to them, his eyes were closed, and he could feel their concerned looks. They had all heard about Cass since Dorian felt like he’d owed them an explanation, so they kinda knew what had happened. Didn’t stop them from being worried about him right now as he tried to keep his breathing steady and his head on straight.
“Fuck it,” he sneered, opening his eyes. The others actually moved a step back at the look in his eyes as he turned on his heel and walked over to Cass. “Thought you told me to stay out of your life...?”
“Hello to you too, sourpuss,” she smiled. About a year ago, that smile would have made him melt and his hear flutter...not anymore. “Can’t I have a change of heart?” Dorian huffed, pulling out a sucker and sticking it in his mouth to avoid what he actually wanted to say. “You wouldn’t happen to have another, would you?”
“No,” he said, curtly. Cass’s expression turned a little hurt at his cold demeanor, but Dorian didn’t care. He doubted it was genuine, anyway. “Is there something you actually want to say, or did I just walk away from my friends for no good reason?”
“Why are you being such an ass?” Cass demanded. “What did I do to you?” Dorian’s fists clenched so tightly that he could feel his nails digging into his palms...and a slight trickle of blood. “What happened to the guy I fell in love with...?”
“What happened to the girl I fell in love with, huh?” he countered. “The girl who told me that I meant the world to her? The girl who put up with my terrible sense of humor and who I really felt cared about me, huh?” He sighed and turned away. “Listen, we parted ways about a year ago...just...leave me alone.” He started to walk away but felt a tug on his bag, telling him that he might not have a choice.
Gripping the strap of his bag tightly, he swung it around, ripping it from Cass’s hands and almost throwing her to the ground. He looked over his shoulder at her hateful expression and returned her glare. “You’re really not going to give up, are you?”
“Because I want to talk to you, but you’re not giving me the chance!” she raged. While the courtyard was pretty empty, a few people had started to look over at them, especially at her outbursts. Others made a smarter move and left. “Don’t even know why I bothered, really. You’ve changed, Dorian. Not sure what I expected from the guy who left me....” Something snapped inside Dorian, resulting in a very audible crunch from his sucker.
“I left you?” he started, turning back to her. “You’re really that delusional, aren’t you? You’re really so in your own world and believe that you can’t do anything wrong that you’d ignore the fact that you cheated on me....” Her eyes widened in shock and she opened her mouth to say something but never gave her the chance. “Don’t you fucking DARE try and lie to me. Ian told me everything...a month or after the fact, but he still told me. After our fight....”
“How do you know he wasn’t just trying to make me look bad?” she demanded, finding some courage. “Huh? You’d trust him?”
“You really think I wouldn’t see if the story was true?” Dorian sneered, flicking his sucker stick into the nearest trashcan. “And yes, I trust my friends. At least they have the decency to talk things out with me rather than telling me they never want to see me again. That’s what mature people do....” He turned away and took a step before looking back. “And even after all that you did...you still couldn’t handle yourself and just had to chase me.” Yet more surprise washed across Cass’s face along with the pain which Dorian felt a little too happy with.
“How can you be sure?” she asked, her voice on the verge of breaking. “How can you be sure that I’m chasing you?” If Dorian had just been a tad more over the edge, he wouldn’t have taken a moment to consider his answer. His eyes flicked towards all the bystanders around, meeting Reina’s eyes. “What’s the matter? Finally accepting that maybe you were wrong for once?”
“I’ve been wrong before,” Dorian admitted, having made his decision. “But I’m not wrong about this...you came to a cosplay event.”
“So?”
“You never came to an event with me,” Dorian pointed out. “Not once in the time we were together did you ever come to one with me, instead asking for pictures from friends. Even after I made you cosplay to go with mine, you always just told me to take someone else....” Now the surprise was universal around the courtyard. “And yet, my sister said you just so happened to be at an event I was at with someone...just a coincidence, right?”
“That,” Cass began. “That doesn’t mean, anything! Maybe I changed my mind....” Dorian’s flat expression quieted her.
“You know how much I hate it when people lie to me,” he said. “You couldn’t deal with your own problems, so you came back to me, thinking I’d just melt back into your hands if you bat those pretty little eyelashes. Well...tough, but I do want to tell you something.”
“What?”
“It’s not that I stopped loving you,” Dorian admitted. “I’m not sure if I ever did, but I stopped loving who you are. You expect everything to just fall your way and when you’re suddenly not the center of attention anymore, you can’t stoop low enough. And yeah, I just gave the school a secret I clutched to my chest since the day I got here, but you know what? I don’t care anymore. There are people at this school who I care about, and who I hope care enough about me to tell them this.”
He turned in a circle to look at everyone. “For those of you who didn’t get it, I don’t just cosplay, but I make my own and am damn proud of the work I do!” The smile that now crossed his face spread confusion to everyone but Reina who, while smiling as well, could see that it was just a front. “And guess what else? I think I’ve found a girl I like here at Sacred Heart, so you’ve come all this way for nothing!” Now Reina felt confused...Dorian hadn’t mentioned anything to her about that, and it wasn’t that she hadn’t asked him either.
The look on Dorian’s face had gone from anger to almost apathetic but now...it made people concerned. The look in his eye combined with the smile on his face was evidence enough that Dorian wasn’t thinking entirely straight anymore and wasn’t trying to. He’d snapped just a bit, apparently wanting to get this off his chest for a while. “Y’know...I was trying to get into Sacred Heart for us...planning for the future...good to know all my hard work is paying off for the right person....”
With that biting comment, he walked away, not back to the group but just walking away. He’d just shown what he considered to be the worst part of himself, a major part of the reason he wasn’t looking to date alongside what happened when he’d been pushed...pent up anger towards what had happened between him and Cass. An immature part of him that he knew was always there, but that he’d done nothing with.
“Dorian?” Reina had somehow crept up to him, a look of concern on her face. He looked away from her, not wanting to meet her gaze. “Dorian...are you...are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just...I guess I was just tired of avoiding her. I’ve had that in the back of my mind for so long, just having no one I could pour all that out to.” He looked at her and offered a weak smile. “Except you, of course....” She went over to him, wrapping her arms around him. He could feel her doing the thing when they’d shared his bed on her first stream with him, trying to calm him down. “I’m sorry you had to hear that...if you could follow any of what I said.”
“You’re human, Dorian,” she told him. “You can’t have total control over your emotions, and sometimes you just get pushed too far...you just reached your breaking point.” Slowly, he wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve never seen you like that....”
“It’s not something I do often,” he explained. “It usually takes a lot to push me to that point, much less push me over the edge to make me snap...Cass just gave me that little push.” They stood there for a while, just enjoying the feeling of each other and the quiet. “I gave out some secrets to everyone in the courtyard, didn’t I?”
“You kinda did,” she agreed. “But if anyone gives you any grief over it...just tell me, and I’ll deal with it.” Dorian chuckled, knowing full well that she would be willing to throw hands with anyone who she thought needed it. “You think you’re okay to go back to the others?”
“Just a little more?” he asked. She smiled up at him and gently tightened her hold on him.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
