For Your Eyes Only

19

Forty minutes.

Nate is forty minutes late.

I sit outside the Haynes' house on their front steps contemplating on calling Nate for the tenth time. Where is he?

I had knocked on the door almost an hour ago and Tim answered, no longer surprised to see me when I did this. He had said Nate went to the library, which shouldn't have me worried, but it did. He knew we had our date tonight and knowing Nate, his punctual self would have been here. He didn't seem like someone who would stand me up.

I check my phone again, sighing when it goes straight to voicemail.

Bright headlights turn the corner and I stand up. The car screeches to a halt in front of Nate's house and I begin to walk towards it. Molly steps out of the car.

At first, jealousy rears its ugly head and I stop in mid stride. What was she doing here?

Movement out of the corner of my eyes near the passenger seat catches my attention and for a second I stop breathing. My chest tightens to the point it feels like fire sears straight to my heart. The sight of Nate hunched over invades my sight and my world starts to darken around the edges.

"Oh my God," I gasp, rushing towards the car. I knew something was wrong. I knew it. "What the hell happened?" I ask Molly who has already wrapped her arm around Nate's waist and hoisted him out of the car.

"Kelly," Nate says before Molly can speak. But I'm surprised he can speak. Blood gushes out of his nose and his lip is split in two different places leaving it swollen and crusted in blood. A sharp intake of breath is the only give away that his ribs are bruised if not broken under his bloodied, ruined, Captain America shirt. He loves this shirt.

"What happened?" I grit out through me teeth, the words nearly choking me as I ask a second time. Tears have already collected in my eyes and I try my hardest to reign them in. I can barely see through the pouring down rain that has soaked my clothes as it is. I try and look away from the ground as the puddles turn pink from the excess blood running down Nate's body.

"Your boyfriend happened," Molly pipes in, a snarl on her lips. "Him and his hooligan monkeys. I have the right mind to go back there and kick their dumb jock asses."

I try to keep my feet moving so we can get him into the house, but I stumble and almost take Nate down with me. He howls in pain and the sound shoots straight to my heart, chipping away the pink and sending it to my ears. The sound is deafening.

"I-it's okay. I'm okay, Kelly, just keep moving," Nate assures me as I choke out a sob.  It was very much like Nate to be worrying about my now skinned knee instead of the fact that he looks like he just got jumped in some alleyway.

"I'm not going to ask again," I warn. "What did my ex boyfriend do?" Molly scoffs and I have the urge to rip Nate out of her hands and yank all of her hair out. I know she doesn't necessarily play for Nate's or any other male species team but that doesn't help the fact that she thinks I'm Satan's spawn.

"I already told you."

"Details, Molly!" We were pretty much pretending Nate wasn't there and for the matter, he was silent, grunting out at times we shifted him wrongly. The stairs were proving to be the hardest.

Before either one of them can clue me in on tonight's misfortune, Lucy swings open the door, a horrified look on her face. "Tim!" She shouts over her shoulder and her husband runs up behind her.

"Get him inside," Tim instruct, holding open the door wider. He takes my hold off of his son and swiftly brings him to sit in one of those pretty mahogany dining chairs at their table. I stand in the archway and watch, too afraid to approach everyone.