My BBF

The Argument

BIANCA
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                                      My 🫶🏼
My 🫶🏼: hey babe are you almost here?
My🫶🏼: i have my assignment ready and stuff
My 🫶🏼: babe? did you pass out? 🤔
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I scroll all the way to the bottom of the messages, reading the last message, which was sent about 50 minutes ago.
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                                      My 🫶🏼
My 🫶🏼: nvm. i invited chloe over to help. but we need to talk.
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I sigh and stare at the name 'Chloe'. "Since when did he know a 'Chloe'?" I thought to myself.

I shake my head and not overthink it. Typing out, "Sorry, love, I did pass out 😅, but yeah, we can talk," and send the message to him.

He leaves me on read and I feel a slight uneasiness in my stomach.

***

After a few minutes of reading on the couch in the living room to clear my head, I hear a knock on my door.

"One second!" I say aloud as I finish reading a sentence in my book. I place my bookmark on the page I was on and close the book.

I head to my door, with my book in hand, planning on reading it more.

I open the door and look up to see Kayden's eyes. "Hey, are you okay?" I raise an eyebrow as I see what appears to be guilty expression on his face.

He clears his throat and nods. "Uh, yeah. Just... Can we talk?"

"Of course. What do you want to talk to me about?" I step aside to let him enter my dorm, but he hesitates and shakes his head.

"Look, do you still have feelings for Hayden?"

"What? What are you talking about?" I chuckle nervously.

He rolls his eyes and scoffs. "Everyone at school knew that you had a massive crush on him. Don't lie, Bianca."

I glare at him. "Excuse me? Are you assuming things based off of rumors? Also, why are you bringing this up now? You never talk about Hayden."

"I only mentioned him now because he's back in your life!" He raises his voice a bit.

"Kaden, he's my brother's best friend! And mine too! Why is this such a problem?" I raise my voice a bit to match his tone.

"It's a problem because you like him!"

"I do not! We're just friends!" I clench my book in my hand and sigh, releasing my grip a bit and calming down. "Look, I understand that it's not a good look for me to be close to Hayden, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop having him in my life. He's my best friend. If you can't handle that, then that's fine with me."

He stills. "Are you... breaking up with me?" He tilts his head and crosses his arms.

"What? No. Of course not. I just need some time to think and you do too. We can talk about this another time." I hear the door to my brother's dorm room creak open and glance at it.

"Can you guys keep it down? I'm trying to hang out with my girlfriend." Jacob says to me and yawns.

Kaden turns his head towards him and nods. "Sorry, dude, I just needed to talk to my girlfriend."

I look at his neck to see a red mark on it, that wasn't from me, and I freeze.

"What the fuck?" I think to myself.

"Kaden?" I quietly say his name, my throat welling up with tears.

He looks down at me. "Yes?"

"What's going on here?" I look towards the deep voice, which interrupted us. Hayden walked up to us in the hallway with a plastic grocery bag. He looks at all three of us.

"Damn it, now I don't have time to hang out with Maggie." Jacob mumbles under his breath, then goes back into his dorm to his girlfriend.

Kaden ignores Hayden and repeats his question. "Yes?"

I look up at him. "Are you cheating on me?" My ears started ringing. "...Again?"

"What?" He looks at me with a blank face. "No! Why would you ask that?"

"Then what's that on your neck?!" Tears started falling down my cheeks.

He covers the mark up with his hand. "Nothing!" He says defensively.

"It's not nothing! Kaden Mitchell, tell me the truth!" I sob. "Are you cheating on me?" I clench my book again, this time, with my arms hugging it.

"She did it! Not me!" He confesses.

"Chloe?" I say shakily.

"It doesn't matter. She's nothing to me!" He steps closer and I automatically step back.

"No. Get away from me." I quietly say.

"What?" He responds and looks at me with pleading eyes. "Bianca, you mean the world to me!"

"I said. Get. Away!" I start hitting him with my book, leading him out of my dorm and into the hallway. "We're over!"

He goes silent for a few seconds and then chuckles. "Are you fucking kidding me? You're serious right now?! Come on, B, this is like all the other times we broke up. We'll eventually get back together and have—."

His sentence was cut short when Hayden punched his jaw, causing him to stumble and grunt.

"Hayden! What the hell?!" I look at him in disbelief.

He shrugs. "I've always wanted to do that. Plus, he can't use my nickname for you. I won't allow it." He tries to lighten the mood, but then turns serious. "He can't disrespect you like that. I will not ever let anyone disrespect you."

He turns to Kaden and scoffs.

"Kaden, leave." I glare at him as he rubs his jaw. When he looks up, that's when I notice that his nose is bleeding. I would've instinctively been sympathetic towards him and take care of him, but that was before.

"Heh," he smirks, "nice one Thompson." He glares at Hayden and straightens himself up, wiping the blood off with his shirt sleeve.

"Kaden. Leave." I repeat, but he ignores me again, continuing to glare at Hayden.