Sink or Swim

8

Chapter Song: Dress- Taylor Swift

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked while I shut and locked the door behind me. 

As much as I knew that wasn't good I knew he wouldn't want anyone in there. He probably didn't even want me in there.

I mean I shouldn't have been walking in there. This just felt like more games. I tried to tell myself it wasn't, but part of me wasn't agreeing. 

"Why do you care?" He didn't sound malicious. Actually, he sounded more defeated. 

I didn't get him. 

I watched the whole thing play out before me. How Cal stepped in front of me to get into Brett's face. He didn't really need to but I was glad he did. It showed he cared.

Then all hell broke loose. Some of the guys from the baseball team had jumped in while Cal was holding his ground. Then Ty had stepped in to help. Cal was going one-on-one with Brett when Liam and Mason finally dragged him away. Riley kept yelling at Liam to get him to go in there and stop them or the cops were going to get called. Finally, he did.

When he came back from the extra bedroom upstairs he asked me to go check on him. He knew I would be able to calm him down. I wanted to ask why didn't he go find Natalie, but decided against it. Besides, I had to stop avoiding him, and now was not the time to be petty.

Liam had whispered no games to me before  I went upstairs. I chose to pretend I didn't hear it, but I did. Clear as day. 

I continued to inch closer to him contemplating how to actually answer his question. It was kind of hard to answer it when I was still figuring it out myself.

I was surprised he even spoke to me earlier. It did hit a soft spot, since giving me a compliment was the first sentence he spoke to me in a month. Why couldn't he just start a normal conversation? Maybe even apologize for being a dick? Would it really be so hard?

Why did I care?

Because it was Cal. My next-door neighbor for years. The guy that knew me better than anyone if you didn't include Liam or my dad. The guy that I had so many amazing memories with. While I found out he lied to me some of it was tainted yeah, but he still had to be in there somewhere.

After everything, he was still my friend. Nothing could change that.

"Because I still care about you," I finally admitted when I was standing in front of him. I slowly sank to my knees in front of him so we could look eye-to-eye. 

He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his shoulders slumped forward. He didn't even bother to look at me until I said that.

As soon as our eyes met my heart lurched and my stomach dropped. The pain in his eyes was evident. There were tears swimming around filling up waiting to pour out any second.

Not to mention the fact that his lip was busted as well as his bloody knuckles getting blood over his jersey. He looked in rough shape, but the other guy looked worse.

"You didn't have to do that for me you know," I said gently placing a hand on his cheek. He snorted.

"I kind of did. You should have seen the way he was watching you and Riley all night. The dudes a creep," his face scrunched together while he looked away.

" I appreciate that but you don't have to go throwing yourself into a fight for it."

"Parker I couldn't just not do anything," he looked at me annoyed.

"Do you think Natalies mad at you? Defending my honor and all" I asked a little playfully. Joking was good. It had to be. 

"I don't really care about what she thinks right now. Are you okay?" His question was sincere and I couldn't help but give him a small smile as his thumb stroked my wrist.