Reversing Roles

Chapter 9

Grayson left his soft gaze on Alyssa for a moment longer, before snapping back into reality and shuffling along the bench, indicating for her to sit down beside him. She graciously accepted, planting herself on the wood. Grayson breathed in the fresh air around him, and silence blanketed over the pair. It wasn't an awkward silence, though, but rather, a comfortable one.

"Um," Alyssa smoothly broke the silence. "Thanks. For earlier." She flashed a small smile in his direction, and he returned it with another.

"Ah, it was nothing," he replied, modestly, waving his hand.

"No, it was almost.... heroic." Grayson slipped out a laugh, and she chuckled.

"Well, I just... I hate Josh. He's a dick. He's had it coming for a while, to be honest," he shrugged, but felt the warm redness crawl it's way up and stain his cheeks. He subtly ducked his head, hoping Alyssa wouldn't notice.

"It seems that way," she responded, fiddling with her phone-case.

"So, besides the lunchtime catastrophe, how has your first day been?" Grayson asked, glancing back up at her, once he was certain the redness had died down. He watched her choose her words for a moment.

"Uncanny," she finally chose. Grayson tilted his head and gave her a crooked, questioning smile.

"And why's that?" He noticed her mouth open, as if she wanted to say something, then quickly close again. Her eyes wandered back down to her hands, and that's when Grayson noticed a large, purple bruise, about the size of a tennis ball, covering her fingers and trailing along her hand. He gasped. "What happened?!"

Her eyes widened as his voice quickly increased and became panicky, and she stuffed her hand into her jean's pocket, and white-hot pain shot up her arm, causing her to wince slightly. Grayson's eyes widened as he realised she was in pain. He slowly reached across her lap, and pulled at her wrist, examining her hand once it made a reappearance. He bit his bottom lip.

"How.... what happened?" His eyes flooded with concern, as he peered at her, carefully, while lightly holding her wrist. She sighed.

"I just had to take care of someone, nothing important," Alyssa explained, not meeting his eye. His eyebrows raised. Of course, it was something important. Grayson suddenly thought, that what if Josh or one of his friends had tried something stupid again? Alyssa didn't deserve anything bad to happen to her at all. She deserved pure happiness and joy and peace and bliss and all things beautiful on earth. Too much? I think not.

"Was it Josh again?" Grayson angrily blurted out. He sharply sucked in a breath afterwards. Her gorgeous, hazel eyes widened, but then her shoulders relaxed again.

"Uh, no, actually."

"Was it one of his asshole friends? Do you want me to punch someone again?" he eagerly asked, fearlessly holding up his injured fist. Alyssa cracked a smile, and a light crimson colour flooded her cheeks.

"Put that down before you hurt yourself again," she joked. He defeatedly lowered his fist, then scratched the back of his neck. He then cleared his throat.

"But, really, Alyssa," he continued, gently gazing into her eyes, and carefully grasping her hands. "You don't deserve any of the crap that Josh or his friends or anyone else here, gives you. You deserve the best. You deserve, everything good and simply amazing in this world." He finished the end of the sentence slowly, and a small, hopeful smile plastered itself to his lips. The air around them thickened, and time seemed to slow down. Grayson's heart was beating so fast, that he was certain Alyssa could hear it through his shirt. The trees hummed and blew the sweet scent of the roses and lilacs and honeysuckle to waft majestically around them. No one else in the entire world mattered at that exact moment, except those two. Grayson felt his whole body leaning towards Alyssa's adorable face, and the surprising thing was, she was leaning in, too. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and his followed. Sweet baby Jesus, I'm about to kiss Alyssa King, Grayson's thoughts screamed, as if he were a lovestruck teenaged girl.