The Word Love

XXVII

"Stay away from Douglas," Sarah pointed her finger in my face.

I frowned, "What?"

She glared at me, "Are you deaf? I told you to stay away from Douglas. I'm his girlfriend, not you."

"He and I are just friends," I told her.

I was just putting my books into the locker when she came up to me.

She scoffed, "Cut the crap. I know you have a thing for Douglas, so I'm warning you to stay away from him."

"And if I don't?" I challenged her.

"Then I'll ruin your life," she threatened.

I laughed, "You think you can ruin my life? Good luck with that."

"I warned you," she was about to walk away but I stopped her.

"You don't even care about him," I gritted through my teeth.

She laughed. "That's true."

"Then why are you dating him," I asked.

A sly smile formed on her face, and my hands clenched into fists. Oh, I wanted to bash her face.

"Because I hate you," she answered.

I wasn't surprised by her answer. I'd be stupid if I didn't know that she hated me. She made her feelings pretty obvious.

"He comes to the school, and the first person he talks to is you. You out of all people. When I heard you two broke up, I jumped at the chance only to find out that he is just a boring guy. Of course, I wasn't going to let you get him back, so now I just drag him around."

I couldn't help it. All the things she was saying about Douglas made my blood boiled, and so I punched her in the face. She staggered back and grabbed her nose.

"You broke my nose, you bitch!" she screamed.

"Douglas is not some boring guy that you can drag around to piss me off, " I glared at her. "He is kind, compassionate, funny, and someone who is too good for you. You don't deserve him."

She pushed me against the locker and leaned close to me, her bleeding nose made me cringe.

"Then who deserves him? You?" she looked me bottom to top and smirked, "Please, you're not e-"

"Get your hands off of her," A familiar voice demanded.

Sarah stepped away from me and widened her eyes when she saw Douglas standing a few feet away.

"Douglas, look at what she did to my nose," she whined pathetically, "It's b-"

Douglas interrupted her before she could finish, "Don't ever touch or even try to talk to Aimee again," he glared at her. "And we are over."

She stomped her foot, "You can't break up with me!"

He crossed his arms over his chest and smirked, "Well, I just did."

"Too bad!" she huffed, "I break up with you. We are over."

Then she walked away. Douglas chuckled and turned around to look at me.

"You didn't have to do that," I told him.

He smiled. "I know but I wanted to. You're my friend and I'm not going to let anyone treat you like she did."

My smile faltered when he said friend.

"Besides, I deserve someone better than her, right?" he grinned.

I could feel heat rose to my cheeks and I turned away so he wouldn't be able to see my red face.

"How much did you hear?" I asked quietly.

He chuckled and grabbed my hand. He turned me around to face him. "All of it."

I covered my face with my hands and groaned. He laughed at my embarrassment and pulled me into a hug.

"Thank you," he whispered in my ear.

I closed my eyes and took in this moment. I miss being in his arms, and right now, it felt nice. Unfortunately, we had to pull away. It wasn't because we wanted to, but because the Principle interrupted us.

"Quit making out in my school and get to class," he barked at us.

Douglas and I jumped apart, looking like a deer in headlights.

"Yes sir," Douglas answered when he composed himself and I nodded.

The Principle gave us one last stern look before walking away. Douglas cleared his throat.

"We should get to class," he said quietly.

"Yeah," I answered, looking anywhere but him.

And then just like that, we went our separate ways.