The side effect of dying

Part VIII: I like you

*Nick's POV*

Gus was mad.

And I never saw him being mad at me like this.

And by this, I mean, he doesn't talk to me.

"Gus, what the hell is wrong with you?" I demanded during football practice.

He stared at me with empty eyes and shrugged. "Nothing."

"Fuck your nothing, man. Did I do something?" I pushed him by his shoulder.

"Nothing." He repeated more firmly.

"Stop acting like a woman, Augustus. I know you well enough for me to tell that something shitty happened so tell me."

"Tori likes you not me. You happy?!" He growled and hit me with the football in the face.

What?

I didn't even notice my nose was bleeding until Coach Donald pointed it out.

"Christ, Lincoln. Go to the clinic. Hudson, what the fuck is wrong with you? He's the motherfucking quarterback!" He roared.

Gus angrily kicked the grass while I stumbled on my feet.

I threw my helmet on the bench and made my way to the clinic.

"You have to be careful next time, Dear." I heard the head nurse, Nurse Abigail, say in the room.

I stood near the door, listening.

"I, I just fainted. That's all." Tori's voice.

"I saw your file, Miss Gibbson. Did you talk to your doctor about this?"

"Yes, I talked to Dr.Lincoln yesterday. He said it was fine."

My dad is her doctor?

"Hm, Dr.Lincoln said that? Alright. Just rest here for a while." Nurse Abigail said.

I inhaled through my mouth since it was impossible to breathe through my nose since it's clogged with mu own blood, and knocked.

"Nicholas, what happened?" Nurse Abigail gasped and rushed towards me with a white cloth.

I saw Tori sitting on the bed, regarding me with amusement in her eyes.

"Football practice." I muttered and sat down on the chair behind the desk.

Nurse Abigail pursed her lips and soon, rattled on how dangerous Football is.

When she left to get some more ice, I turned to Tori, who was now lying on her sides.

"Hey." I winked, holding the piece of cloth on my nose.

The bleeding doesn't stop.

"Hey." She grinned sleepily.

"I heard you fainted." I said.

"Oh." Her smile disappeared. "I did. Maybe from exhaustion. What happened to you?"

"I tripped." I lied smoothly.

"Yeah, right. How can you trip on a field of grass?" She proped herself up on her elbows to cock her eyebrows at me.

"Maybe there was an innocent football lying around." I shrugged.

"Aha."

A few seconds has passed before I mentioned my father.

"You didn't know? Well, now you do." Tori smiled.

"Don't you sleep very well? You have dark eyebags." I pointed out, frowning.