Pretty Eyes & Bow Ties

I'm Sorry

"Everyone is staring at me like I'm a criminal." I mumbled.
"You're overreacting." Karma stated with a frantic wave of her hand.
"Well maybe it's because you punched Mary's teeth out of her head."
"RYE!" Karma snapped.
"What?! I'm just telling them like it is!"
"He's right Karma." I muttered. "Killed one kid then assaulted another."

"You didn't kill him. You said it yourself. It was an accident."
"Accident or not, I have blood on my hands!" I shouted, slamming my hands against the lunch table and watching my friends all flinch back wide eyed.

I swallowed hard, my throat burning.
"Where's Eri." I whispered harshly, trying to change the subject.
"Oh shit!" Benny stated. "I forgot to tell him you were coming back today! He's in Raywood's."
I nodded and stood, making my way across the cramped cafeteria.

Well...cramped until they saw me. Once they met my eyes they parted like the red sea to let me through.
-
"Haven! You're back." Raywood smiled, the first true smile I've seen all day.
"Yeah. Is Eri-"

"HAVEN!"

And suddenly I was on the floor with a raven haired boy suffocating me in a hug. My chest heaved as I laughed in what feels like forever.
"G-Good to see you too, Eri!"
-
After school, we sat by the tree amongst the dandelions. We talked about my week out of school as I braided him another crown.
"I missed you." He confessed
"I missed you too."
"Alot."
I hummed and sat next to him, taking his hand in mine and lacing our fingers.

"You're left handed." I whispered.
"Ambidextrous actually."
"You punch with your left."
He nodded.
"I thought so."
My thumb brushed over his scarred knuckles, the scars from having broken Sebastian's nose.
"We having matching scars." I giggled, mine still fresh from Mary's rat teeth.
Eri chest rumbled with a chuckle. 
"You never  really...explained...what Mary was talking about. Who's...David Ochoa?"

He winced as I clenched his hand a little too tightly.
"You don't have to tell me if you-" He had started.
"I did kill him." I confided. "But it was an accident."
I took a deep breath.
"He was a bully at my old school. Used to pick on me. About anything. My hair. My height. My parents."

Eri listened closely, squeezing my hand for encouragement.
"One day he had gotten physical. Pushed me around a little too close to the stairs. I pushed back...hard...and he grabbed me before tumbling down. He snapped his neck. I have a scar on my scalp and a big one on my hip from the evasive surgeries I had to go through after the fall. Since we had both fallen...and he started it...I wasn't charged...but it went on my record." I finished.

I could still feel Eri's eyes on me even minutes after my confession. But instead of saying anything, he simply switched which hand held mine and wrapped the other around my shoulders, holding me close until Dad pulled up.
-
The next day I felt better. I didn't mind the stares anymore, with Eri by my side.

I held his hand and he held mine. I hugged him and he hugged me. I made him flowers crowns and he kept them, even after they've wilted and fell apart.
I believed then that...maybe I did love Eri. Maybe I had been in love with him all along.

"Eri." I grinned as I spotted him after school. Today he had been called to the office for an important phone call earlier and I hadn't seen him since.

The boy didn't react to me calling. So I called again, this time the boy flinched.
He finally turned and my heart stuttered.