"So he just... punched a hole in his desk and pushed it over?" Grace asked, concern lacing her voice.

        I shrugged, biting the inside of my lip. "I think so, yeah."

        We were sat on my couch watching some terrible action movie she convinced me I needed to watch, but I was quite distracted. I think she noticed, too, because she tried to pull me back down to Earth with fun facts about the movie and a lot of kissing. The latter worked a bit, but I still wasn't in the right headspace. She finally asked what was wrong, and I spilled the entirety of what I saw at Adam's the day before.

        "Why? Just because?"

        "No!" I snapped. Her eyebrows shot up, so I gave her a sheepish smile. "I mean— no. He had a really bad fight with his mum."

        "Oh."

        "Yeah."

        She stayed silent, but I could tell she was itching to get something off her chest, and I knew just what it was.

        "You can say it," I told her.

        "Say what?"

        "I told you so."

        She rolled her eyes and tightly laced her fingers with mine. "I didn't know if he was actually violent or not, Eli. Some girls just mentioned the bruises on his hands and I rolled with it to start a rumour. I don't think he lives up to what I said about him."

        "What do you mean?" I asked, more hopeful than I meant to be.

        "Well, he's never hurt anyone but himself and he doesn't want to. It's not like he's a bully, and it's not like he wants to hurt you. He sounds like a pretty good guy, I think," she explained.

        That put my mind at ease a bit, but not enough to completely let it go. I nodded stiffly, my lips pulled into a tight smile.

        "Just be careful," she said as her face got closer to mine. I barely got the chance to nod before she was on me, pulling me as close as possible with a kiss.

        But my mind was elsewhere.

<><><>

Oops haha long time no see. Sorry about that! Tbh I've just been feeling rly unsure about this story but it's back on track now so yay! Anyway this is gonna be a double update because this chapter is short as frick and the next one is long as...frick.

Thanks for reading love yall!! Don't forget to comment and vote and all that stuff if you enjoyed the story :)

~ Teddy