"Get off of him!"

The punching stops, but I keep my eyes closed tight as I hear Jefferson chuckle.

"Or what?" He asks.

There's then a sudden relief of pressure and I finally open my eyes to see someone had pushed Jefferson off of me or something. He was laying on the ground next to me, holding his nose. Before he could get back up, someone was standing me up and dragging me through the crowd of teenagers that had formed.

I couldn't quite process anything properly, and it was difficult to see with one swollen eye, but I could see the person with the hoodie was leading me out of school. They sit me down and I finally get a chance to look up at-

"Laurens?" I ask aloud, my voice raspy.

He looks down at me and smiles, moving his hood down. "Yeah, yeah it's me. What the hell did you say to Jefferson to get him so angry?" He chuckles and sits in front of me. "Oh, shit you look awful..Um.." He digs through his backpack and pulls out an extra shirt. "Here, put this against your nose to stop the bleeding."

I stare at him in shock as he hands me the shirt. It was a light blue shirt, so I shook my head and wiped my nose on my sleeve instead. "No..I don't want to stain it.." I mumble, still looking at him with caution.

He sighs softly and puts the shirt back in his bag. "Okay.. We need to get you an ice pack then. For your eye and-"

"Why are you helping me, exactly?" I interrupt.

He stares at me. "Um..What?" He asks, clearly playing dumb.

"Why are you helping me? Your little group beats me up every single day, and you always just stand there. Now someone else is beating me up and you suddenly don't like it?" I ask, hugging my knees to my chest.

He sighs and looks off to the side. "Um...Well...When the Schuylers do it, I know they're not strong enough to hurt you that badly. But Thomas definitely could've done some real damage, and I didn't want you to end up passed out or something.."

I tilt my head. "What do you care?"

He looks at me and then seems to brush it off. "You do my homework, genius. Can't have the one person helping me out out of school for a couple days, can I?" I roll my eyes.

"Of course not.."

He pauses. "Here, come on, I'm going to bring you somewhere so we can fix you up a little bit."

"And what about school?"

"What, you wanna go back in there like that? Just take the rest of the day off with me, Alex."

He smiles at me and everything I know, every little bit of common sense is telling me to say no. I mean, why would I go with him of all people? It just doesn't make any sense.

"Okay."

And all the common sense flew out the window. I just couldn't say no. Not to that smile.

He helps me up and we walk together, away from the school. We pass by the park we always meet up at and then walk a couple more blocks to a pretty big house. I look up at it and then over at John.

"Is this your house?" I ask.

He nods. "Um, yeah. My dad is at work and my little sister is at school, so you're good to stay for a few hours. Come on, we need to get your face cleaned up and iced."

I follow him inside and look around the house. It was beautiful. I don't know what I was expecting, though. His family was filthy rich.

"You can head to the bathroom down the hall and wash you face in the sink, I'll go get the ice pack."

I nod and walk down the hallway, looking at all the photos on the wall. There were a couple in particular that were odd to me. There was one where a young John was standing between a woman, who appeared to be pregnant, and a man. I'm assuming these are his parents, and he looks insanely happy, as do the other two.

But the next photo is a photo of a little bit older John holding a baby on his lap, the man from the last picture sitting behind him. This one didn't quite have the same happiness the other photo did. In fact, all three of them wore frowns.

I shake it off and go to the bathroom, which had two sinks and was huge compared to mine, and begin washing my face. I look up at myself in the mirror to see one of my eyes was already bruising up and my nose looked a little funky. I sigh and dry my face off before going to the livingroom.

John handed me an ice pack and a water bottle. "Here, I figured you'd want some water as well."

I thank him quietly and look around. "Where should I sit?"

"You wanna go up to my room? I have a first aid kit in there, I'm sure I have some sort of ointment or something to put on those bruises."

I nod slightly and he leads me upstairs. We enter his room and I look around as he goes to his bed, looking under it. The walls were a light blue color, but you could hardly tell with all the paintings covering it. Some were on canvases, but there were also a lot of flowers painted directly on the walls.

"What? You hired someone to paint your room?" I ask, looking around again before looking at him. He blushes gently and rubs the back of his neck.

"Um..Not exactly."

"What does that mean? Someone volunteered to paint it for you?"

"Well, I painted it. The walls, the canvases..Everything."

I stare at him in shock and look at the beautiful paintings and pictures again. I look back at him. "You?" Was all I could respond with.

He nodded and I scoff. "So, you're telling me that you have this much talent, and you're wasting it by going to law school instead of art school?"

He blushes a bit more. "Um, they're not even that good. You can't make a career out of art, but you can make a pretty good career out of law."

I tilt my head at him. "Well yeah, I know that, but this is amazing. You could probably make a fortune selling your art."

"You really think so?" He asks. I could've sworn I saw a small smile and a look of hope in his eyes, but I'm not 100% sure.

I nod, however. "Hell yeah. I don't say anything I don't mean."

He smiles (for sure this time), but quickly shakes his head. "Nah, I'd rather become a lawyer." He sits on his bed and pats the spot next to him. "Come here, let me help you."

I sigh and sit in front of him, kicking my shoes off and sitting criss-crossed. He starts to clean up my face, seeming to focus intensely, and I blush a bit. He was a bit closer than I was used to with people, but for some reason I couldn't find myself pulling away.

I look at his dozens of freckles and smile gently. "You have a lot of freckles." I think aloud.

His cheeks turn a shade of pink once again and he chuckles nervously. "Yeah, too many if you ask me."

"What, you don't like them?"

"Nope." He says, popping the 'p' at the end of it.

"Hm, I'm learning more and more about the 'bad boy' every second." I tease, using air quotes around the nickname.

He chuckles once more and then looks me in the eyes. I feel my heart skip a beat and I look back into his eyes.

It was a weird moment, one I've never felt before. He was close before, but I could feel him coming closer to me.

We both hesitate to connect, but he pulls away quickly, shaking his head.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know what that was." He says, blushing profusely.

I'm sure my face was just as red, if not redder. "I-It's fine, I mean nothing even happened.."

He nods slowly. "Right.. Don't... Don't you dare tell anyone about that... Okay? I am... I'm straight. Whatever that was, meant nothing." He clarifies.

"Right, no I get it. Wouldn't want to ruin your precious reputation." I scoff slightly.

We both pause, a brief moment of silence, before I turn myself. I start putting my shoes on and then stand up.

"Thank you, for the help and all. I should...I should go."

"Yeah, probably. Um...See you tomorrow?" He asks.

"We still go to the same school, dumbass." I mumble, grabbing my stuff and walking out of the room.

I leave the house and John follows to close the door behind me and I sigh. That was weird. Really weird.

I don't even know what it was, but I can guarantee it'll never happen again. 

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