Page 74 of TJ Powar Has Something to Prove

“No!” She cringes. “He said no one could ever be into me like this. He acted like he owned me. I wanted to prove him wrong.”

“You wanted to prove it,” Charlie repeats. “You felt the need to prove yourself to your piece-of-shit ex-boyfriend. Am I getting that right?”

His condescending tone has returned. She glares at him. “Proving itis the whole point. That’s my resolution, remember?”

“If I remember right, the resolution was that you should be respected. I don’t see the correlation here. YouknowI like you and y-you—you—you—you just used me to make some stupid point.”

She stares, stunned. Her brain latches on to only one part of his reply. “You... you still like me?”

His cold expression shifts. “Why would that have changed?”

“Because...” Her face bursts into flames. She has to push her next words from her mouth. She has to close her eyes to avoid seeing his reaction. “I’m... sohairy.”

The words are whispered into the darkness. Dead silence follows them. She keeps her body rigid, hunched. She’s never felt more exposed.

Charlie finally speaks. “I don’t understand how you can be this dense.”

His voice is icy. Her eyes fly open just in time to see him jab afinger at her. “You think you’re delivering some kind of groundbreaking news right now? Do you think I walk around with my eyes closed? I know you’rehairy, TJ. How could I not? You’re one of the hairiest people I’ve ever seen. It just isn’t relevant to how—how—how I feel about you.”

Her anger flares. So that’s how he wants to play it? Pretending he’s better than that? “But back in the library, when you saw my stomach, you looked grossed out!”

Charlie hardly blinks. “Yes, TJ. You got me. I must’ve been grossed out. What other reaction could I possibly have to youpulling up your shirtin front of me?”

TJ flushes, hating his slow, enunciated sarcasm, and hating even more that she’s no longer certain she was right back then. She scrambles to stay on top of the argument. “You say all that. But you think it’s a quirk,” she accuses. “You think this is a phase. I’m trying to prove a point but eventually I’ll go back to being hot.”

“What?”His voice becomes slightly more heated. “Y-y-you want to make any more baseless claims?”

“It’s not baseless!” she shouts. If he wants evidence, she’ll give it to him. “Answer me honestly, Charlie. You claim to be into me,thatway?”

“What ‘way’?”

“You tell me!”

“Romantically? Yeah. Other ways?” He glances pointedly down to his lap. “I thought that was obvious.”

Her cheeks burn, but she won’t let him throw her off from her line of questioning. “Well, doesn’t that imply some sort of surface-level attraction to my body?”

A long pause. Charlie’s eyes sharpen, and TJ knows what he’s thinking. He recognizes a blatant leading question from a mile away. It doesn’t matter whether he answers yes or no because TJ has a logical trap planned for both instances. After a long silence, Charlie simply says, “You don’t understand just how attracted to you I am.”

She lifts her arm and points to her underarm. “Do you think that’s attractive?”

“I don’t think it matters how I answer that question,” he says, his voice hardening. “You’re hell-bent on—”

“Just answer it! Is my armpit hair, objectively, pretty?”

“I don’t know,” he says, exasperated. “Is mine? It’s just hair!”

“So you’re saying you’re into me...despitemy body hair.”

He drags his hands down his face. “Can you not twist my words?”

“I’m not. That’s what you said.” She points a triumphant finger at him. “You don’t think it’s attractive. Which means you think it’s ugly.”

“That is not even—” He stops and shakes his head. “You just want me to think that so you can beright. Fine. Say I do think it’s ugly and disgusting and a huge turn-off,” he says savagely, his words cruel and biting enough to make her flinch. “Say I think that. Then what? You still shouldn’t care.”

“Well, it’swrong, so of course I should!”

“No, you shouldn’t!” he shouts, loud enough to make her balk. He rakes his hand through his messy hair and laughs, darkly. “You know, the fact that you think you have toproveyou’re worthy of respect in adebate resolutionis pretty pathetic. Get it through your head. You can’t control if people like Liam respectyou. If someone wants to hate you, they’re going to find a reason. The only thing you control is whetheryourespect yourself. And—and—and—and you clearly don’t!”