Tough Girl Out, Soft Girl In

Chapter 24

Alex told me I needed to stop caring about what others thought.

Well, he wasn't going through what I was. People weren't making fun and teasing him all throughout the freaking school day. His best friend's were not ignoring him.

Deep down, I didn't want him to be here because of pity. I wanted him to be here because he wanted to.

I knew I had feelings for Alex, I even admitted it to Asia and Lexi. I wanted him to like me as much as I did. But it would hurt way more if he hung with me because of pity than I'd he didn't like me back.

I looked around the cafeteria to see that some people were looking at me. They were giggling. I didn't know what for. I wasn't doing anything unusual.

Eventually, I found our why they were laughing. I had something on my back.

I reached for it. It was a paper with words on it. I crumbled it up, not even bothering to read it.

I got up from the table and looked at Alex. "Alex, let me do you a favor. I'm going to leave. You can stay here and not have to worry about being friendly to me. It's okay, I really don't want the pity. You can have your peace and happiness."

I walkedaway, not even waiting for his reaction. I knew I was overreacting. I wasn't being bullied now because it wasn't continuous. But I had a feeling this wouldn't stop. I felt like it would get worse. And I was scared of that.

"Yo, Monica!" A senior boy yelled at me. "You don't want to take a bath in some spaghetti with me?"

Some kids in the cafeteria laughed. I rolled my eyes at him. Suddenly I tripped over some freshman kid's foot. I landed on my butt, and I heard even more people laughed. My cheeks heated up in embarrassment.

A hand reached towards mines, but I ignored it and got up on my own. It was Alex's.

Asia, Lexi, Claire, and even Tyrone were laughing. What a great way to show you want your ex back, Tyrone?
I wanted to wipe the smirks off their faces so bad. I turned to leave but Alex grabbed my hand holding me back.

I glared at him. "Alex, I told you! Leave me alone!"

He ignored me as he glared he stared angrily at the kid who tripped me.

"Listen to me, you little b*tch. You see her?" Alex pointed at me to the kid. He nods slowly. "I swear- if you do that sh*t again, I'll make sure you have no f*cking feet to trip no one with." I stared at him in awe. His jaw was clenched, and there was pure anger in his dark eyes. I could feel myself melt.... and the fact that this anger was all cause of me.

I looked back at the kid, which ruined my froze my melting state. I giggled when the little freshman put up his arms up in a sign of surrendering.

Alex tightened his grip on my arm and he started to lead me to the exit.
Before he could lead me fully away, I looked back at the numbers of students sitting in the cafeteria. I spotted Asia, and suddenly I was in a better mood, when I saw the jealousy in Asia's eyes as she eyed my hand in Alex's. Then I looked at the freshman kid. He looked at me. I used my free hand and threw up my middle finger at him. I heard the whole cafeteria gasp. They probably were surprised to see the quite and uninteresting Monica doing something like that.

I didn't care. If they were going to continue to do things like this to me, they would get a whole other part of Monica they never knew about.

I plastered a huge smile on my face as we stepped out the cafeteria.

"Alex." I looked up, smiling at him. "I-"
He didn't let me finish though. He still looked mad. "Monica, don't ever say that sh*t to me again. I'm not being fake to you. Stop believing that stupid crap. I ain't got time for that."