The Hopeless Romantic ✔️

Chapter thirty five.

I wanted to scream, to tell them to stop fighting. My head hurt, it was pounding and my legs were so weak that I couldn't stand myself up. I was watching Alex and Jace punch and yell profanities at each other. I tried to keep my head still otherwise I would feel it shake and my legs would feel like jelly again. But, it was hard to do because I kept watching.

Punch after punch, they were both rolling around on the ground, knocking the life out of each other. I cringed as Jace's fist hit Alex in the nose and then Alex pushing Jace over and hitting him several times. I couldn't look and I wanted to rip Alex away from Jace and tell him that it wasn't worth it. But, I couldn't do that.

Seth appeared right behind the fight and I could see the anger in his eyes. He instantly pushed Jace off Alex, who suddenly ended up on top. There was a huge crowd and I found it hard to get myself up and leave. Seth had fully dragged Jace off Alex, who had a bloody nose and a cut lip. Jace had a black eye forming already and blood that was trickling down to his lip from his nose.

Alex was moved onto his side and wiped his nose. Seth let Jace cool off, he was trying to calm Jace down as the crowd dispersed in different directions. I was still on the ground, not moving my head. I was looking at Jace and when he finally looked at me, he pushed past Seth and raced over to where I sat uncomfortably on the ground.

"Avery?" He took my both of my hands and helped me up. "Are you alright?"

He helped me stand up and my head started to spin again. I closed my eyes to stop it from spinning and when I reopened them, Jace stared back with a worried look over his face. "I'm fine." I said, letting go of his hands and steadying myself.

"You're dizzy again, aren't you?" He asked me just as Alex hobbled over. "Let me take you home."

I stepped back, not daring to move my head, otherwise I would fall over. Alex stood beside me, glaring at Jace and Jace didn't care. He only looked at me, knowing that I was lying about being fine. "Alex, will you take me home please?" I asked, ignoring Jace's previous statement. I never kept my eyes off him, I wanted him to know that he hurt me again, that he caused all of it.

"Of course." Alex said and I followed him back to the parking lot, leaving Jace to contemplate his actions tonight.

Once we got in the car and left the carnival, I thought back to tonight's events. Alex wiped his face with a tissue that was in his car.  "I'm so sorry, Alex." I told him, feeling guilty for the way Jace acted.

"It's cool," he said, "you didn't punch me."

I sighed. "I have never seen him act like that." I said outloud, but it was the truth. Jace never showed me his angry side before tonight.

"Crazy ex-boyfriends, huh?" He said with a small laugh as he kept his eyes on the road.

"Yeah." I said with an uneasy smile.

Alex ran his fingers through his messy hair and sighed. "So, what really happened between you two? I had seen you around together and you looked pretty close."

I leaned against the window, watching the houses pass us by as we continued along the road. "Oh, it wasn't real."

"What do you mean?" He asked, sounding confused.

I didn't want to talk about it, nor did I want to think about it. I sighed and focused on one thing that made my head feel like it was normal. "Jace made a bet with his friends to ask me to be his girlfriend. It's a really long story that I would rather not talk about."

"Oh, yeah," Alex said, "I heard about that. Sorry." Of course he did. It was gossip around the school for a few weeks. "Anyways, I'm sorry he hurt you." He shrugged as we turned into my street. It was pretty late and my head was pounding. My legs didn't feel weak anymore and I just kept my eyes straight the entire ride, not even moving my head to look at Alex. He stopped the car outside of my house. "Forgetting about the fight, I had a great time hanging out with you tonight."