High school boys did one thing I had been expecting from them.

They couldn’t keep their eyes off of Kristie.

Aiden and I were the only ones bothered by it. Anthony could have cared less, Kristie was completely oblivious to the entire matter, and Dex seemed to have something else bothering him.

I just didn’t understand what was so special about Kristie. Yes, she was beautiful, but she was so… stupid. There wasn’t any other way to describe her. She was beautiful, but stupid. And I wasn’t just saying that because I was jealous of her.

But even after they spoke to her, the boys still liked her. Did all teenage boys like stupid girls?

No boys ever talked to me, not counting my teammates or Tom. But Kristie couldn’t go a day without some guy coming up to her.

Aiden was obviously very displeased, though Kristie still didn’t notice a thing. She just thought she was making friends and was happy about it. She had no idea what these boys’ intentions were.

I really didn’t like it. I never liked seeing boys hitting on Kristie while acting like I wasn’t even there. It wasn’t like I even wanted them to hit on me or anything. At least a hello would have been nice. I also didn’t like how she wasn’t aware of what they really wanted from her.

Kristie, Kristie, Kristie was all everyone ever thought about. She was beautiful, yet stupid. If she were smart, I would have had an even bigger reason to be jealous of her.

 I hated that I was jealous of her. It just made me feel stupid and ashamed, but I just couldn’t help but feel this way.

But Kristie was still my friend, and I couldn’t blame her for looking the way she did. I didn’t think she could look bad even if she tried to.

“Hello,” a new voice suddenly greeted me while I sat in the library during my short free period. I looked up in surprise to see Vanessa smiling down at me. “You’re… Violet, right?”

I only nodded. “Uh… yeah. I’m Violet.”

She looked completely different from the last time I had seen her. She was smiling at me like we were old friends, though I could tell that it was forced. I didn’t think we’d ever be able to be friends after our first encounter.

She now looked at the seat next to me at the empty table. “Can I sit here?” she asked.

I blinked at her. What was her problem? Why was she being so nice to me?

“Sure,” was how I answered, because if I had said no and she left, I’d only grow even more confused.

She smiled and took the seat right next to me. I fought the urge to scoot my seat away. I didn’t really want to be near her. There was something about her I just didn’t like.

“So, how are you enjoying Westwood so far?” she asked me.

I was so confused by her actions that I wasn’t even able to answer right away, but then I was finally able to find my voice and say, “It’s a… nice school.”

There wasn’t much I could say about it. I didn’t have enough experience to compare it to other schools, and it wasn’t like anything really bad had happened here that would have made me dislike it. Well, not counting Malicius and Lynx being there… But even Kristie and all her boys weren’t bad enough to make me dislike the place, since that would have happened wherever we went.

Vanessa just kept smiling at me, and it made me feel very uncomfortable. Was something going to jump out and attack me or something? I wouldn’t have been surprised.

“So you and Tom,” she suddenly started now, and I almost dropped the book I had been trying to read. “Are you going to date him?”

“I…” I swallowed. “I just met him.”

“So?” She didn’t seem to think that this was a problem at all. “I’ve had a few boyfriends that I dated after only knowing them for a couple of days and those relationships went wonderfully.”

Obviously they hadn’t, since she wasn’t wit any of those guys any longer, but I wasn’t about to say this to her. I’d rather her be nice to me than mean, even though it was almost kind of creepy.

“I don’t know.” I looked around the library for some kind of escape, but there was no one I knew inside. So I was stuck. “We’re just friends.”

I didn’t even know if I could call him that, but if it got Vanessa off my back, I was almost willing to do anything.

“I just want to let you know you have my blessing to date him,” she told me, and I merely blinked. Did you need the ex-girlfriend’s blessings to be able to date? I hadn’t heard of that before… “It’s not like you need my blessing or anything, but I just want you to know I’m not going to be one of those crazy ex-girlfriends that try to get their ex-boyfriend back. I’m the one that broke up with Tom and we’re still friends.”

I only nodded, since there really wasn’t anything I could have said to her. I barely knew Tom, so it wasn’t like I was just going to jump into a relationship with him. I didn’t even think he wanted to. He was just being nice to me, which I was grateful for. Why did Vanessa want me to date Tom so badly anyway?

“You’re friends with that redheaded girl, aren’t you?” Vanessa questioned me now. “Kristina or whatever?”

“Kristie,” I corrected, and then nodded. “Yes, we’re friends.”

Vanessa now scowled, and this surprised me. What happened to all the smiling? I’d actually rather have that than a scowl. “I don’t like that girl at all,” Vanessa informed me simply. “She needs to stop flirting with every guy in school.”

I couldn’t really disagree with her, even though I knew Kristie wasn’t doing it on purpose. She didn’t even know that she was flirting with these guys. She just thought she was making friends. But if I told Vanessa this, she most likely wouldn’t have believed me or she wouldn’t have understood.

“Kristie’s… harmless,” I defended now, though I wasn’t so sure how truthful that statement was. She was a member of the DAU and trained to fight, so she wasn’t exactly harmless… “I don’t think she’s going to do anything with the guys that are talking to her. She just likes the attention.”

Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. “Yeah? Well, I don’t.”

And I hadn’t thought she would. Even I didn’t like it, and I was sure that Vanessa’s reason was the same reason as mine, thought slightly different. She wanted attention and I just didn’t want to be ignored.

Vanessa seemed to no longer want to talk about my redheaded friend and she straightened herself up in her seat. “So, your friend Dex,” Vanessa began, and I almost rolled my eyes. “He sure is… something, isn’t he?”

And there it was. The whole reason she was even talking to me. She wasn’t interested in being my friend, or gossip about Kristie; she was interested in Dex. And I didn’t want her anywhere near him.

“He isn’t all that great,” I shrugged, even though this was a total lie. Dex was a pretty great guy. He hadn’t always been, but now he was. “He’s not the… nicest guy you’ll ever meet.”

And that was the truth. Though he was nice to me now, he hadn’t always been, and he could still be pretty brash and rude with people when he wanted to be. But I wasn’t worried about Vanessa in this situation, I was worried about Dex.

Vanessa smiled. “That’s not so bad. I like bad boys.”

I didn’t like where this conversation was going. I didn’t want her to go anywhere near Dex. He didn’t need someone like her—he didn’t need a girl that had had multiple boyfriends that obviously had not worked out for reasons.

Vanessa was human. Even if Dex did like her, they couldn’t have had a relationship simply because of that fact. And it was the same for Tom and me. We couldn’t date them because they were humans, no matter how much we could have possibly loved each other.

“So, will you help me hook up with him?” Vanessa asked me now as she leaned back in her chair. “Since we’re friends and all, you know?”

I stood up from the table and gathered my books together. My free period was almost over anyway. “Look, I think we both know you don’t really want to be my friend,” I told her honestly. “You just want Dex. If you want him that badly, then go talk to him yourself.”

I was hoping that she was the kind of girl that was too shy to go talk to a guy that she liked, but that didn’t seem like Vanessa at all. So that was why I didn’t understand why she was trying to talk to me in the first place.

“Look,” Vanessa started nastily now, grabbing onto my arm and yanking me back down to my seat. “If what that blonde bitch said the other day was true, you guys are his best friends. You know him. And I’d much rather talk to you and that slut.”

I bit down on my tongue to stop myself from yelling at her for calling Lena those things. We were in a library, so I had to be quiet.

“Do you think I’d want to set my best friend up with a girl that insults his friends?” I snapped at her now, ripping my arm from her grasp but not standing back up. “You’re not the kind of girl Dex likes anyway.”

Vanessa seemed outraged at the fact that I thought she couldn’t have been someone’s type. Obviously, she thought she could have been any guy’s type.

“And are you the kind of girl he likes?” she asked me accusingly now, and it took me aback. When she saw whatever look I had on my face, her eyes went wide. “I know why you don’t want me to date him!”

Here we go…

“You like him,” she concluded, as if all evidence pointed to this. “You like him and you want him for yourself. That’s why you don’t want me to have him. That’s why you’re not sure about dating Tom! You like him!”

Life would have been so much simpler if humans could know that we existed. I was sure this whole misunderstanding could have been cleaned up if she knew I could have blasted her through the window right then.

“No,” I denied her allegations now. “I don’t like Dex. We’re only friends and that’s it.”

When you were in the DAU, it was frowned upon to have relationships, even if they were with people of our own kind. It wasn’t like it wasn’t allowed, but it complicated things. Hank and Nay had to learn this from experience.

“Sure.” Vanessa shook her head. “Like I’m going to believe anything you say.”

Was it, like, impossible for human boys and human girls to be friends? I didn’t understand why we had to like each other just because we were close or because we cared about each other. Why couldn’t we just be friends?

“Vanessa,” someone now called out from not so far away, and we turned to see who was calling her. My eyes went wide when I saw Samara making her way over to us.

“Samara,” Vanessa smiled at the older girl. “Hey! How’ve you been?”

“I’m good,” she answered, but then looked at me. She didn’t even say anything, and neither did I.

Vanessa didn’t seem to sense any animosity between Lynx and I, which I guess was a  good thing. “Samara, this is Violet,” she introduced. “Violet, this is Samara.”

“I know,” Lynx smirked down at me, and I felt incredibly small, though I didn’t show it. “We’ve met before.”

Yes, multiple times before. And the last time we had been in contact with each other she had bashed a hunk of wood against my skull and I yanked on her hair. Both seemed to be completely different ways to attack… but they seemed to cause the same amount of pain.

“Are you friends?” Vanessa asked us.

“No,” I answered the same time Lynx said, “You could say that.”

We looked at each other and I felt my eye twitch. I wouldn’t have said we were anywhere near friends, but I guess Lynx had a different definition than I did.

When the bell rang for the next period, I let out a long sigh of relief. I didn’t think I’d ever get out of this very awkward and uncomfortable conversation.

The rest of the school day went rather smoothly, luckily. I didn’t run into Lynx or Vanessa, and since Malicius’s class had been earlier in the day, I didn’t have to deal with him either. I just couldn’t wait to go back to the DAU and train for a little bit.

“You okay?” a new voice suddenly asked as I waited after school for my friends so we could finally go home. It would probably be smart if we started taking separate cars so we wouldn’t have to wait for each other. Lena was able to go home because she drove herself in her own car.

I turned in surprised to see Dex looking at me, concerned. For a moment, I didn’t know how I was supposed to respond. It wasn’t like there was really anything wrong, but…

“I’m fine,” I answered, since it wasn’t really a lie. “It’s just that… You know…”

I stopped when I saw Kristie making her way over to us, another random guy at her side chatting her up. Meanwhile, a very angry Aiden was following after them.

“Kristie and all her little boyfriends are bothering you, huh?” Dex asked me now, a smirk growing on his face. I made a face at him. “I don’t blame you. It’s actually pretty annoying.”

I was sure we found it annoying for completely different reasons. It wasn’t like Dex wanted attention from all those guys, and it wasn’t like he liked Kristie or anything. It might have even been annoying Anthony as well, since we just had random high school boys with us just because of Kristie.

“It just bothers me that she gets all the attention sometimes,” I sighed, turning away from Kristie and her new friend as Aiden made his way closer to them. “After being locked away in your room for five years, being ignored isn’t the best feeling.”

Dex frowned. “Sorry. I didn’t know it bothered you that much.”

I shook my head. “I guess there isn’t really anything I can do about it,” I sighed. “It’s just that when I’m ignored, I feel like I’m back in that tiny, dark room and I feel like I can’t breathe. I hated that room.”

Dex placed his hand on my shoulder. “It’ll be alright, okay?”

“It’s also that I’m kind of jealous that that she always gets attention from guys,” I continued now, just wanting to be able to vent about this. “I’ve been hit on before, but they’ve all always went wrong. They were either fake or ended up in a fight.”

“I’m sure there’s a guy out there who likes you a lot. Someone you could like a lot,” Dex shrugged, and he didn’t look at me until he continued. “You never know. He could be right in front of you.”

I looked up at Dex and our eyes locked. I didn’t know how long we stood there just looking at each other, but I was about to say something to him until I was cut off with, “Hey, Violet!”

I turned to see Tom making his way toward me, smiling like he always did. I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

Right in front of me, huh…?

“Hi,” I greeted him back, still smiling.

When he hugged me once he got up to me, I was so surprised that I almost didn’t hug him back. It was not something I had expected from him, but it wasn’t like I was complaining about it.

Dex looked like he was either going to fall over or punch something. Or both.

“Do you need a ride home?” Tom asked me once he pulled away. “I could drive you.”

Could he? Was that allowed? He wouldn’t have been taking me home, he would have been taken me back to the DAU… that he couldn’t know existed. What did humans think the DAU was?

Before I could answer him, Dex took a step in front of me. “No, she’s good.”

I looked from Tom to Dex, and both seemed to almost been sizing each other up. I didn’t know how this might have ended if I didn’t get them away from each other soon.

“Are you driving her home?” Tom asked the boy standing in front of me.

Dex didn’t budge, his arms crossed over his chest. “I am.”

That wasn’t a lie. Dex was driving us home, though Aiden had the keys because he insisted, since he was the leader. And right then, he was too busy trying to get some guy away from Kristie.

“You know where she lives?” Tom questioned now.

Dex smirked at him. “Even better. We live together.”

Tom’s eyes went wide. I nearly swallowed my tongue.

“That’s not what it sounds like!” I elbowed Dex in the side and pushed him right out of my way. He must have not been expecting it, because I was able to do it without a struggle. “We live in this… boarding house… thing. All of us do. My friends, I mean.”

I couldn’t tell if Tom believed me or not, but as long as he didn’t think Dex and I lived in a house or an apartment together by ourselves, I didn’t care.

Tom looked from Dex and then to me. He took a step back. “I’ll see you later, Violet,” was all he said to me with barely a smile before he turned around and started off down the hall.

I just watched him go. I didn’t think there was anything I could say to him to get him to come back. I didn’t think Dex would even let him come back.

“Dex!” I shouted at him, pushing against his shoulder, though he didn’t even move. “You’re such a jerk! Why did you say that to him?”

Dex looked down at me with wide eyes. “You wanted him to drive you back to the DAU?”

“Maybe!”

“You’re crazy.”

I blinked at him. “Excuse me?” I nearly gasped. “And just how am I crazy?”

“You wanted a human to drive you back to the DAU!” He really did look like I was crazy; like he couldn’t believe what I had almost gotten myself into. Was he aware that there were humans all around us? “Some of the DAU might look like a boarding house, but how would you explain the rest of the building?”

I was completely tongue-tied. I didn’t know how I was supposed to answer that question. I didn’t know what I’d say if he asked what the rest of the DAU was.

Dex moved in closer to me now, our faces so close our noses were almost touching. But this time, he was not going to kiss me. He looked like he had no desire to.

“Nay said you can’t have a relationship with a human,” he told me, and I had to look around to make sure no other humans could have been listening. “Or did you seem to forget that?”

My eyebrows furrowed. “She also said I couldn’t have a relationship with any of my teammates.”

This seemed to shut Dex up, and something changed in his eyes as he finally took a step away from me so we were no longer too close to each other. I was still angry, but I wasn’t going to continue fighting with him, especially since we were in a crowded hallway.

I saw Anthony finally making his way over to us, and I knew that we could finally leave. But Aiden was still dealing with the guy that just wouldn’t stop talking to Kristie, who was having a blast talking to this random guy while Aiden just stood there, defeated.

“Aiden!” I screamed, getting the attention of many people I didn’t care about. “We’re leaving! Come on!"

I started off toward the car, successfully scaring Aiden enough for him to practically grab Kristie and carry her all the way out to the car. Dex and I didn’t even speak to each other for the entire drive back to the DAU.

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So some of you have given Violet and Tom the ship name Vom... It kind of reminds me of vomit. But then their other ship name would be Tiolet, and that's way too close to toilet, so I guess Vom is fine. xD

This was all written on my sister's laptop... and I'm not used to it so if there are any typos, I'm sorry. x)

Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN! :)