Far From Perfect || Tronnor

15: Pumping Blood

Content Warning: homophobic bullying

(summary at the bottom of the chapter for those who skip)

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"Dammit," I hissed under my breath. Not only had Connor gave away my location, he was also going to be there to watch me get my ass kicked.

I was hiding from Caspar because he had earlier told me that when we were in a private situation, he was going to get me. It looked like that was going to happen a lot sooner than I had planned.

"Troye?" Connor said again. This time, he sounded a lot closer. I was sure that he was now in the main area rather than the hallway. I heard his footsteps stop and a quiet gasp. "Shit," He said loudly under his breath.

I picked my feet up to my chest and hugged my legs, sheltering my head in between my knees. I just really wanted to block out everything and pretend it wasn't actually happening. I pictured myself on my bed, all curled up in my big fluffy duvet sheet. That was always what I pictured when I was trying to comfort myself. It helped me calm myself down in situations like that one.

"Wait, Troye is here?" Caspar asked with his voice drenching in curiosity. I slammed my head into my palm and sighed. Why does that have to be happening to me?

I swear I could imagine Connor looking down at his shoes in guilt and embarrassment. "No, I don't think he is," Connor lied. His voice was super shaky, and it was obvious that he was scared. He barely even knew Caspar and Joe, and just from their brief consultation, he was already under the impression that they were not good people.

"Ha!" Caspar responded. It was clear that he was coming closer to me. My heart rate was twice as fast as it normally is, and it was all I could do not to whimper in fear. Bullies have that sort of effect on people; they make them scared shitless, even when they don't have something up their sleeve. Their mere presence is enough to get their victim to break into a sweat.

Less than a couple minutes later, Caspar and Joe were banging on my cubicle door. I'm not going to get too far into everything that happened before I came out because this story isn't about that, but to say the least, it wasn't pretty.

"I think you owe Caspar a good beating after what you said back there in the lobby," Joe hissed. They were actually keeping their words quite quiet, which without examination, might've seemed suspicious. After thinking about it, I realized that was probably because they were scared they might get caught by someone who works there.

All through the time of their taunting, not once did I hear Connor do anything. As far as I was aware, he literally was still standing there, without a single thought running through his head. But before anything else happened, Joe gasped, taken aback about something. I finally opened my eyes to find Connor's shoes behind the two. What an idiot! Did he honestly think he could take those two? No offense on Connor's half, but he was absolutely nothing against two people who go to the gym on a regular basis.

I saw Joe's feet turn around and heard a loud slap. I gasped, getting up from where I was sitting, while a tear leaked from my eyes. It was one thing to try to hurt me, but it was another thing to hurt Connor when he did nothing to deserve it.

Quickly, I unlocked the stall door and opened it up. Before I could go anywhere, I saw Connor cowering on the floor, getting a cut breath out of me in response to his position. I tried to run over to him, but Caspar was blocking me. His arm grabbed me and pinned me to the stall wall, hands on my collar. My eyes widened, scared about where this was going. Caspar has bullied me before. That much wasn't new news. But this, this was something different.

"And where did you think you are going?" He asked, leaning his face close to mine. His pupils were dilated in anger. I couldn't even pinpoint the anger, so I just dismissed it.