I Won't Lie to You

My head hurts…, I thought as I pored over the goddamn work in front of me. Why in the hell did I ever agree to this? I hate doing all of this work. And for what? You know what, I can’t even remember what I was doing this for anymore. Oh, right, for Mom. But she’s dead… I know that sounds terrible and I feel terrible thinking it, but, well, it was the truth. Besides that, I can’t even remember how I felt when she died.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I loved my mom, but I just can’t remember anything before four years ago. I can barely even remember her face. Mina knows what happened but she doesn’t want to tell me because it was pretty bad. I mean, hell, I even forced myself to forget about it and recalled all my memories from then.

As I scanned my paper, I realized I’d need a dictionary so I sighed and stood up and walked over to the reference section.

Upon my return, I saw something that made my blood burn. That stupid asshole, Cody, was standing next to Nicolas at my stack of books.

Even I can clearly see that Nicolas hates the kid. The plain annoyance was increasingly evident on Nicolas’s face whenever Cody was around.

“You! What the fuck do you think you’re doing!?” I hissed at the oblivious boy. My voice screamed pure venom as I spoke. Nicolas flinched visibly. Was he scared of me? Did he think I was mad at him? Does he have a reason for me to be mad at him? Then I caught a glimpse of the paper in his hand. It’s only my report card – what was so bad about that? In fact, I was rather pleased that he was getting to know more about me.

“Didn’t I make myself clear at the house that I didn’t wanna see your fucking face again?” I growled at Cody, steering all of my voice to the now-trembling stalker in front of me. I didn’t want Nicolas to think that, even for a second, I was angry at him.

“B-but Nicolas he-” I cut him off. Oh how I love to see this stupid fuck squirm.

“He doesn’t fucking need you. So fuck. Off,” The acid in my voice almost took form at that point and it almost seemed to burn a hole in the kid.

“I-I was just-”

As Cody spoke, I caught Nicolas’s pleased look from the corner of my eye. Maybe I’m finally doing something worth praise for him. “I don’t care what ‘you were just’. You’re the asshole who attacked him in the first place. Can’t you fucking see he doesn’t wanna be anywhere near your dumb ass?”

Then the terrified boy turned to Nicolas. Don’t even look at him, I thought. As much as I knew I wasn’t in a position to monopolize Nicolas, I wanted to.

“I-I’ll see you a-around Nic-“ I cut him off right there. That almost-statement nearly made me snap.

“No you won’t,” I hissed. “You need to quit fucking with Nicolas. Or I swear to God, I’ll fuck you up.”

With that, he cringed away. Apparently, Nicolas wasn’t worth fighting me over. But me, however, I’d fight anyone with everything I had just to keep Nicolas.

“Sit,” I sighed to the confused-looking boy. He bit his lip slightly before taking the seat next to me. “Why the fuck don’t you just threaten him?” I asked in a serious manner, but my voice still contained a bit of the venom from earlier.

The was a slight pause as Nicolas searched his head for something to say. “Well, I told him I’d shank him earlier,” he said, grinning slightly from the thought.

There was another moment of silence before I chuckled at the thought of Nicolas saying that to him. I liked the aura around us right now. It was easy and it felt like the tension had finally subsided.

“Hell, you’re ballsy enough to fight with me; I don’t see you having a problem telling that kid off,” I said, trying to focus on my English assignment.

For a few minutes, all we could hear was the scratching of my pencil on paper before Nicolas spoke up. “With you it’s different. I don’t know why, but you’re not all that scary to me,” he said before clarifying, “Not including that time you almost beat the shit out of me.”

I scoffed. I’d never hurt him, that I was sure of. I needed to let him know, but not that whole truth. “I don’t know if it’s because you’re short or something but I can’t picture myself hurting you.”

That sounded like more of a lie than anything else to myself.

“At first I thought you were mad at me because I was looking at your papers,” he told me, biting his lip again.

“Fuck no. That kid pisses me off, always dogging after you,” I told him, my anger rising at the mere mention of Cody.

“Whoa… are you jealous?” He questioned, his heterochromic eyes glinting with confusion.

All I could think was, Beautiful eyes.

“No, I just can’t stand people who don’t understand when they’ve gone too far,” I explained in the best way I could.

And then Nicolas did something I didn’t expect him to do. He laughed at that notion.

“What?” I asked, almost scared to know what I’d done now.

He stopped laughing so that he could explain what he meant. “Well, you’re the same way. You always have me telling you you’re special. And you don’t understand that you’ve taken the joke too far.”

No, I was quite aware of the fact that I’d taken it too far. “Hey! Don’t give me that shit,” Please. I begged in my mind. I don’t want him hating me for that one selfish demand.

“Okay, okay. Let’s just let this go.”

I begged for forgiveness as I asked him for the two-word phrase. “Fine, I’ll let it go if you tell me I’m special.”

“Umm… you… you’re special,” he said, filling me with strange, unnamable warm feelings.

I smiled down at my books. “That’s what I like to hear,” I said.

“Why do you like hearing that?” He asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

It took me a second before I said, “I don’t know. I just do.”