The Brightest Star

14. King

King's POV

As the week went on I noticed two things. One, Jess and I made a pretty good team when she finally started to come out of her shell around me. Even if we didn't talk much we kinda understood each other and how we worked. It was nice and she was pretty easy to talk to. The second thing I noticed really pissed me off though. Everyone used Leo like he was the only pencil in the whole classroom.

People were constantly whispering Leo's name and asking for his help. I swear, I even saw one of the girls break something on purpose to get him to help her and her partner who was also another Leo fangirl.

I sat at my desk tapping my finger on it while watching it all happen as I tried so hard not to say something and get myself involved. It would only start a fight at this point and I didn't want Leo mad at me again. Believe it or not, I was trying to keep my anger under control after the whole thing in the bathroom last week. It was my wake-up call.

"It's pretty pathetic, huh?" Jess asked me, breaking my hateful stair from the girls as they laughed about something and looked at Leo like he was a piece of meat, giggling like hyenas.

I looked over at her and grabbed the mousetrap to start working again, not paying attention to what I was doing. I just needed to do something with my hands before I really flipped out.

"What are you-," SNAP!! "Fuck!" I yelled as the mousetrap smacked my finger. It hurt so bad, I immediately put my finger in my mouth like that was going to help make it feel better as everyone turned to look at us.

"Language Mr. Rubin," the teacher said, not even looking up from her book.

Jess looked over at me with a little laugh as everyone went back to their work again. "Yeah, watch your mouth," she said shyly with a joking smile. "Are you okay?"

"I've felt worse. It will be fine in a minute or two. But yeah, did you see what that girl did?" I said, changing the subject to get my mind off my finger again.

"It happens all the time if you really pay attention. They've been doing it to Leo for years now. Fighting over his attention like that even though he's never given them anything more like they want." She lowered her voice even more. "I thought they would back off a little this year after they found out about his mom but they got even worse after that. Shows how much they truly care about him as a real person. I feel so bad for him to be honest."

I leaned in closer to her and lowered my voice to a whisper, "I know it's not my place to ask and not your place to answer but I've heard people ask him about his mom a few times now. What happened to her?"

"Well," she whispered and looked around to make sure no one else was listening. "I really shouldn't but everyone else knows so it's not a secret either. At the end of last year, his mom started getting sick. He missed a lot of school because of it and since then she's been bedridden, slowly getting worse. He has to go home and take care of her right after school so his dad can work because insurance doesn't cover it all. It's horrible. People say she's not going to make it through winter. That's also why he misses a lot of school days and no one talks about it but even with all the days he misses he still has the top grades in our class and tutors others after school when he can."

We both subconsciously looked right at Leo as he helped another group with their work. He must have felt us staring because he looked over his shoulder right at us and smiled that crazy nice and warm smile of his before turning back around after we both awkwardly waved hi to him.

"That's got to be really hard," I said to her after a few minutes. I just didn't know what to say back to something like that.

"Yeah. I used to see them walk together all over town before that. They did a lot of stuff together. She's just as beautiful as he is though," she said, still looking at Leo with those lovesick eyes.