Closing her hands, she let the tissues start to soak up the blood.
This time, his voice was soothing when he asked, “Why did you run for the door?”
She found out she could talk to this Amo. “E-Everyone w-was staring at us.”
“Is that why you did this to yourself?”
Solemnly, she nodded her head.
Pulling out more tissues, he made her change them out. “Put more pressure on it.”
She closed her hands more firmly to stop the bleeding.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you. I thought you were doing it just so I couldn’t hold the door open for you again.”
She was finally able to meet his dark eyes. To actually see how badly he really did feel about it made her heart twinge a bit. She wasn’t sure if she really knew him at all. Finding out he had only made the scene because he had wanted to hold the door open for her was cute in a chivalrous way.
“It’s o-okay. I’ll let you hold the doors from now on.”
He actually cracked a smile at her joke. It was the first one she had really seen on him.
Brrring.
She quickly averted her eyes. The bell had made her realize she was staring at him. Her cheeks flushed a bit when he didn’t move his eyes off her right away.
Their class seemed to creep by, and about a third into it, Amo made her check her hands to see if the bleeding had stopped. It had, so at that point, Amo got up, uncaring of the teacher lecturing, and threw away all the used tissues, as well as placed the tissues back on the desk.
As he walked back to his seat, Chloe felt his stare until he sat down.
The remainder of the class, she felt herself get a little bit more comfortable next to him. It wasn’t much, but a small difference was some kind of progress. This seemed to make the class go by faster, and when the last bell of the day rang, she was surprised for once.
“You’re not gonna try to make a run for it again, are you?” he asked when she quickly got up.
“N-No, Sebastian’s locker is out there, and you basically said you wouldn’t help me, remember?”
A smug look crossed his face. Instantly, she forgot all the nice things Amo had just done for her.
“Y-you d-did something to him.”
His face dropped. “No, I didn’t. I went back to class. Nero and Vincent were the ones who went and saw him.”
Chloe bit her lip, “Really?”
“Yep,” Amo reassured her.
Staring at him for a moment, she began to believe him. At least, I think he’s telling the truth …
Standing up, he went to the door then stopped when she didn’t follow. “You coming?”
Chloe didn’t want to feel the stares on her again.
Seeming to read her mind, Amo asked, “You know why they’re staring like that, don’t you?”
She looked to the floor. “Because they think I’m a fre—”
“No, you’re not a freak,” Amo snapped. He paused for just an instant before he said, “It’s because they’ve never seen me walk a girl to class before.”
She didn’t believe him at first, but thinking back, she realized she hadn’t, either. Nero and Vincent were always the ones with girls wrapped around them between classes.
Building up the small amount of courage she had inside of her, she took her first step toward the door. The beast might not be so bad after all.
* * *
Anger exploded out of Chloe as she stared at the beast. It was a feeling she hadn’t felt this pure probably ever in her life. It only grew worse with each tear that fell down her friend’s face. She had seen Elle get the shit beaten out of her, but she had never witnessed her in this much pain.
They had just caught Nero, Amo, and Vincent in a fight, but that wasn’t the worst part. When girls in tight dresses had wrapped themselves around the boys, Chloe certainly hadn’t been shocked Vincent accepted it or even Amo, but she had been shocked Nero had a girl wrapped around him. Chloe could see it in Nero’s eyes every time he looked at Elle: he loved her. She didn’t know why he would fuck all that up.
“Let’s go,” Elle told Chloe through the tears. She had basically just told Nero to go fuck himself and only wanted to get away from him.
The anger hit its reaching point inside of Chloe. I thought we were all starting to be friends.
Nero and Elle were what was holding the alliance together. Without them, there was no friendship, especially since he had done something like this to cause such heartache to her.
She knew exactly who had played the major part in this. I can see it on his freaking face.
Rearing back her foot, she kicked him in the shin as hard as she possibly could.