❃

Haz and I kissed back in sophomore year.

We never really talked about it afterwards, like you would think in most of these kind of cases between best friends it would be really awkward or one person would overthink the whole situation.

It was the exact opposite for us in this case, like it never even happened and we just continued to treat other the same way afterwards.

Sometimes we would randomly bring it up while hanging out, like last week when I was chilling at his house.

"Yo Tals." Haz suddenly said, nudging my knee with his on his couch as I played on his PS8.

"Yeah?"

"Remember when I kissed you?" He asked as I stared at the tv screen, completely absorbed and distracted with the game.

"Yeah you were good." I told him, violently pressing the buttons on the controller.

"Yeah?" Haz smirked.

"Yeah." I said, not even paying attention as I defeated the game with a triumphant cheer.

I've replayed that memory a lot, so much that I realized that Haz never told me whether the kissing on my part was good or not- like what if I'm really bad at kissing and that's why we're still casually just friends.

And here comes the overthinking.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when I realized that Haz and Barron darting from the start line, the both of them running at lightning speed towards the finish as I resumed my cheering, jumping up and down with the other cheerleaders who tried to distance themselves from me.

I inched closer to them as they tried to avoid me, making me bite my lip to keep from laughing before I watched Haz advance forward ahead of Barron, the muscles contracting under his melanin skin, his curls shining with sweat and his green eyes ablazed with determination before Barron caught up, the two head to toe.

Haz sprinted farther and passed the finish line a hair before Barron, just like I knew he would as I smiled while the cheerleaders squealed and cheered, vigorously waving their pom poms in the air.

"Tie!" The coach whistled making my smile immediatly drop as Haz and Barron caught their breaths.

"What!? You're calling that a tie again!?" I exclaimed in anger, knowing the coach had some type of prejudice attitude towards my best mate as I marched over to him, the cheerleaders immediatly quieting, whispering to one another while the coach looked around.

"Who said that!?" He demanded, spit flying out of his wrinkly mouth as I took off my oversized mascot head, strands of my frizzy hair sticking to my sweaty forehead from being stuck in the large lizard uniform for so long under the sun as I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose.

"I did." I boldly went up to him, watching as the coach flinched back probably by the hot stench of sweat emenating from my attire.

"Oh great, Lizard girl has something to say." Coach Collins remarked in a sarcastic tone, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"That is the fifth time you undermined Haz, everytime you claim it's a tie when you know damn well it wasn't! Haz is the fastest person on the school's track team yet you treat him like he's dirt under your feet, like he's an expendable object! He is not!" I said, furiously pointing at the old man who scoffed.

"Haz is a mediocre runner who needs to take control of his angry little girlfriend over here before he gets kicked out of next week's race." Coach Collins simply scoffed as my eyes widened in rage, practically crushing the large cartoonish animal head in my hands as I glared at the coach who turned around, dismissing the conversation.

Haz was the one to spot the boiling look on my face, his eyes growing wide in realization as he quickly ran and grabbed me before I could attack his stupid coach.

"Mediocre! I'll show you mediocre you little bitch! You better fucking apologize to Haz or I swear-" I yelled, actually growling and reaching out for the man as Haz struggled to hold me back.

"Alright, here we go, come on Tals." Haz tried to calm me down, picking my body up while I flailed my arms and legs, throwing my mascot head at the coach in anger who turned with wide eyes at the hit as Haz continued to hold me up by my waist, walking away with me screaming.

"Fuck you! And fuck you!" I said, pointing at the shocked coach and then at Barron who simply smirked.

"Join our drama club to experience acting at it's fine-"

"Fuck you too!" I snapped, pointing at one of the drama club students who were passing out fliers as Haz sat me down across the field on one of the benches.

"Hey Talie, chill, it's fine, I'm okay." He said, watching me as I panted and balled my reptile mittens into fists.

People were always so surprised whenever they found out that I was the one between Haz and I to have an anger management problem since I seemed so much more tamer.

My dad has one as well, I heard he would beat someone up if they so much as crossed him.

He obviously doesn't do that anymore but he still cusses and explodes at times.

"He's an aśshole." I fumed, my chest heaving up and down as Haz carefully handed me his gatorade bottle, making me quickly yank it out of his hand while he flinched back at my abrupt action as I chugged the drink down in anger.

I heard Haz chuckle softly, getting up and going behind me as he gathered my hair, not seeming to care that it was a bit damp from my sweat as he pulled it up into a neat ponytail so I could cool down, tying it with the hair band he wore around his wrist.

He always carried at least one hair band around his wrist, not for himself but for me since he knew I always lost mine and he didn't really care what anyone thought.

I mean it was the end of junior year and people in school pretty much knew we're like the best of friends by now.

"Why don't you say anything? Why don't you just let me beat his aśs for you just this once." I sighed when Haz finished tying my hair as he sat besides me.

"Ah come on, you know I don't care. I just like running and track is fun, besides, ma can't even catch up to when I run away from her everytime she takes her slippers off." He chuckled, playfully nudging my shoulder with his as I frowned, looking down at my lap.

"You good now?" He asked, placing his large hand over my knee, bringing his head to the side so our eyes would meet as I brought my lips inward in defeat.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good. I just- I know you're trying really hard this year preparing for all the races and it's not fair." I told him, shaking my head as he sighed, rising from the bench to kneel down in front of me, cupping my face.

"Hey, don't sweat it your boy's got this, I got this. Now look at dat face, look at dat face..." He cooed, stretching and pushing my cheeks together, playing with my face as I narrowed my eyes at him in irritation.

"Where's your smile?" He continued to tease with a grin, bringing my cheeks up so the ends of my lips would go up.

"There it is." He celebrated, taking his hands away only for me to immediatly drop the smile.

"Oh lemme fix that." Haz blinked, touching my face and squishing my cheeks upwards once again before he retracted back.

I held the fake smile for a second before I dropped it again, giving him a look making him laugh as he got back to his feet.

"Come on, I'm done with practice. We can ditch and head to your place for some tutoring alright?" He said, slinging his arm around my shoulder as I sulked.

"Don't touch me you're sweaty." Was my clipped response.

"Oh you mean like this? Like this?" He grinned, trying to rub his body all over me while we walked side by side as I rolled my eyes in a playful manner, trying to shove him away.

++

Another misconception people have between Haz and I.

One of us tutors the other.

Due to the way Haz acts and speaks compared to the way I do as long with my love for stories and books, people automatically assume that I'm the one who tutors him.

They couldn't be more wrong.

"Haz I don't want to do this anymore, my brain is dead, I'm dead." I groaned out, rubbing my temples as Haz flicked my forehead.

"Look it's easy, you're halfway through the equation already. You just gotta find x and y now." He said, shifting in his seat as I rested my chin on the large math textbook beneath me with a pout.

"I'm bored... and my brain hurts..."

"Shut up. You've read books with almost one thousand pages and you tellin' me you can't solve this one problem?" Haz challenged, giving me a look as I straightened in my seat.

"Yeah but I enjoy reading books that are interesting. This isn't interesting, at all. Everytime I open the text book all I see is boring numbers." I pointed out.

"Hmm, I wonder why..." He trailed off, making a show of displaying his own math textbook, running his finger under the words Pre-Cal as I scowled at him.

"Look you just gotta distribute and group, remember when those two exponents be in those parenthesis and they're just like fuck you and go to the other ones." He started to explain again, leaning forward as he pointed at the numbers on my notebook he was talking about with the tip of his pencil.

"Yeah and then you said they fuck and make little babies." I said, glancing over at him as he nodded.

"Yup, so that x and that 3 do the nasty even if they're not in the same parenthesis so that becomes a 3x plus a 12x and then a minus 9." He said as I finished the equation.

"Where did the 9 come from again?"

"It's the side hoe." Haz said, making me nod in understanding as I boxed my answer, showing it to him.

He looked over my work, running the back of his fingers over his lips before a slow impressed smirk spread across his face.

"Aight, now that's what I'm talkin about." He grinned, highfiving me as I smiled before he put the notebook down.

"Now, on to imaginary numbers." Haz said, looking down and flipping through the textbook, making me bolt out of my chair only for him to immediatly grab the hem of my sweater, holding me back without even looking up from the book as I struggled.

I looked back and glared at Haz, my glare diminishing the longer I stared at him as he went through the book in front of him while I admired how well he had grown ever since we were little.

He was a really popular guy around school, but not the stereotypical kind where he's either a bad boy or jock because Haz was neither.

He was that one guy that was friends with everyone, and when I say everyone I mean everyone.

Even though he did get into some trouble for talking or joking around too much in class teachers could do little since he was a straight A student and the one who always won trophies for our school from his track races despite his coach's claims.

"Haz, was my kissing good?" I suddenly asked.

"Eh, C+ -oh hey, think I found the page." He said in a distracted tone, letting me go and showing me a page in the textbook before I blinked at him, lowering the book in his hand and bringing it down on the table as I peered down at him.

"Woah, woah, woah. Woah." I said, waving my hand in front of me before pausing as he looked up at me in confusion.

"A C+? Really?" I asked, tilting my head to the side and furrowing my brows at him as he blinked up at me.

"You're right." Haz said, looking deep in thought as if contemplating something before he looked at me again.

"C-." He said before I sat back down next to him with a slack jaw.

"Okay okay, I know that I'm not the best kisser but I'm- I'm not a C either." I panicked, looking at Haz as he slowly retracted back in his seat while staring at me.

"Or are you..."

I smacked him upside the head, making him laugh as he shied away from me.

"I can't believe all this time I was praising your kissing skills while you thought I was just a C." I stated, shaking my head at him.

"C minus." Haz corrected.

"Oh yes, thank you, makes me feel so much better." I told him in a passive tone making him smirk.

"You know to be fair it was a while ago. What I remember is you had really soft lips, like I'm talkin' baby soft and vanilla-like. But you were also breathing really hard through your nostrils so the air was just hitting me while I was kissing you-"

"I wasn't prepared!" I quickly defended as he laughed, propping his feet on my dining room table, bringing his arms behind his head as he leaned back.

"Your glasses fogged up too. That was funny." He added as I gave him a deadpanned look.

"Raise my grade." I ordered in a determined voice.

"Grades are closed, sorry. No rounding up either." He simply shrugged, smiling at me as I took in a deep breath.

Haz's eyes widened ever so slightly when he saw me get up, I could tell he thought I was going to hit him because he was already trying to cover his head with a light hearted smile, only for me to hold the back of his chair, tipping him back a little more.

"Woah, woah- hey there," He said in a cautious tone, flailing slightly making sure he wouldn't fall as he looked up at me.

I then cupped his face in determination and brought my lips down onto his in a soft feather light kiss, our lips only brushing one another ever so slightly as I felt Haz's hand grab the side of my arm.

At first I thought it was so he could push me away, but he did the exact opposite and trailed his hand ever so slowly up my arm, goosebumps dotting my skin as he tried to bring his head up more, silently asking for more contact as I gave him just that, angling my head to the side and deepening the kiss.

Haz's breath hitched when I slipped my tongue into his mouth, my fingers tangling themselves into his dark hair as he situated his hand behind my neck, keeping our lips latched together in a slow passionate kiss that were always seen in movies.

I broke away, bringing my head up and making sure to slowly detach my lips from his, leaving the both of us panting as I looked down to find Haz's eyes still closed, his lips pursing blindly searching for mine making me laugh.

"Wait, more." He said in a hoarse voice, opening his eyes ever so slightly to point at his lips before he tried to bring his head up for me as I grinned.

I leaned down and gently pecked his lips and just that small gesture seemed enough for Haz as he smiled, biting his lip when I broke apart from him.

"What's my grade now?" I asked with a raise of my brow, feeling his cheeks slightly warm at my touch.

"A. Definitely an A. It would be an A+ if you do that whole tongue thing like- like that was really nice." He informed with a light laugh, still staring at my lips before I simply smiled, lifting my hands from his face causing Haz to stumble back in his chair and fall to the floor as I clasped my hands together with a content sigh.

"That's all I needed to know, I'm gonna go get a smoothie now." I said with a small nod before walking out as Haz fumbled back to his feet, the chair screeching against the floor as he tried to put it upright.

"Wait did I say A!? I meant F! That was an F you should like- you should practice on me more!" Haz called out to me in a flustered tone as I entered the kitchen, opening the fridge before Haz's phone suddenly lit up on the counter.

"Haz!" I yelled, watching as he quickly ran into the room, almost slipping and falling on the tiled floor before he grabbed the edge of the wall stabling himself before he saw me and smiled, pursing his lips and pointing at it obediantly.

I grabbed his phone, showing him the screen as he dropped his pout and took it.

"Ah shit... I gotta take someone's shift at the coffee shop today...." He said, throwing his head back and making a small whine as I grabbed a glass of mango smoothie from the fridge.

"Take a sip for the road." I offered, handing him the drink as he took a gulp.

"By the way, you were always an A+ kisser to me, I just told you you were a C- so you could kiss me again and it worked..... I'm gonna take this smoothie now. I'll be back to pick the rest of my shit later. Peace." Haz casually said, throwing deuces up while drinking the refreshment as I watched him head for the front door, opening it and jogging to his car out front as I smiled, leaning against the doorframe.

"Hey Haz," I called out to him before he got into his vehicle as he looked up at me with a raise of his brow.

"You're the best B+ kisser I've ever had." I lied, knowing full well he was an amazing kisser as Haz smiled.

"Thanks Tali- oh now hold up." He said, suddenly realizing what I had just said as his smile dropped, an offended expression overcoming his face as I laughed and closed the door on him.

There was a buzz on my phone, making me check the small device from my pocket to find a text from my dad saying he's heading home from work.

My dad's been getting lots of requests from super high class aristocrats to relandscape their gardens and has been pulling in some really rich clients.

I was really proud of my dad, he always worked hard yet he still made time for me.

I was walking back to my table of homework before there was a knock from the door, making me look up from my phone in surprise.

That was strangely fast.

I went back to the front door, opening it to find Nat standing on the porch with sunglasses on.

"Woah, cool sunglasses." I complimented, never seeing her in those type of accessories as she smiled.

"Thanks, is Haz here?" She asked, her voice sounding slightly on edge and distracted unlike her usual calm collected tone making me frown.

"You just missed him, he had to take someone's shift at the coffee shop, hey what's that?" I asked, my gaze falling onto the small bruise on her arm as she quickly tried to cover it up.

"It's nothin' baby. Don't worry about it I'm fine, I just have to find Haz-" Nat quickly dismissed, playfully nudging my chin as I looked at her with an unconvinced expression.

She took in a deep breath, awkwardly rocking on the heels of her feet and hugging herself as I examined her.

"Welp, I'll see ya-"

"Ouch." I faked a cry of pain, holding the doorframe as I limped a bit when Nat turned to leave, causing her to immediatly turn back to me with a look of concern when she heard me.

"Baby what happened? What's the matter?" She asked, looking down at my leg with a worried expression as I winced.

"Oh nothing I just- I might have sprained something while cart wheeling in my mascot uniform. It's fine, you can just go look for Haz, my dad's still at work and I have no idea when he'll come back but-" I coughed, wheezing as I leaned my shivering body against the doorframe.

"I'll survive." I weakly said, looking up at her as she quickly came in without hesitation, closing the door behind her.

"You crazy? Like hell I'm gonna leave you like this. You can walk right?" She asked, bringing my arm around her shoulder as I nodded, limping with her to the kitchen.

"I know you guys keep ice packs here and why aren't you limping anymore?" Nat asked, looking at my face and foot after she looked through my freezer as I slowly neared her.

"Nat.... why are you wearing sunglasses?" I finally asked her, looking at the bruise on her arm then at her face as she slowly backed away.

"To uh... to block out the haters..." She trailed off, obviously not knowing what else to say as I took a deep breath, trying to peer through her darkened shades.

"Did Aaron..." I began, unconsciously fisting the hem of my sweater in anxiety as Nat didn't say anything.

"Talie, Talie no don't cry baby, don't cry." She suddenly said, sighing as she walked over and pulled me into a hug.

I didn't even know I was crying until her arms enveloped me, pulling me into her chest as I gripped the fabric of her shirt, wiping at the hot angry tears streaming down my face.

I was livid.

"He hurt you. He hurt you why would he do that- he-" I stuttered, sniffing and taking in large gulps of air as Nat stroked my hair to calm me down, cradling me from side to side and rubbing my back in a soothing manner.

"Shhh.. it's okay, I'm fine I promise." She reassured me in a soft tone as I shook my head, looking up at her with watery eyes.

"No you're not okay, that's not okay." I said, my voice cracking as she frowned down at me.

Nat always took care of me, she gave me the love and attention I never had from my own biological mother, she always made me laugh and was there when I needed to smile.

She didn't deserve this.

"Take your glasses off." I said, wanting to see as she gently grabbed my wrists, stopping me before cupping my face.

"Talie I can't show you because it will only stress you out more, I'm okay. I was just caught off guard and didn't see him coming but I gave it to him good afterwards. Aaron's at the local hospital at the moment with a broken nose, I'm a tough cookie." She said, gently wiping my tears and smiling down at me before she kissed my forehead and hugged me again.

"I love you Talie, you never let anyone get away with hurting you. You have to stand up for yourself, always." She told me as I weakly nodded, wanting to take care of Nat and let her stay with me, far away from her sick asshole of a husband as possible.

"You're leaving him right?" I asked, peering up at her as she tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear.

"Hell yeah I am." She told me, making a small relieved smile appear on my face as I hugged her.

The front door suddenly opened, causing both Nat and I to slightly break apart as my dad entered the house, taking off his large muddied construction boots off at the door.

"You have no idea how long it took to install that waterfall in-" Dad began, entering the kitchen with a bag of tools only to stop at the entrance, surprised to find Nat there as he looked between my tear stained cheeks and Nat's sunglasses with furrowed brows.

"What's going on..." He said in a dark voice that I knew he used whenever he was dead serious about something.

"Nothing." Nat quickly said as I looked at her before glancing back at my dad.

I know she didn't want my dad to know.

We both knew he would explode, he'd do something drastic.

But he had to know.

"Mom- I mean Nat got hurt. Aaron hit her." I blurted out before I could stop myself as my dad dropped the metal container of tools he was holding besides him, the metal clanging against the floor as he stared with wide green horrified eyes at Nat who was silent behind me.

And nothing could have prepared me for what my dad did next.