The Love of My Bully

“I tell you, if he comes near me again, I’m going to fucking have him.”

Pru held her pencil over her paper and glanced over at him. “What?”

“You heard me. I bet he’s afraid of me.”

“No, I doubt that’s it.”

She hadn’t spent all that much time with Sean in the past couple of weeks. With Drake sneaking around her place every single chance he got, she had been making every single excuse she could think of to be with him. When they were together, she forgot about everything.

There were no cares in the world.

Just each other.

It was refreshing for her to just feel rather than have to think about every little detail of her life. For Drake, she didn’t know what he felt. He smiled a lot more and on the whole, he did seem happier.

The days in high school were always the longest, and Sean made her nervous. There was no way she could expect Drake not to retaliate if Sean decided to start a fight. She wished she knew what had gotten into Sean for him to change.

“You don’t think I could take him?” Sean asked.

It took every single ounce of composure not to respond to his claim. None of this made any sense. Why was he suddenly so intent on taking Drake on?

“You really don’t, do you?”

“Sean, please, I have no idea what’s going on,” she said. She licked her suddenly dry lips and wished she knew what to say to calm him down. “Why do you feel the need to fight him? If Drake’s leaving you alone, then I don’t see a reason to get into any conflict at all.”

“You don’t?”

“No. It seems kind of pointless.” She tried not to wince.

Sean kept on staring at her. She quickly glanced down at her book and hoped against hope he wasn’t reading too much into this.

“Pointless?” Sean slapped his hand on the table, making her jump.

Looking around, she saw a couple of other people staring at him.

“Sean, really.”

“You know, I don’t get it. I spent most of our school years together watching the two of you fight it out. I’ve had no choice but to put up with it and now that I’m doing something about it, you’re not happy.”

“It’s not that I’m not happy about it, I just don’t see why you should have to risk hurting yourself for no good reason.” She reached out, taking his hand.

“What has happened to you?” he asked.

“Me?”

“Yeah. You’re never around anymore. I don’t get it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.”

Her heart started to race.

“There was a time we’d do everything together. The old Pru would have loved this new fighting spirit I’ve got.”

He was right. There was a time she’d have begged him to find that fire inside him so no one could hurt him. Only now, the person he was intent on hurting was the guy she’d fallen for, and it wasn’t fair to him for her to force him to stop being this guy.

“I’ve got to use the bathroom.” Without waiting for a response from Sean, she got to her feet and rushed out of the library. No one followed her, least of all Sean. He never did. She was thankful since she didn’t want any company today, she just needed a minute.

Bursting through the doors, she was pleased to see the bathroom was empty.

Gripping the edge of the sink, she stared down into the plain white porcelain sink.

“It’s fine. You’re fine.” She took several deep breaths and realized her hands were shaking. She didn’t know why, and her gut was twisting as well.

This wasn’t good.

Whenever she was with Drake, she felt like the world could just disappear and she wouldn’t have to worry about a thing. The moment they were apart, everything seemed to turn to shit and she couldn’t focus, not even for a short while.

“I can do this,” she said.

“What can you do?” Drake asked.

She spun to see he’d entered the bathroom.

“You do know this is the girls’ bathroom?”

“Yeah, I know. It doesn’t mean that I can’t be worried about you. No one’s here.”

“Why are you here?” she asked. They had avoided all contact at school, leaving their make-up sessions for when they were together.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay. Don’t worry, I didn’t beat the shit out of Sean even if I wanted to.”

“He wants to hurt you. I don’t get it.” She burst out laughing. “I mean, all this time he doesn’t want to do anything with you and now when we’re doing whatever it is the hell we’re doing, he now wants to start a fight with you.” She pressed her hands to her face to try to contain the hysteria that was building. “Do you see how messed up that is?”

“That’s why you’re upset?”

“I’m upset because I can’t tell my best friend about us. I’m upset because he even wants to hurt you in the first place. This is all fucked up.” She turned back to the sink and gripped the edge. She had to get control of herself.