Beauty and the Bully.

Chapter Fourteen

Ayla.

Walking through the cafeteria I slowly tell Bri all the events of yesterday. As expected, she was feeling loads of different emotions, shock, disgust and anger masked her face. "Who in gods name does he think he is to be treating you... My best friend like that!" She shouted catching some weird looks and in return giving them glares telling them to mind their business. Whilst I completely understand her reaction towards all of this I didn't want her to make a huge deal out of it.

"Bri its okay you have nothing to worry about-" I reason with her until I'm cut off. "Listen Ayla. You don't deserve hum. He's a bast-" I slapped my hand on her mouth as gently as I could hoping she wouldn't say the horrible word coming next. "Bri!" I scolded, I didn't mind bad words but we were in a cafeteria and her screaming out a curse word would get us in trouble. Okay maybe I minded a little, I mean bastard is a strong word.

"I don't care Ayla, that's the nicest cuss I have for him now, it can get much worse. I'm annoyed right now, he took your first kiss, threw you out like a toy and then had the nerve to kiss you again? He has some balls, well not for long because I'm going to chop-" She spat put words laced with venom and my eyes widened as she carried on with her speech.

"Bria Emily Wilson. Stop." I raised my voice and she grumbled but did as told, Bri and I never argued, honestly never. Sure we had disagreements like in an other friendship which was normal but we always knew what boundaries to never cross and instead we communicated.

"Bri don't you think I'm angry too. I'll get over it, sometimes things don't go my way and that's just how life is." I explained and she sighed followed by a nod showing she surrendered and thank god she did because I didn't want to talk anymore about this. I feel so embarrassed, so naïve and dumb.

"Okay lets talk about something else. Are you going to the match tonight, I'm going to be there because Myles is playing." She says excitedly, I crease my brows until I recall the event. I had promised James I would go and I had no other plans. I would love to come and support James.

"Yeah, James invited me so I'll come."

I didn't even realise that its already Thursday, the week had gone by so fast. Yesterday there was no business so I didn't have to see Ryder and he wasn't in English class so my day was shining brighter than a diamond. I was pretty sure I didn't have a lesson with him today, I had English but I wasn't sure if he was coming in. Hopefully he doesn't. I need to be completely stress free today and seeing him wont help. Sometimes I wish we just stayed the way we were, our dynamic was fine. Sure I was on the short end of the stick but back then feelings were simple, he hated me and I was neutral, now he hates me and I think I- I don't know what I think.

The bell goes off and I groan, why couldn't I just be home in bed. I quickly went to class and sat down as Mr. cooper took attendance. I didn't look up to see if he was here, I just stared into my book. As weird as it sounds, I cant feel him here, like I know he's not here because I don't sense eyes on me, watching my every move. And so the lesson began, I delved into work and let it distract me from any derailing thoughts.

Ten minutes in and everyone's head turns when the door opens, it's him. I look straight back down and try to focus. That is until he takes a seat right beside me.

I didn't know if I cared, maybe I did but was convincing myself otherwise.

"What does this mean?" I hear, I look at Ryder to see him confused at the work. It was quite difficult in the sense that we had to analyse two different critical cases and then create our own but I was surprised since Ryder usually knew how to do everything.

"Um- the author wanted to organise the stanzas to differentiate nature between war. he criticised the language used, whereas this author praised the language but argued that the descriptions are up for conversation given the two themes." I swallow hard as he looks down at the paper and back up at me. He gives me sincere eyes as if saying thank you. I smile and he went back to his work. I shamelessly gawked at him, his beautiful facial structure, the way is hair fell and how plump his lips were. My eyes run down his face and stop as I see a red mark, but not just any red mark, a lipstick stain.