I ONCE MENTIONED that Wesley Jerald was a combination of many wonderful and horrendous things. I have yet to mention the combination that would sum up what type of person Blake Ryder is. Or was.

Blake was my best friend. He was always there when you needed him even when he tried so hard to keep his bad-boy image up. Imagine this: a ball of sunshine that has rainbow sprinkles and yet tries to hide behind a leather jacket and badass sunglasses; that would be Blake. He was always there for me, and I honestly didn't want another best friend because no one could have ever replaced him in my heart.

That's all in the past now. Like I said before, people change; and in Blake's case, it was for the worse.

The latter Blake was a complete stuck-up. There is absolutely no need to beat around the bush about how much I absolutely despised his character. Honestly, he changed so much ever since Charlotte Brooke came into our lives. He started to get distant and hardly ever went out with me, and in the end, he finally left me with a wounded ego and a broken heart. If he didn't like me anymore, he could have just broken up with me the normal sane way. He didn't have to cook up some twisted story about how I was a whore and cheated on him with some cocky-ass jock in school. He lost his bad boy image after getting closer to Charlotte, and let's be real here. Charlotte was no longer a good girl. She was a real A-class bitch who mistreated kids for whatever cruel reason she had.

I'm not even sure if she was a good girl, to begin with.

He was distant from me and so close to Charlotte. It was as if I were in jail, watching my husband from a distance as he moved on with another girl, and I was unable to do anything about it. I knew then how it feels to be behind bars.

Then again, my experience wasn't exactly like Wesley's. He was a "regular customer" of the local police jail. This would explain why on that fine Saturday morning, I was seated at the police station with a killer headache, waiting for the officers to release that annoying piece of shit out of jail. I know I said I wouldn't drink, but after I stormed home from the party, I really just forgot about everything and downed two bottles of fine whiskey from my father's collection. Regret isn't even a word I would use to describe my emotions then; it was worse than that. That morning, I received a call from Winnie asking if I had heard from her dear older brother, and when I called Wesley's phone, a police officer picked it up and requested that I go in and collect him.

Oh, collect him alright. If he was a dog in a pound, I might have left him there to die if I weren't so against animal cruelty. He was, however, a crucial element in my revenge plan on Charlotte and Blake, and I couldn't have him jailed just yet.

"Darling Ava, I told these fellas you would show up." I was greeted by Wesley's signature grin when he was led out by a police officer who looked about a few years older than us.

"Thanks, officer." I nodded my head at the man, and he grunted slightly. "So sorry for the trouble."

"Watch your boyfriend. It's his third time this month," he mumbled more to himself than me and walked away before I had a chance to tell him that Wesley was just a friend.

"Third time, Wesley. What did you do the first and second? Rob candy from a kid and steal a grandma's cat?" I placed my hands on my hips as Wesley scowled.

"I won't steal from a kid or a grandma." His face was of pure annoyance as he rubbed his arm with his left hand. It was only then had I noticed that his knuckles were bruised and blue-black all over.

"What happened?" I grabbed his hand, and he winced at the sudden action, hissing under his breath. Softly apologizing, I lightly pulled him down to sit beside me and took out a small bottle of medication oil I carried with me in my bag because of my headache. I softly rubbed the liquid over his bruised knuckles.

"No big deal. Some asshole was annoying me." He shrugged.

"And how exactly was he annoying you?" I asked, pouring more of the oil on his hand and gently stroking it.

"Don't worry about it. He was just a pain."

"I know you, Wesley. You may have whatever snip of bad boy blood in you, but you don't just go around beating up people who were a small pain in your ass. What really happened, and who was the poor guy?" Wesley kept quiet and looked away when I looked up at him. I placed his hands on my lap, took out baby wipes, which I always carried with me, and began to softly wipe his dirt-filled face.

"You know you can tell me, right?" I asked, my voice soft with concern. "Was it about your brothers? Or Winnie?" Wesley sighed and looked at me with guilt in his eyes.

"Ryan Smith."

"What?"

"I punched Ryan Smith," he said as his face darkened with anger.

"I hate him too, but I won't exactly give him a black eye."

"I gave him a broken nose and a broken jaw, along with a beer bottle to the head. Not exactly a black eye, Ava."

I looked at Wesley and reached out, pushing his face gently to face me. "Why did you do it? Do you really want to go to jail that bad? 'Cause if you do, I can just ask the officers to put you back in."

"I told you. He was a pain."

"How?"

Wesley sighed. "He called you a whore." He spat the words quickly, and I furrowed my eyebrows.

"What?"

Wesley sighed again as he ran his hand through his hair, cursing under his breath. "He called you a whore."

My face darkened as well as I mulled over the words. "I'm going to kill that son of a bitch," I muttered, dumping all my belongings in my bag, and got up, leaving Wesley confused in the police station.

Cover by @maria_moniz .