//..the battle's in your hands now, but I would lay my armour down if you say you'd rather love than fight..// Taylor Swift.

"You wore the dress he bought you on a date with another guy?" Jenna repeated with an amused little laugh as they stood in line for their sandwiches and a watered down version of strawberry shakes the college cafeteria served.

Claire who had gotten hers, stood to the side with her tray, semi-glaring at Bella. She eyed her from the corner of her eyes, daring her to antagonise when she doesn't know the half of it.

After the way Iverson ran out of the house like his tail was on fire, leaving her afire, embarrassed and alone to deal with Daniel, she have no regret whatsoever going on that date with Derrick.

If anything she regretted getting carried away and allowing him to be the first to hit her in the face with those stupid words. 'I'm sorry Blue, I don't know what came over me. I wasn't thinking'

Bella has had three days to think about what the hell he meant with those words and she was still coming up short. Was he really that drunk? The coward hasn't been home since then and Bella's routine sleepless night was slowly creeping back in.

"I don't know if to cry or laugh." Jenna said again, collecting her tray of food over the counter and moving aside for Bella to do the same. "Girl that was badáss, I think that on its own is revenge enough."

"Derrick is a fúckboy, you are going to regret this." Claire added with a dismissive shrug.

"Derrick is in fact a nicer guy than Iverson will ever be. Derrick is honest, straight forward and so much fun." Bella said defensively. When it came to Iverson, Claire was the human version of a headache.

"Woohoo!" Jenna exclaimed as they made their way to a vacant booth. "Is that the color of love in your eyes?" She teased.

"I'm not in love with him, I'm just saying he is a nice guy."

"You wont know what love is even if it taps you on the nose." Claire scoffed, taking her seat beside Jenna, across from Bella. "So you're just using Der to get your revenge on Iverson, a guy who has done nothing but been kind to you and..."

"Not today devil." Bella seethed, her tolerance level finally at it brink.

"You don't know what it felt like having the one person you trust betray you, you didn't deal with that feeling of rejection and not just from him but everyone else. You weren't made a laughing stock, labeled an outcast, people calling you different nasty names to your face every single day, the loneliness, the depression? Until you have an idea what those feel like, I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself."

"Gee," Claire said with a full mouth, then quickly swallowed it down.

"Okay, let's take a chill pill now shall we?" Jenna said but got ignored.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side, twenty years later, you'll still be out for my blood." Claire said. "What does a guy have to do to be forgiven? Serve you his bloody heart on a plate of lettuce? You were depressed, big fúcking deal. A lot of people suffered depression with no one to blame it on and you were at that age, someone could have called you ugly in the confines of your own home and you'll still get depress! You obviously didn't die, get over it."

"Well I'm not getting over it! No one is forcing you to be my friend!" Bella yelled, her eyes misting over.

"That's enough." Jenna snapped the moment Claire opened her mouth again. "You are out of line Claire. Every little feeling is valid and you can't judge that, not even.."

"I'm not saying her feelings weren't valid but weren't here is the keyword. It's in the past! And Derrick? What has he done to her that she's leading him on, using him.."

"I'm not using any..."

"What are you both doing after class?" Jenna chimed in with forced enthusiasm. "I don't have work today, we can hang out at my place and make that banana cake you've always wanted."

"Biggie is taking me to the beach." Claire said grumpily.

"I need to complete my project on the Babylonians." Bella said in the same tone, eyes casted on her tray but she already lost appetite. If Claire's words hurt this much, it must be because there were elements of truth to it. But why did he told her Jasmine was a good girl and she wasn't worth shít that one time? Why has he never directly apologised for what happened?

Jenna gave a loud resignation sound. "Cool, I'm friendless."

Why did he looked at her with that much regret after kissing her? Why did he gave her those wild crazy eyes as if he had only kissed her because he thought she was someone else?

"You can come with Biggie and..."

"Hey bae." Biggie's voice interrupted Claire's offer, he walked to their table with a big warm smile for his girlfriend and though her eyes lit up on seeing him, he still felt the tension in her body.

She stood and he pulled her to him by the waist. "Alright, whoever is stressing my babe out should report herself to the nearest police station asap." He joked before kissing her until she relaxed into his body.

Jenna watched and rolled her eyes. "Let's keep this PG13 please."

"Hey bae?" Another voice said directly at Bella, although she knew someone was standing beside her, she was just too busy glaring at her sandwich to look up.

"Bella? You okay?" The voice asked again, sliding into the seat beside her. She finally looked up to see Derrick's concerned ey...

"Hey!" She exclaimed, taking in his fading black eye and a split lower lip. "What happened to you?"

Derrick smiled and rubbed his lip with a thumb. "Your roommate happened."

"Iverson?" She queried but waited for no confirmation. "Oh my God, is he alright?" She asked with wide worried eyes. Derrick's eyes danced with amusement at her swift change of concern.

"You are right to be worried about him." He smirked at her. "Cause the doctors said he has to come out of coma first before they can tell for sure what..." He bursted into laughs midway and Biggie chuckled at the instant discolouration of her face. "Breath Bella, he is fine. I'm only kidding."

"As if she care either way." Claire murmured under her breathe, sitting on Biggie's laps and feeding him her French fries.

"Why did he hit you?" Jenna wanted to know.

Derrick laughed and picked Bella's strawberry shake from her tray. "Apparently, you and I had sex on our first date?" He asked her, she groaned and covered her face with her palms. Derrick laughed some more. "I don't know why he was at my place that same night but he came and I was with...someone else, you know? I already told you how I roll, but he saw her and just went berserk."

"He was there to ask you to buy another set of roses for Bella since he destroyed the first ones in rage and according to him, she cherished them because they came from you." Biggie supplied.

"Whoa, really now?" Derrick asked, nudging her knee with his. "Is there something I should know?"

"W,where is he?" She asked, her face felt like it was freshly out of the oven.

"You have to ask him that." Derrick pointed at Biggie, the amusing glint in his eyes suddenly disappeared. "He is more his twin than I am."

"Don't be bitter, you are the one who wanted to fly solo." Biggie shrugged before sipping from the cup Claire held to his mouth.

"Bitter?" Claire questioned him. "You think Der is bitter? Have you met Bella?"

"Where. Is. He?" Bella gritted out, another breath away from jumping over the table and throttling Claire with her bare hands.

Biggie looked between the two in confusion but made a mental note to ask Claire about it later. "He is at the beach, me and Claire are actually going to meet him in a while...do you want to come?"

"No way," Claire disagreed. "She has to finish her assignment with the Romania or whatever."

"I'll come." Bella declared. "My project can survive another day thank you very much."

**

Biggie has the messiest car Bella have ever seen, she cautiously looked around the backseat for any crawling thing among the dozen Starbucks Styrofoam cups, the loads of scattered A4 papers, handouts and textbooks and just about a hundred empty packets of cigarette.

"Just push everything to the side and make yourself comfortable." He called to her from the driver seat. He and Claire came for her outside her faculty building, Jenna already bailed and Derrick was not interested in the beach.

"Or you can change mind." Claire suggested sweetly. She wanted to, after all she still have no idea what she was going to do there but she'll go, if only to rile Claire up further.

She cleared a little space for herself and took her seat, a familiar ash Toshiba laptop caught her sight under the stack of A4 and she cleared it away to get a better view. "Uhm Biggie?" She said when she saw Harry Styles smiling back at her in the sticker pasted on it. "Why is my laptop in your car?"

He glanced at her over his shoulder with a frown. "Of course it's yours." He said after putting two and two together. "That little fúcker gave it to me to fix about two weeks ago. It's another reason we are going to the beach, to give it back. Did he poured coffee on it?"

"Uhm, no. I did, a long time ago before he moved in with us. I was watching a movie and Daniel startled me." She explained then bit her lip after. She hadn't even noticed it missing from the shelve in their living room. He did this for her, among other things.

On an equal scale, the amount of good he has done for her, far outweigh the bad. Why can't she just let it go? If she thought he cared less about her with Derrick, that doubt have been laid to rest with the new knowledge that he went all the way to Derrick's, so she could get her flowers back because she told him she had no use for his flowers.

Bella felt Claire's eyes on her as the wheel in her mind continuously churned. Both her friend and Daniel have told her the same thing, to let the past go and embrace the present.

She'll stop denying the simple truth that she still have feelings for him. His kisses, his touches, the words he whispered to her, they all seem imprinted into her soul with fire. All she had to do was remember it and she'd be a hot mess all over.

She spent half of her sleepless night, cruising Marie Ivy's Instagram page, sorting out and screen shoting all the shirtless male model body she could now mentally put a face to.

The prickling sensation of someone glaring at her intensified and she lifted her eyes to find the source, locking eyes with Claire through the rearview mirror.

"Fine, you win! I give up." She threw her hands up in the universal sigh of surrender. "I've been a brat for no solid reason and I'm letting it go. I promise."

A slow smile crept unto Claire's face and only got wider.

Again Biggie looked between them in confusion and then rolled his eyes when Bella smiled back and a sort of understanding and agreement passed between the two without another word from either of them.

"It's just women Biggie, there's nothing weird here." He said out loud to himself.

**

Bella and Claire quickly removed their shoes and carried it in their hands once they got to the beach, Biggie followed behind them with the laptop he repaired.

The urge to jumped up and down in pure exhilaration was irresistible for Bella, now that she decided to lay the past to rest, it felt like a huge weight was lifted off of her shoulders and for the first time in forever, she felt...free.

Maybe it was the beach, the warm breeze, the smell of the sea, the feel of the blistering sand beneath her feet, the butterflies fluttering in her stomach with the thought of seeing him again.

"Oi, oi." She shouted into the air as she jumped like a mad woman and earned a laugh from both Biggie and Claire.

She happily blew a kisses to a beach buggy parked on the side.  They walked along the shore towards the other end where a few camping tents were scattered, each time the waves rolls by, she and Claire would run towards it with wide arms as if for an embrace, only to run back half way through, shrieking like hyaenas.

They were preparing for another crazy round when she saw him.

Iverson stood shirtless at the other end, his head thrown back in laughter and his hands were buried in the pocket of his green brief. A tall girl stood beside him in a short yellow sundress, she was laughing with him and one of her hands was resting on his bicep.

Bella's nose might have flared at the disturbing image, a strange chillness might have settled on her and violent thought might be swirling around her head.

"Who is that?" Claire asked Biggie, obviously seeing what Bella saw.

Biggie followed their gaze and pulsed his lips, maybe he should have informed Iverson he was bringing Bella.

"Erh that, I'm not sure." He said, scratching his arm awkwardly.

Bella began to approach them with Claire matching behind her like an army. She wasn't going to shy away this time, this wasn't highschool and frankly she was fed up with the tiring game of who would break first.

If he truly had any feelings for her like he said, she was going to find out, right there and then. She was going to get answers, if he only said it because he was truly drunk and had mistook her for another person, she was going to find that out too and she was going to be a big girl about whatever the outcome was.

She ignored the phone vibrating in her pocket because her blood was vibrating in her veins too and her mind was focused on one word and one word only: manslaughter.