Better Than Revenge 

Chapter 19

I was probably disrupting all of my neighbors with my yelling, but I didn’t care. I was beyond mad. I had never been as completely furious in my entire life as I was at that moment. 

How dare he? How dare he make up such a filthy lie? That was just low. Nothing I had ever done to him was as bad as what he just did to me. 

“Soph, don’t do anything you might regret later,” Tori pleaded, holding onto my arm to stop my agitated pacing. “I know you’re mad, but whatever it is you’re planning on doing right now probably isn’t the best idea. You’re too worked up.” 

“Tori, what is that you expect me to do?” I demanded shrilly. “Stay put and do absolutely nothing? Get real. Were you not watching?” 

“I know what he did was low and it was horrible, but don’t sink to his level,” she continued slowly, tugging on my arm. I knew admitting that something Christian Ryder did was horrible was most likely a painful feat for Tori. She had him on a pedestal so high, almost nothing could touch him. This was one of the few things that could. I didn’t feel very bad, though. It was time she saw him in a new and more accurate light. “You’re better than this! Be the bigger person and let this go.” 

“I can’t let this go. You know very well that I hold grudges like the freaking Grudge herself.” I shrugged out of her grip. “And if I do nothing, he’ll take it as a sign that he’s won, that he’s somehow stronger than me because of it. And I’m not having that.” 

“I’m sure that isn’t true,” she cried, becoming desperate. There was just no getting through to me. 

“No, it is,” I insisted stubbornly. “I told him right from the start that if he did something to get back at me for my indiscretion, he would regret it. I have to make good on my threat. I promised him he’d regret it. And he will. Oh, he will.” 

“What are you going to do?” she asked after a moment, looking at me thoughtfully. 

I shrugged. “Right now?” I took my phone out of my pocket and glared at it. “Right now, I’m going to call Christian and let him have it.” 

As I had expected, Christian ignored each and every one of my calls. And there were seventeen of them that each lasted a total of two rings, so I knew he was ignoring my calls. 

“He’s probably not going to answer…” Tori trailed off uncertainly. “He knows you’re mad.” 

“Of course he’s not going to answer. And I don’t blame him. I probably wouldn’t answer either if I were him. But I have many, many things to say to him.” I could feel my ears turning red with anger, so I took in a deep breath and slowly let it out in an effort to calm myself down. 

“But he’s not answering,” she pointed out, biting her lip. “What are you going to do now?” 

“I’m going to pay him a little visit, then,” I resolved, grabbing my car keys off of my desk. “And no, this isn’t a good moment for you to come with me, Tori.” 

Tori sighed in defeat. “Fine. I can live with that. I don’t think I’d want to go, anyways. But you know, maybe it would be best if you waited until tomorrow. You’re really too riled up right now. You’re not thinking logically.” 

“No way,” I protested immediately. “I’m letting him have it tonight. He’s not getting off the hook so easily!” 

“Soph—” she began quickly, but I ignored her. I had already made up my mind. I ignored her protests and threw a hoodie on, using it to hide my face. I stalked out of my room and out of our apartment, heading towards my car. 

I knew it probably wasn’t such a good idea to drive while I was so worked up, as Tori had said, but at that moment, I felt like there was no other choice. I had to do something about this. I was too mad to let it go. 

When I got to Christian’s house, he wouldn’t open the gates. Well, technically, he wouldn’t let the man who was monitoring the gates open them. He had probably made sure to warn the guy about me, most likely having guessed that in my fury, I might pay him a visit. 

So you see, I had no other choice but to climb over the gates. I was pretty sure it was illegal since I was technically trespassing, but oh, well. I managed to do it without alerting the guy monitoring the gates by leaving my car on a setting that made it honk incessantly, distracting him and allowing me to slip by undetected. 

I felt so cool. I felt like a spy, or like Jackie Chan. 

I wasn’t surprised when Christian didn’t open his front door, either. He was probably freaking out because I was crazy enough to risk being imprisoned and climb the gates. 

All I had to say to that was never underestimate a furious eighteen year old drama queen. 

Christian, however, being the inane oaf that he was, left a spare key in the most obvious of places: inside a plant on his front porch. Maybe it was the fact that I had seen that hiding place on television many times before. Or maybe it was the fact that it was the only potted plant on his entire property. 

To say he was surprised when I broke into his house and barge into his living room would be a severe understatement. 

“What the hell?” he exclaimed in horror, standing up. 

I didn’t care that I probably looked insane, I didn’t care that he had company, and I didn’t care that it was past midnight. I was too angry to care about my appearance, his company was only Blake, and time was irrelevant to me at the moment. 

And actually, Blake was probably over there laughing over what was said on Hollywood Tonight with Christian. Something told me this was partly his idea, if their giggling on set the day before told me anything. 

Bastards. 

“Who the hell do you think you are?” I shrieked angrily at him, getting right down to business. He flinched away. He hadn’t expected me to explode like this so suddenly. That much was clear. I stalked over to where he stood. “You had no right to make such a horrid accusation!”

“What, it isn’t true?” He had composed himself and was now smirking smugly at me. 

Impulsively, I reached out and slapped him hard, right in the face. “Of course it’s not true, you sick, disgusting pig!” I snapped venomously. 

I heard an amused snort from the couch, but I ignored it. 

“Ouch,” Christian muttered, rubbing his cheek. 

“You don’t even realize what you did!” I shrieked, pointing a finger at him. I paid no notice to the dirty looks he was giving me. He was probably angry because my action had left Blake on the floor, laughing hysterically and uncontrollably. I had embarrassed him in front of his best friend. 

Boo hoo. 

“Doesn’t this feel like déjà vu, Soph?” Christian asked suddenly. 

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t you dare try to turn this around on me! What I did was nowhere near as bad as what you did to me!” 

“That’s such a lie,” he retorted, shaking his head. 

“No, it isn’t!” I shrieked in aggravation. “I said the truth. Sure, it was on national TV, and sure, it caused tons of problems, but it was the truth. What you said was a total lie and is going to cause so many problems that I don’t need and aren’t necessary! What I said only got you what you deserved. You deserved what happened to you!” 

“And you don’t deserve this?” he demanded angrily. 

“No, I don’t!” I shot back viciously. “Don’t you realize, you insensitive buffoon? Herpes isn’t something you want to be known for having!” 

“Neither is being known for having multiple girlfriends! But you didn’t think about that before acting, did you?” 

“But that was true!” I groaned in frustration. “And being known as a womanizer is heavenly compared to being known as some whore with herpes! People are going to start comparing me to Ke$ha! Something like this has the power to destroy my career, and my career has barely even started! Don’t you see what you’ve done?” 

“You’re being overly dramatic, Soph.” 

“No, I’m not! And you know, this explains the cryptic comments I’ve been getting from people, and the weird text I got today… it’s your entire fault!” I had gotten a text that day from one of my exes that asked if I “had it when I dated him”. I hadn’t known what “it” meant when I got the text, so I asked him. He didn’t reply. 

Now I knew. 

“Well, it’s your fault that things went this far. You had no business saying anything about my personal life on national TV in the first place. And I didn’t even tell you that stuff! You just found it out while spying on me or something.” 

Blake, for once, was being completely silent. He was content merely observing our little exchange. 

I laughed darkly and said, “This far? You haven’t seen anything yet, Hot-Shot. What you did is nothing compared to what I’m going to do.” 

Christian looked at me warily. “What are you going to do?” 

“Now, why on earth would I tell you?” I snorted in amusement. 

“You better watch yourself,” he snapped angrily, trying to play the big, scary man, “or you’re going to wish you’d never met me.” 

“I already do,” I pointed out bitterly. “And it’s not me that’s going to regret anything.” 

“Oh, really?” Christian challenged. 

“Really. It’s you.” I smirked, finally having controlled my anger. “You’re going to wish you hadn’t done this. You’re going to regret this, Christian Ryder. I guarantee that. There is nothing I do better than revenge.” 

“Having seen your acting, I believe that,” Christian snarkily commented. 

I ignored this jab and smirked instead. “Scared, are we?” 

I knew he would deny it, of course, but I also knew that it was true. And as expected, he immediately denied it. “I’m not scared. Scared of you? Hah.” 

“Oh, but you will be,” I said, glaring at him. “You have no idea of what I’m capable of. This is war.” 

“I thought this was already war,” he pointed out, putting on a smug façade. 

“Oh, I did, too,” I replied, nodding once. “But now I see that I was wrong. That was nothing compared to this. Now it’s on. Now it’s war.” 

And with that, I stalked out angrily. The last thing I heard was Blake saying, “Dude, you’re screwed.” 

I slammed the door on my way out and took his spare key with me. It might come in handy sometime in the figure. 

Climbing the gate was much easier this time, probably because I didn’t have to worry about the guy who was monitoring the gates. He already knew that I had snuck past him and he had no choice but to let me leave. The fact that I wasn’t fuming probably helped, too. Anger can be pretty blinding. Of course, I was still angry, but I had a way to deal with my anger now. 

 I had thought up my revenge. 

“What are you going to do?” Tori asked warily when I got back to our apartment. 

“Nothing too bad,” I responded with a small smirk. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“Don’t go overboard… I know he would deserve it, but it’s only going to cause more problems than there already are!” 

I just waved her off and went to bed, the plan developing even further in my head. 

***

Now, normally, I would have found some more dirt on Christian, and retaliated with that. But see, I couldn’t really do that now that Christian had decided to play dirty. I would most likely lose this war if I did. Whatever Christian would imagine next would probably be much worse than the dirt I could manage to find on him. 

So instead, I decided to play the same game he was playing. He wanted to play dirty? I could play dirty right back. 

This was how my revenge came to mind. It was quite clever, in my opinion, although something told me Christian wouldn’t agree. 

I got to work bright and early that next morning. I logged onto my laptop and ate some breakfast while the program I had just found downloaded. 

When it finally finished loading, I got started. I looked for a picture of a cute guy on the internet. Once I found a suitable one, I photo-shopped it until it was unrecognizable to anyone who knew the random guy. 

I then began looking through Christian’s camera for a decent picture. When he hadn’t been looking last night when I paid him a visit, I snatched his camera. I hadn’t thought of the plan at that moment, but I did have an idea. 

Tori walked by all of a sudden, yawning loudly. While she was doing this, she backtracked, walking up behind me. “What are you doing?” she glanced at me suspiciously. 

I just smirked and said, “I’m working on a little project.” 

Tori sighed loudly, admitting defeat. She knew there was no getting through to me. “Oh, Soph… what are you up to? Do you realize what you’re doing?” 

“Of course,” I replied with a smug smile. “Don’t worry, Tori. I’ve got this under control.” 

Tori groaned. “Why are you so stubborn?”

I just shrugged and got back to work. I was half-way done with my little project when I had to leave to go to work. I saved my progress and shut down my laptop, locking it with a password. I knew Tori would try to see what I was up to but I didn’t consider it safe to take the laptop with me on set, either. So I just settled for leaving it in my room, locked with a password she would never crack. 

Christian eyed me warily the entire time once I got to the set of Kidnap My Heart. He loosened up only when he had to be in a scene. He was wondering when and how I was going to strike. 

I just acted like nothing had happened. It was hard to keep this level of control when some stupid intern made a comment about the herpes rumor, however. 

“I heard you have herpes.” The intern smirked at me. 

“I heard you’ve never even had the opportunity to have it since you have yet to get laid.” 

He didn’t say anything after this. 

Because I played off the rude comment, Christian loosened up, probably hoping I had forgotten all about what had happened. 

This annoyed me so much that as soon as I got back to my apartment, I finished my little project. 

I smirked at the finished product. “Oh, the press is going to love this. I can see the headlines now: Anonymous Source Sends Shocking Picture In. Does Christian Ryder Have a Boyfriend? How scandalous.” 

With one last evil giggle, I hit “send”, looking forward to tomorrow.

 ***

LOLOLOLOL. Don't even ask me how I got the idea for her revenge. xD It was totally random.

But anyways.

I hope it was evil enough for you guys. 

And Christian's reaction is coming up in the next chapter... along with, possibly, his revenge.

Hope you guys liked it! This chapter was super fun to write. :D 

VOTE.COMMENT.FAN.