Nick was behind me. His hands were in his pockets. When he realized I was watching him, he winked at me, then his gaze shifted and his pupils dilated.
I looked where his gaze had landed, and there was Aaron, approaching me…
Small and insignificant. That’s the perfect definition of how I feel right now.
Right now, I’m feeling a sea of emotions. The most evident ones to me are guilt, nervousness, and fear.
Aaron’s eyes are burrowing deep into me, making each feeling intensify a bit more with every passing second.
When he was inches away from me, his face showed the disgust he felt for me. His gaze kept shifting between Nick and me.
“What does this mean?” His question sank into my brain. I was trying to process the words. They weren’t complicated. I was the complicated one.
“Don’t you get it yet?” The cynicism in Nick’s voice made my skin prickle.
He quickly walked towards Aaron, not touching him, just circling him, clearly looking for a reaction from him so he could respond. I knew him.
“She’s with me,” he concluded.
Aaron challenged him with a stare. Nick was breathing as if he had run a marathon, his knuckles were white from gripping his fists so tight, I was surprised his skin hadn’t cracked.
“Nick, let it go,” I pleaded, my voice tinged with distress.
He turned to look at me. I could almost see the tiny flame in his eyes fizzling out as he took in my state. I was on the verge of tears. Nick loosened his tense posture and was walking towards me when Aaron punched my boyfriend’s jaw and he fell to the ground.
Aaron took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows. He was getting ready to keep hitting him. Before he could throw himself on Nick, I quickly stepped in and pushed Aaron away.
“That’s enough,” I implored, feeling a lot of helplessness about the situation I was being put in. Or really, because I was conscious that I kept putting myself in these kinds of situations over and over again.
I took Nick’s hand to help him get up, and he did, touching his swollen lip.
“I thought you were better than this,” Aaron muttered, but it sounded too threatening to me.
Eva nervously grabbed my wrist and pushed me back, at the same time a punch was thrown directly at Aaron’s nose.
The one holding my wrist was Eva. From her face, she was more terrified than I was.
Nick was on top of the same boy who had helped me when I needed it the most. He was landing punches on his face. A jolt of anger was directed at Nick. He made me go through the most painful moment of my life and I needed support, the only one who helped me then was Aaron.
I made Eva release my wrist. I threw myself onto Nick’s back and whispered as calmly as possible in his ear, “Please stop hurting him.”
He stopped just as he was about to deliver another punch. His fist was in the air and trembling. He was having an internal war with himself, not knowing whether he should continue hurting him or stop for me.
Trusting that Nick wouldn’t hurt me, I raised my hand and touched his bloody fist, lowering it.
I held it for a while, then got off his back. He got up with me and walked towards the building without looking back. I could see his back muscles contracting.
It took me a few seconds to realize there were a lot of people around us, looking particularly at me and the body of their professor on the ground.
Stop looking at Nick, I knelt next to Aaron. I touched his face and he started looking at me warily.
Nick had broken his lip and I’m pretty sure his nose as well. His face was full of blood, but he didn’t allow me to realize his pain.
“I swear I didn’t mean for this to end like this.”
He shifted his gaze from mine, as if he was disgusted by seeing me. “Yet, look how it ended.”
He was right. I felt like crap.
“I’m sorry. I truly care about you, Aaron, but…”
“But you care more about the little shit that just walked away. I know, you don’t have to clarify it, I think it’s pretty clear. Yet, you kept me close when you knew you wanted someone else, Samantha. You were selfish. You were with me, you made me fall in love with you, knowing that at some point you were going to go back to him and don’t you dare deny it, I’m tired and I don’t have the age or time to waste on this kind of thing.”
“I… didn’t want this to happen. I didn’t want to go back to Nick. Do you think I would have been with you if I considered it a possibility?”
He let out a groan of pain and touched his nose. “Who are you with now?”
I opened my mouth to beg one more apology, but I froze. I had nothing else to say.
Now I’m with Nick. What he just said meant that if I wanted to go back with him, I was fooling myself by denying it. And I knew, deep down, that I was going to end up back by his side. You can’t extinguish the fire if you’re constantly stoking it like Nick and I did, we never stopped.
Aggressively, someone grabbed my waist and I let out a squeal. I knew it was Nick’s hands, I didn’t need to see his face to confirm it.
He put me on his shoulder and my face ended up against the small of his back.
Not again…
“Nick, put me down, I mean it!” I yelled. He, as always, ignored me and I, as always, started hitting him.
The students were looking at us as if we were crazy, and yes, we probably were.
He made me enter the university and locked me in the same janitor’s closet as the first time.
He closed the door and turned around so we were face to face. His chest was against mine. I tried to move back but it was useless, now this closet was even more packed and I couldn’t move.
“You have to stop carrying me,” I muttered angrily. I looked at his face and the right side of his jaw was red.
“And you have to stop hitting me,” he retorted. “And if I hadn’t carried you on my shoulder, you wouldn’t have come with me.”
“Well, because I didn’t want to!” I roared, trying to leave, but he wouldn’t let me. I ran my hands over my face, frustrated. “You didn’t have to hit him.”
“He threw the first punch.”
“Because you approached him to provoke him! Are you crazy?”
“I couldn’t contain myself…” he said through gritted teeth, looking at the floor as if he were recalling the moment he was hitting Aaron.
“I decide who I want to get close to me, Nick.”
“He wants to get into your pants, Sam. That’s all he wants.”
“I also decide who gets into my pants,” I regretted saying that as soon as it left my mouth.
I noticed his eyes narrowing, his mouth frowning, and his nose wrinkling.
“Go to hell, Samantha. Do as you please.”
“Same to you, Nick,” We held each other’s gaze for a few seconds. “Now let me go.”
“Are you going back to him?”
“Yes, he needs to go to the hospital, you wrecked his face and sorry but right now I don’t want to be in the same room as you.”
“He deserved it,” he muttered.
“No! He didn’t! When you made that stupid bet you destroyed me! When I needed someone the most, he was there! He prevented me from completely falling apart, so no, he didn’t deserve it!”
He fell silent, still. The angry expression on his face remained intact.
“Nick, please let me go.”
He nodded and moved aside enough for me to get out. “I’m sorry.”
His apology made me stop walking for a few seconds, but I didn’t look at him or respond. I exited the building and saw Eva trying to lift Aaron off the floor.
I ran to help, but the person I least expected got to him before I did, took his arm and put it behind his neck.
Aaron looked at him and his eyes widened.
Nick glanced in my direction and grimaced.
“I’m going to take him to the hospital. You stay here,” he said, and slowly walked to his car.
“I want to go.”
“You stay here, Samantha,” Aaron and Nick said simultaneously. They both looked at each other and also let out a sort of growl.
“I’m already regretting this,” Nick muttered.
I didn’t insist any further and stayed put until I saw Nick’s car leave the parking lot.
“That was… intense,” Eva, who I hadn’t realized was by my side, said.
“Yes, it was.”
I was still perplexed. Nick helped Aaron. The fact that he did that for me makes me fall for him even more.
“What is everyone doing here?” I turned around and the principal was approaching us.
“Everyone, go to your classes,” No one moved or responded. “Now!”
She and I moved along with the other students.
I took one last look at the spot where I saw Nick’s car disappear and went to my class.