Nya's POV

"I can't believe he's still not home yet," I groan, my head resting on Jay's lap. My foot is all wrapped up in a soft cast, elevated on the arm of the chair. When Jay brought me to the doctors, they took x-rays, and they saw that it was a clean break, meaning I'll be on crutches for homecoming.

"He probably saw Cole drunk and knew he was screwed," Jay continues to play with my hair, twirling the dark strands between his fingers. He showed up early this morning to hang out with me, and he even brought a bouquet of bellflowers, just like he apparently did last Friday.

Kai, on the other hand, still hasn't arrived back home from the party. It's lucky for him, because as soon as he walks through that door, he's getting no mercy from me. He usually takes a while to get home, but for the first time, I actually want him to hurry up, so I can let this rage out.

"Can you pass me the painkillers? My ankle feels like it's going to be the death of me," I wince, feeling the throbbing in my ankle. Every time my heart beats, I feel it in my ankle, and I hate it.

"I would, but the doctor said to only take two every four hours, and it's only been three," Jay rereads the prescription.

"Please. It's torture," I beg. He looks like he considers it for a bit, but then he goes back to playing with my hair.

"In an hour," he hums, leaning down to place a kiss on my forehead. My eyes flutter shut at the kiss, but I still sigh.

"I can't even take ibuprofen?" I question. He shakes his head.

"The doctor also said not to mix painkillers," he starts braiding my hair, but part way through, I sit up.

"The doctor never said anything about natural painkillers," I turn so I'm now facing him, rotating my body so my ankle is now elevated on the other armrest.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, kissing does release endorphins," I suggest, wrapping my arms around the back of his neck. He smiles, and I lean in, pressing my lips against his. Our lips fit together perfectly, moving in sync. As things start to heat up, I hear the sound of Kai's truck pulling up. I pull away. "Can you get me my crutches?"

He stands up and walks across the room to grab them for me. I stand up by myself, taking the crutches from him, and placing them under my armpits.

When Kai walks through the door, he doesn't even seem to notice us. He already seems drained, but I'm going to make sure he's even more drained.

"Kai," I say bitterly. He groans, not even looking over at us.

"I know, I should've been home earlier, but can you save the lecture for later? I had a bad night," he closes the door behind him, starting to walk towards his room.

"You had a bad night? Imagine the night I had," I glare at him. He turns to look at me, and his eyes widen, but I can't tell if it's because Jay or my ankle.

"Oh my god, what the hell happened to your ankle?" he completely ignores Jay for the first time ever.

"Well, Cole brought me to a party and got drunk when I was in the bathroom throwing up. When I noticed that he was drunk, I said I never wanted to see him again, and he slammed me against a wall before dropping me. I landed right on my ankle," I explain snappily.

"Are you okay?" he asks, concerned.

"Well, the night had one more highlight after that, one that I know you want to hear. I called Jay to pick me up, and I told him that I like him but that I didn't want to say anything because you super shaked that you saw him flirting with someone else. Guess what? He told me that was 100% false," I hobble over to him on my crutches.

His eyes are wide, his mouth agape. He's completely shocked. His entire face looks terrified. "I..."

"You," I harshly poke him in the chest,"broke a super shake. You lied, and for what? So I'd get back together with Cole? So I'd want to hang out with you and not Jay?"

"Cole told me to," he attempts to explain himself, but it only makes me more mad.

"And you listened to him?" I nearly yell at him. "You broke the one thing holding our siblinghood together because your best friend told you to?"

"We were just trying to help you," he rubs his arm awkwardly.

"Help me? You say that, yet everything you do hurts me. You say you care about my happiness, yet everything you do just upsets me. You don't care about me, only Cole," I keep my voice steady to unnerve him, and it works.

"I do care about you, which is why I want you to be with Cole. He can protect you," he still pushes for Cole, even after he's hurt me multiple times.

"I don't need protecting! I don't need some person hovering over my shoulder to make sure I'm not going to get hurt, especially not if that person is the one who hurts me! If you cared about me, you'd see that," I elaborate. He looks like a scolded dog, ashamed. I wait for him to say something, but his mouth stays shut. "You're dead to me. All you ever do is hurt me, and I don't need that in my life." I end the conversation.

"I'm sorry, Nya," he tries to apologize, but I shake my head.

"Apologies mean nothing when actions don't change with them," I brush off his apology before looking at Jay. "Can we go hang out at the park? I don't want to be near him."

"For sure."

---

*the next day*

Jay carries my backpack around school, much to my disliking. I knew being on crutches was going to be bad, but it's even worse than I imagined. I feel so incapable, like I can't do anything for myself. I need someone to carry my backpack, and open doors for me, and even help me up stairs. It's torture.

It also doesn't help that people haven't been able to keep their eyes off of me. Considering everyone was talking about how Cole and I had a date once I said yes to him last week, everyone has been giving me weird looks today when they saw me holding Jay's hand or giving him a sweet kiss. Those who don't give me those weird looks give me a look of pity because they knew what happened at the party.

However, I'm not the only Smith who has been getting looks today. Much to my dismay, apparently Kai and Harumi got back together at the party. I saw them holding hands and was immediately repulsed. Apparently Lloyd Garmadon was too, because when he saw them, he immediately turned and walked the other direction.

However, its lunch time, so I can get a little bit of normalcy. Jay and I can escape to his car, so we can avoid the looks, and so we don't have to deal with seeing Kai and Harumi. Even though they both look stiff, it's still disgusting to look at.

That attempt of normalcy is ruined when I see Cole walking our way. "Didn't you say that he said he'd leave you alone?" Jay asks.

"He promised, but considering his best friend is Kai, that means very little," I groan. Since I'm too slow on my crutches to walk away, Jay and I keep walking forward as if we don't see him.

"Nya," Cole addresses me. Just at that, people start watching, stopping their commutes to lunch.

"You said you'd leave me alone," I tell him, trying to keep my cool.

He looks down at my hand, which is now intertwined with Jay's now that we stopped. "What happened Saturday night?"

"You got shitfaced," I deadpan.

"Did...did I do that?" he gestures down to my ankle.

"Yep, you dropped me after you slammed me against a wall," I state, and his face drops.

"No, no, no," he covers his face with his hands. "I never wanted to hurt you."

"You always do," when I say that, I notice Cole's eyes are fixated on Jay. His face shifts from disappointment in himself to hatred.

"You must be really enjoying this," he glares at Jay.

"I never enjoy seeing Nya hurt," Jay tells him.

"But you do enjoy being able to watch me screw up and give you the chance to be her Prince Charming and save her," he takes a step closer to Jay. Instead of taking a step back like I expect, Jay holds his ground.

"She doesn't need to be saved. I just want to be able to help her when she needs it," Jay explains, putting a little smile on my face. That smile is wiped off my face when I see Cole grab the collar of Jay's shirt and slam him into the wall, just like he did to Jay at my house and what he did to me.

"You must think you're above me now, don't you? Now that you have Nya, you think you're all that," he gets all up in Jay's face, shoving him against the wall again.

"I-I never said that," Jay tries to struggle away, but he can't. Cole smirks.

"Put him down," I tell Cole, but he doesn't waver.

"Because of you, I feel like shit on the inside. Now, I'm going to make you feel like shit on the outside," before I can do anything, Cole winds up before delivering a blow to Jay's face.

"Stop it!" I urge him, trying to reach themm, but I'm too slow. A crowd quickly forms around them. The crowd grows, and I try to push through, but I can't. I just see Cole's fist winding up again.

I'm so focused in trying to push through that I'm barely able to see a girl with scarlet hair push through the crowd. "Oh my god Cole, beating up your ex's boyfriend doesn't make you look better. It just makes you look like a jerk," she says, successfully sliding in between him and Jay.

"Skylor, I...I...," Cole breaks out of the trance he was just in, looking down at his hands. The crowd starts to diffuse, so I can make my way into the interior.

"Kai specifically told you to not do anything to make Nya upset, and you decide to beat up her boyfriend? What were you thinking?" she looks furious, her hands on her hips.

"Aren't you fighting with Kai right now?" Cole attempts to counter.

"That's not important. That wasn't cool..." I tune them out when I can get to Jay. He slides out from against the wall, wincing as he gets up.

"Are you okay?" I ask him as he walks over, moving his jaw.

"I'm going to bruise bad, but I'll survive," he gives me a weak smile that appears to hurt him even more. I give him a hug while Skylor keeps scolding Cole.

"I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to apologize for. Let's stop by the nurse's office to get ice. Then, we can go to the car," he suggests, touching the place on his cheek where the first blow was.

"Good idea."

---

"Have fun in Spanish," Jay gives me a cute smile before giving me a quick kiss. It's my last class of the day, and I'm just ready to go home, but his kiss still manages to make me smile.

"Will do. Have fun in physics," I wave as he walks away. Turning into the classroom, I sigh. The teacher moves my seat towards near the door, in order for it to be more accessible, and I sit down. In the seat next to me, Skylor is typing something into her phone.

"Hola, mis estudiantes!" my Spanish teacher greets the class. "Twice a week, for the next two weeks, you guys are going to be working on a research project about a Spanish speaking country. The requirements for the project are on my website. This project is going to be a group project, so you guys are going to be working with the person next to you."

She rambles a bit more, but I zone it out, drawing some flowers in my notebook instead. I've been trying to perfect my magnolias, getting each petal right. With each new one I draw, they become slightly better.

"I'm sorry about what Cole did earlier. He's hurting, but it's not a good reason to do that," Skylor apologizes on behalf of Cole.

"It's expected. Both him and Kai look at Jay like he's the devil."

"It doesn't seem justified. I know I didn't ever see you with Cole, but you and Jay look right together. He seems to make you happy," she tells me, surprising me that anyone in their friend group would go against the popular opinion.

"Make sure Kai doesn't hear you say that. He'll throw an actually pissy fit," I joke, making her smile a bit.

"I'm not on speaking terms with Kai," she tells me, which now that I think about it, makes sense. Kai was flirting with her, and he left her for Harumi.

"I'm not either. He's a jerk."

"Tell me about it," she sighs, taking a sip from her water bottle.

Throughout the rest of the period, we just talk, not focusing on our project. We tell funny Kai stories as well as talking about gymnastics. Even though we just started talking, I can tell this is the start of a wonderful friendship.

A/N so I decided to scrap my idea for my two part fic since it was waaaay too complicated. I'm trying to come up with a solid idea for what my next story is going to be. I have a general framework for one I'm thinking of, but I could dislike that in a few days so who knows

Are there any celebrities you guys find attractive? I'm a sucker for Tom Holland, 2014 Luke Hemmings and Ashton Irwin, and Chris Wood from when he played Kai in vampire diaries

Thoughts on this chapter?

My online school is finally ending, so more writing time. I still have soccer, but that's not thaaat time consuming. I'm hoping on updating this book at least every other day, so it'll be done within the next three weeks

You guys are the best for sticking around to read this book. Thanks for all the love