His Scarred Love

Chapter 8 - [Bro's over Hoe's]

Tristan would not get over the fact that he is so proud of me and my ‘desire’ to improve. “I mean, your mom and dad must be so proud now! Remember how you were telling me that you were worried that you were letting her down?”

I nudged him hard enough to hurt him. “Shh! I said to never mention that again!” I hissed.

The five minute bell had rang and the both of us were walking to our first period classes. I put my hands in my pockets and yawned before I went back to glaring at him. I was still not used to waking up so early to go to class.

Tristan rolled his eyes. “Why are you embarrassed? Caring about your parents is a good thing!”

I opened my mouth to argue but I heard Nikita’s voice. “Hey Nate!”

I bit the inside of my cheek, surprised that my heart jumped the second I heard her voice. “Hey!”

She walked to us with a smile. “Hey Tristan!” She said, smiling at Tristan.

Tristan grinned. “Hey!” And then his face changed. “Did you do the math homework?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Of course I did! Mr. Writhe would be so mad if we didn’t!” She exclaimed.

Tristan sighed, putting his hand on his head. “I’m screwed, aren’t I?”

“Wait… you two… talk?” I asked.

Tristan and Nikita both looked at me and Tristan nodded. “Yeah…”

“Oh… okay sorry, go ahead, talk about math…” I said as I looked away.

The two talked for a short while and then Tristan left us alone. She was quiet for a moment and I had a feeling that she wanted to tell me something. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

She shook her head and smiled. “No.” She said. “There was just something I had to ask you but it sort of slipped my mind.”

“Yes, something’s wrong.” I heard Jen say.

I rolled my eyes the second I heard her voice. “What do you want?” I asked as I turned my head and looked behind us.

“I want you to know why Nikki here is upset.”

“I’m not upset!” Nikita said, right away.

“Stop lying, babe!” Jen frowned. “Don’t think I’m going to sit here and watch as this guys friends screw around.”

“What?” I asked. “What did my friends do?”

Jen looked me straight in the eye. “Tell your retarded friends to stop making fun of my girl.” She walked up to me and stabbed her finger into my chest.

I smacked her hand away and turned to Nikita. “My friends are making fun of you?” I asked her, feeling some strange anger boil up in me.

“No!” Nikita said.

“Stop lying Nikita!” Jen said.

I looked carefully at Nikita and realized that she was lying. “What did they say to you?”

Jen raised one of her thin eyebrows. “Oh they said lots of s**t—”

“Shut up Jen!” I yelled. “Leave us alone!” I grabbed Nikita’s wrist and pulled her away.

Jen surprised me by not following. It wasn’t like her to stay out of other people’s business.

“What did they say to you?” I repeated.

“They didn’t—”

“Don’t lie to me, Nikita.” I said. “Tell me the truth. What did they say to you?”

She hesitated and took a deep breath. “They were just… teasing me…”

“What did they say?” I asked, angrily.

“They called me Scarface… or something… I didn’t really take it in…”

I groaned and turned around.

“Where are you going?” She asked, rushing after me. I could tell she was nervous.

“To tell those fucktards to shut the hell up.” I hissed.

She grabbed my wrist. “No, you don’t need to do anything… they were just fooling around! Just—”

I stopped walking and looked at her. “Listen. I’m not going to let people tease you, got it? Whether they’re my friends or not. Now go to class, I’ll handle this.”

“But—”

“Go to class.” I turned around and walked away before she could say anything else.

I knew exactly where they would be… outside, smoking. I walked to the front foyer and out the front doors. And as expected, they were there, smoking, like I thought.

“Justin!” I called.

He could hear the anger in my voice. I knew he could. If I wasn’t angry, he wouldn’t have turned around right away. “Hey! Look whose back!” He handed me a cigarette. “Care to join us, my friend?”

I chucked it onto the floor.

Justin’s mouth gaped.

“What the hell did you say to Nikita?” I asked.

Justin looked at the floor. “You just wasted one, good cigarette!”

I stepped on it, then scraped it off my shoe and looked at him. “What did you say to Nikita?” I repeated.

Justin frowned. “Why are you so pissed?”

“Did you tease her?”

“No. We just called her names.”

I threw my hands up in frustration. “Why the hell are you so stupid?” I yelled.

“Why the hell do you care so much?” Justin asked, taking a puff of his cigarette. “I thought you were faking this!”

I looked at him. “Well… how the hell is my plan going to work if you tease her all the time?” I asked, trying to defend myself. “First she’s going to ask me to talk to you, then she’s going to ask me to stop being your friends and then she’s going to ask me to beat you up! Do I need this?” I knew I was bullshitting all of that, but hey, I had to think of something to justify myself. Actually, I wasn’t really lying… I really didn’t know why I was doing this, why I was confronting my friends for teasing Nikita.

Justin smirked. “Yo, its bro’s over hoes. Would you actually do what she says and stop talking to us or beat us up?”

I hesitated. “No! I won’t! But when I don’t do it, she’ll break up with me and my plan would be ruined!”

“Are you sure that’s why you’re pissed?” Justin asked.

Chris started to laugh. “Of course it isn’t! He likes that… ugly piece of shit.”

For some reason, that made me snap.

I grabbed Chris’ collar, feeling my muscles tighten as I lifted him off the ground and threw him onto the floor. “Shut the f**k up! You’re the piece of s**t!” I yelled.

Justin grabbed me before I could get down and throw my fist into Chris’ face. “Yo! Calm down you ass hole!”

I fought myself away. “Say something like that again and I’ll rip your tongue off and stick it up your ass!”

Chris glared at me as he got up. “What the hell is wrong with you? I thought you were only pretending to like her!”

I froze, and then I was suddenly panicking. I was making a serious fool out of myself. Why the hell was I doing this? I shook my head. “But still, what type of asshole would insult a girl like that?” I asked, trying to defend myself again.

Justin shook his head. “You’re going over to the dark side, man.”

I punched his shoulder, hard, making him yell at me.

“Just don’t talk to her! Got it? Seriously, I’ll beat the s**t out of all you fools if you say s**t to her.” I said, as harshly as I possibly could.

Ronan and Chris started cussing, but Justin held his hand up and they shut up. “Fine.” Justin said. “We won’t talk s**t. But let me just say that it would be really funny if you actually liked that girl.”

I rolled my eyes and walked away, I was late for English.