[Zach] You're The One, So I'll Make Sure I Behave

[Scarlet Rose Harris]

Scarlet walked down the steps of the entrance for the hotel she was staying at, looking over both of her shoulders to make sure no one in particular was following her. Back to the good ol’ days of continent hopping whenever her dad pissed her off.. why not? It’s not like Logan was her safety net anymore. Blake had made it very clear that she wasn’t going down without a fight, and neither of them wanted to put Logan through that. It was strange to think that not long ago at all, Collin had driven her to the airport and bought her a ticket for Paris. He didn’t even ask her why, he just did it. Scarlet had thrown all of her credit cards away and tossed her cell phone, making sure to only use cash everywhere and she had only stayed at each hotel for one night. In total she had only been there three nights, but.. whatever. Long enough for her father to have a heart attack for sure. Scarlet curled her fingers around the binding of her favorite book, The Beautiful and Damned, as she made her way down to the café where she was looking forward to enjoying a mimosa and some eggs benedict.

People could up and leave New York. They didn’t have to return, right? People restarted their lives all of the time, and honestly France wouldn’t be such a horrible place to do it. “ Merci beaucoup, “ she said quietly with a smile as the hostess showed her to her table on the edge of the street. She set her book down and took off her sunglasses before she sat down, crossing her legs and enjoying letting the sun shine down on her legs before she stretched them out a bit and picked her book back up. If only love was as simple as it was when Fitzgerald was the author. She loved Logan, she lost Logan. She knew she loved Zach now, but clearly she never really had him in the first place. ‘ Madame, Que puis-je vous commencez avec? ' the waitor asked, causing Scarlet to look up from her book right away and fold the corner of it into a bunny ear, " Oh, " she said to herself, realizing she had forgotten already that she was at a restauraunt. " J'aimerais un mimosa, s'il vous plaît. Et un ordre de Eggs Benedict. " she said with a polite smile. ‘Vous attendez-vous la société?’ the waitor questioned further and Scarlet shook her head slowly, " Non, juste moi, " she said back, watching as the waitor turned and walked away. If you ever lived in the spotlight, or had a controlling father, there was this odd feeling you could get, feeling like someone was watching you. Scarlet narrowed her eyebrows, feeling the familiar chill sweep through her spine. She sat up in her chair, looking over her shoulder as she tried to look for him, or anyone. After a second or two she picked her book back up and turned back towards her table, focusing on the pages in her book.

Outfit
Theme

[Zachary Adam Pierson]

Paris, France. Zach had never been there, until now. And he was not really prepared. He did not speak French, nor did he really ever have any desire to learn, but he sure as hell was learning fast. He had a translator app on his phone and a pocket English/French dictionary. But mostly he just talked slowly and made a lot of hand gestures. He learned what “Il est stupide,” meant pretty quickly. Of all the places in the damn world that Scarlet wanted to run off to, she couldn’t just run off to Mexico? Or Spain even? Zach was from Arizona, he knew Spanish pretty freaking well. French on the other hand, not so much. At all. But Lilah could only really trail Scarlet for so long before they realized Scarlet was going out of her way to put herself in dangerous situations, and Zach understood that Lilah could only take so much before she strangled Scarlet herself. So, as pissed off at her as he still was, because she wasn’t even with that Logan guy anyways and Zach couldn’t justify getting cheated on even if he used the term loosely, (because he was sure Scarlet would say they were, ‘not together,’) and while he still felt a lot of bitterness toward her, he still wasn’t going to let her fall off a balcony or jump in front of a car, both of which had almost happened. That was why he was in Paris. Scarlet had ended up here, pissed at her dad for some reason or another, and he wasn’t sure the exact reason but he was sure it was valid. So here, he was, for the past three nights, trailing Scarlet with nothing but his wits, eyes, and ears because she’d chucked her cell and her credit cards before she left. It was lucky Zach already knew who her friends were, all it took was a little questioning and Collin had dropped the word Paris. Once he got to Paris, that was an entirely different story, because one, he couldn’t speak French, two, he couldn’t read French, and three, he had no idea where the fuck anything was. The only thing that had legitimately helped him was hacking into the hotel computer systems. And he only stopped a gajillion times to thank baby Jesus that he knew how to hack computers. After he’d at least located her after the first night, it got a little easier. Knew her hotel room, and when she left, so he just trailed her on foot. It was funny, because she must have been a lot more conscious of being followed, checking over her shoulder more often than usual, but Zach stayed out of sight.

Scarlet was sitting at a little outdoor bistro, with her sunglasses on and a book, drinking mimosas and waiting for breakfast. How nice, how fun for her. Every time she crossed the street, went on a balcony, got in a strange car, talked to sketchy looking drug dealers, it just made him nervous. She was trying to fuckin get herself killed. Or get someone’s attention, most likely his. Well she had it, and while she was sitting there enjoying herself and reading and not having to worry about someone else’s well being, Zach was on the street corner a block down, eating a croissant and feeling miserable and grouchy because she was making this hell for him on purpose, she had to be. And he still could barely order anything off a menu. Point being, after three nights of this, he was spent. And while he had been still upset with her three days ago, now he was just so over being in a foreign country he didn’t even care who she slept with and when. It was put aside for the time being, as he got up and headed her way. Where his anger toward her had gone, he wasn’t sure, but he could put it aside. She had turned around, seemingly looking for someone, or something, so he sat down, there when she turned back around, “You are really wearing me out, and to make matters worse, I still haven’t mastered how to order food from these people.” Zach sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, watching her. She shouldn’t act so surprised to see him, she must know by now he had tailed her for months, he could tail her pretty much anywhere.

[Scarlet Rose Harris]

Scarlet jumped slightly from being startled when she saw Zach sitting at her table. Look at him. Sitting in that chair like he owned the damn place. “ GOD…..Damnit, Zach” she said, shutting her book before she tossed it on the table. “ Well what took you so fucking long? God damnit if I had to crawl into one more car I swear to God I was going to kill somebody,” she said leaning back into her seat. “ You think it would be easier to talk to a guy.. you know… when your father is paying him to be in your life.” she gave a curt smile before licking her lips and sighing as the waiter came back. “ Pardonnez-moi, peut-il avoir un ordre de gaufres?” she said , smiling to the server. “ Merci,” she continued before finally looking back at Zach. “ So since I have your attention.. let’s duke this out,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “ How exactly did it work? I mean.. getting me to fall for you, was that a bonus? On date nights did you run over to my daddy’s house to pick up your allowance? Oh… how about after we had sex. Did you get a big ol’ check for that one? Tell me… how much is one night with me worth? What’s the going rate these days?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him sarcastically as she pressed for questions. She picked up her mimosa, taking a drink of it before she set it back down against the table roughly and held up her finger. “ Oh, there’s more.. sweetheart..” she said, sitting up slightly until she took her mothers ring out of her back pocket and held it up with her elbow against the table.

“ Who the fuck do you think you are, getting angry at me for sleeping with Logan when you were LYING to me about who you were and carrying this around?” she questioned, lifting her eyebrow. “You have NO right to be mad at me for sleeping with Logan. You LIED to me about who you are. That negated the relationship. I was honest with you, about everything. And you hid who you were from me. So what makes my behavior worse? And don’t even pretend you haven’t knocked boots with anyone since then.” she said , tensing her finger around the ring. “ But to lie to me .. and to carry this around, Zach.. Seriously?” she questioned before she threw it directly at him. “ Who the hell do you think you are? Do you even know? Or are you too busy lying all the time and lurking in the shadows to even be able to recognize yourself anymore?”. She kept her eyes focused on him as the server set their plates down and then hurried away. Surely they were getting attention from everyone around them. But at this point, who gave a shit? “ Why did he give you that ring. Were you seriously the kind of guy that would have gotten engaged because someone signed off a check for you?.... Do you even know what my answer would have been?” she asked, pushing her plate away from herself. “Je t’aime, toujours. Et pour vous, il etait faux,” she said angrily, wishing now that she had more mimosa.

[Zachary Adam Pierson]

Zach raised his eyebrows, blinking a few times. What took him so long? He'd been here nearly as long as she had, it had not actually taken him long at all. What had taken him so long to actually talk to her...? Well letting his presence be known wasn't exactly ever in the game plan, he just hadn't anticipated being this hungry. But instead he responded calmly, "Okay so I figured that much correctly, you were trying to kill yourself on purpose." Scarlet bluntly added the fact that her father had been paying him, but Zach just rolled his eyes while she spoke to the waiter. He had no idea what she was saying, and wasn't sure if he should care. After the waiter left, Zach nodded in agreement, "Fine. Duke it out, go." All she had to complain about was about getting paid to sleep with her and pretend to love her and blah, blah. If he didn't actually love her he'd probably just say fuck it, but since he did really love her, he stayed put, still disgruntled, "Oh brother, that's really all you have to complain about..." She had no fucking idea about what his job duties were supposed to have been, and how it felt to watch your job go from a job to the farthest thing from a job as possible. She didn't know what he dealt with, knowing he wasn't ever supposed to even have spoken to her, but being glad that one day that he did, because otherwise he wouldn't have ever found love like this. They could easily never have met, she'd have never known he existed. They wouldn't have ever loved each other like they did, or at least he thought they had. And looking back, lying to her hadn't been his first choice, but the thought of lying to her and having her, in comparison to never having her... lying didn't seem so bad after all. She spoke as if he'd just gone right over to daddy's every night for his paycheck, like there was a price on her. Zach couldn't even tell someone what his going rate even was. He had no idea how much Mr. Harris paid him, and he didn't want to know.

Zach had the checks deposited directly to his account and Zach never saw them. He never really wanted to. Sure the first week alone he'd gone out and bought a bunch of random shit for his apartment just for the hell of it. But that had lost its appeal really fast. Zach hadn't spent a dime of it since. It was just sitting in his bank account, growing interest, just sitting on a bunch of money he didn't know what to do with, nor did he want it. Zach paid his bills with other side jobs and what not. He could get by with out this job. He just figured at first it'd be there when he decided he was ready to go back to college. That was all before he'd actually met Scarlet. Because after he met her, he usually forgot that he was even getting paid still, and for what, he didn't even know. He never saw Scarlet as a job after he met her. Mostly when Zach remembered how much money he was getting paid, he just figured he'd somehow spend it on something really nice for Scarlet, or donate it in her name, or something. What on earth else was he going to spend it on? A fancy car? He lived in New York, he walked every where. A big house? Who the fuck spent time pent up in their house when you were in a huge city? He didn't need a big place. He didn't want diamonds, or nice watches. He didn't really care about clothes, the ones he had were fine. He literally had too much money than he knew what to do with. Money had never been a thing he was working for, nor had be ever put a price on Scarlet, because putting a price tag on Scarlet was putting one on himself too. How much did it cost for Zach to actually fall for someone? He didn't need a paycheck to have feelings. Stupid. She just didn't get it. She underestimated how he felt. And to be fair, maybe if he was in her shoes, so would he. And wasn't he doing the same thing, playing down how she felt about him? He'd sat there and told himself she never loved him and he was an idiot to think so. Lies hurt, from both ends. Maybe they were both lying about how much it really hurt, how much they really actually cared.

And then on again with the lying. And he'd forgotten for a moment that she'd slept with Logan, thanks for reminding him. he had every right to be upset about it, regardless of circumstances, he was entitled to have feelings. And yeah, it stung. Maybe she thought he had no right to be mad, but he still was. Saying the relationship was negated was bullshit. If he felt something, it was real. There wasn't any use in denying they had a relationship, clearly they had, and just because it was built partially on a lie, didn't mean it hadn't been built. It'd been there, and he'd loved her like a fool, and she'd gone and slept with someone else. May have been an act of desperation, maybe out of anger, he didn't know. All Zach knew was that whatever she said he wasn't allowed to be, he couldn't control how he felt about it. Surely he tried to not look so downtrodden when she brought it up, but he was also sure he was failing miserably, sure his face showed he was still stung by it. "I never lied abut who I was, I'm still me. My name is still Zach Pierson, I still have a real sister named Zoe, you've been to my apartment, you've met my mother. I haven't hid myself from you at all, all I did was keep one aspect of my life under wraps so you wouldn't get freaked out, and you know what? I was right, as soon as you found out, you freaked." Scarlet had pulled out her mother's wedding ring, throwing it at him, Zach instinctively putting his hand up to block it from hitting him and it bounced off his palm, landing somewhere nearby but Zach wasn't sure. He didn't even respond. He knew who he was. She didn't have a right to question him about that, because he may have been confused about a lot, but if there was one thing he did know, it was who he was. No question there. He didn't have an identity crisis, not a, who am I, what does my life mean, what am I doing? No. He knew who he was and what he wanted. He was Zach. He was in between college choices, and he was okay with that. He had found a group of people who were, sure they were a little nuts, but they were good to him, like a family. They were encouraging, told him to keep school in his head, not to forget about going back. Told him that, no matter who told him you couldn't get out, they all knew he was temporary. Even Nonna had told him she knew he'd leave her dinner table eventually, said she knew he would be onto bigger and better things. He'd stumbled upon the mafia and they'd taken him in, but they saw him better then he did sometimes. They were just as willing to shove him back out to the world as they were to take him, and Zach knew that was uncommon and weird for people like them. Maybe they felt bad for him.

Zach shrugged, if he was going to be honest with her, he may as well start now, by answering why her dad even gave him that ring, "I'm not entirely sure why he gave it to me, I think he thought it would be good for his image if you looked like you were being more tame..." Zach paused, raising an eyebrow at her, adding matter of factly, "I basically told him I wasn't going to propose to you. Not on his terms. So no, I didn't carry it around, it's been in that drawer where you found it since he gave it to me. I wasn't about to ask you to marry me because your dad told me to. I wanted to do it on my own terms. I wanted to marry you because I wanted to, not for any other reason." Zach looked down at the plate of waffles that had just been set down in front of him, looking at them quizzically. "I don't know what your answer would have been, not at the time, not now, though now I'm a bit more skeptical to be honest. And I don't have any idea what you just said, unless that's what you were going for, in that case, well done. Which reminds me, I really don't know what you ordered, maybe you had these poisoned..." he shrugged, glancing at her. He didn't really know where he stood with her.

[Scarlet Rose Harris]

Scarlet picked at the edge of her book, The Beautiful and Damned. It had been her favorite book since she was about sixteen years old, and the copy on the table had been read so many times that the spine of the book was worn and the pages were all folded and torn a bit on the sides. The main character in the book struggled between meeting social expectations in his high society life which basically meant maintaining an image, all while trying to mask who he really was; lost. She took in a deep breath and sighed as she listened on and on as Zach spoke. She was almost too tired to even want to fight with him anymore. He was mentally exhausting. Falling in love was tiresome. Finding out the truth by watching him go all Chuck Norris had been ..traumatic? For lake of better terms. Running to Logan’s arms and having him choose Blake..again. Emotionally and mentally draining. Coming to Paris and trying to risk her life every second of the day in hopes that Zach would finally come out of the shadows.. that was just obvious as to why she was exhausted. And now that he was sitting across from her she just wanted to take a nap. Her heart sort of ached as he didn’t once deny having slept with anybody. She narrowed her eyebrows as she looked down at her book, wondering who it was. Some girl at a bar that was drunk and hitting on him? One of his friends? But she would never say anything, never open up and say how she felt about things like that. Instead she turned her neck to the side tiredly and let it pop before she licked her lips and sat back in her seat. “ That’s all fine and dandy. Taking the ring, not carrying it because you wanted to propose on your own terms and not his. But you took it. You took the ring, when you could’ve told him to shove it up his ass. And you’re letting him control it without even realizing it, it’s already his terms. You took it for a reason. You’re a logical person Zach, you think things through. If you didn’t want to propose to me already, you wouldn’t have taken the ring at all. So you were ready, and any time could have been the right moment, but it’s so close to when he gave you the ring and asked you to do it that you’ve convinced yourself that it would be going with his terms instead of your own. He’s still controlling the situation,” she said, more surprised with herself for talking about the subject so calmly than the fact that her father gave some mob kid her mothers ring. Which was now laying on the ground god knows where at this point.

“ If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t poison you. I’d poison myself,” she said, not registering completely that he was joking and was still taking him far too seriously since she was so tired. Scarlet felt the tears forming in her eyes before she even realized why it was happening. She was tired, and exhausted. Emotionally and physically, mentally. Any kind in her position – full time political science major while maintaining an upper eastside image would have been tired. Pile on the added stress of her own personal life and she felt like she was about to fall apart any second. The only person in her circle of friends that she felt could really relate was Mackenzie. Every single one of her friends in her life had a passion that could help them escape. Her hobby? Torturing her father. “ I’m so tired,” she said before she finally sniffled and then brought her hands up and wiped the tears away from her eyes. “This is not what you want to hear… “ she started off, knowing she was about to tread on touchy territory. “ When I was sixteen my entire life revolved around Logan, and he helped me live in the moment, not focus on too much, I could go to him with anything. He was everything that I needed him to be. And I can’t think him enough, and when things get rough and I get scared, he’s the person that I’m programmed to want to contact. But he’s not the same kid anymore. He’s this.. family guy with a successful business. “ she said, continuing to push her tears away. “ I am really good at pushing people away and keeping walls up. And you’re like this… pest that I just can’t.. get rid of,” she said out of frustration.

“ You have lied to me more than anyone else in my life. You do things that I had no idea you were even morally capable of. You lurk in the shadows. You can wield a knife like you were born with it and it’s a part of you…” she said, relaying the little information she’d been able to gather. He was good at fighting, quick on his feet and good with a knife. Literally all she got, thanks dad. Everything else was a mystery still pretty much. “ Logan was a lot of things I needed him to be, but I’m not the same little girl anymore. Just because I’m still lost doesn’t mean I’m the same. And that means I need different things. And you’ve.. I think more about the future than I used to, with you .. of what things could be .. “ Do not tell him you love him , that was one thing she knew she couldn’t say , even if she was saying everything else that might give off that impression. “ Just tell me what I’m supposed to do because I can’t do this anymore. I am too tired, I need to know. I don’t even care what the answer is anymore, I just need one for certain so that I can quit trying if it is all pointless. I am a mess. I have nothing figured out. I don’t know who I am. Or what I want other than you. But I could live without you, too. I could do it. I’ve lost people before, I’m still here” she said, paying no attention to her eggs benedict or mimosa and focusing entirely on trying to keep her eyes from turning red.