I Love You, Always

Chapter 12

"Aw, Dami, that's awesome. I'm so glad you had so much fun at Simon's place," Lexy says from the other end of the phone. I'm currently laying in Derrick's bed talking to her while he's busy making dinner.

"Yeah, it went better than I expected it to," I reply. "I was afraid his family might feel awkward around me or something, but they were all really nice."

"So, how's school?" she asks, changing the subject. Her asking me about school makes me think about what happened with Kyle yesterday. I tell Lexy everything, there's not one thing she doesn't know about me, that I can recall anyway, so it makes sense that I would want to tell her about that as well. Although it is embarrassing to do so, at least I know Lexy won't pity me for it or whatever like a lot of other people might.

"School is...well, I don't know, honestly," I say. I take in a deep breath as I think about how to tell her. "There was an incident yesterday. Do you remember me telling you about that one guy who pushed Simon into our table that first week?"

Lexy hums. "Yeah, I remember. Is he giving you trouble now?"

"Kinda. Apparently he was pissed about Devyn threatening him that day." I proceed to tell Lexy all of the events that unfolded yesterday with Kyle, all the way up to the point where Simon fixed my glasses. "Simon said he'd walk with me from now on, but I hate that he has to do that. It sucks."

"Ugh, I swear, if I were there I'd kick that guy's ass. What an asshole."

I chuckle a little. "If you were here I'd let you kick his ass."

"Did you tell Derrick about it?" she asks.

"No, and I don't plan to tell him, or Dev, for that matter. You know Derrick, he'll go berserk, plus there's a chance that saying something will make things worse."

"Why do you think telling someone would make it worse?"

I sigh as I reply, "You know how it was at our school. People picked on me, Derrick went to the principle about it, nothing was ever really done. If that same thing happens here, I can only imagine what Kyle would try to do to me for ratting him out."

"Yeah, but what if he tries to do something worse anyway and that would have been prevented by telling someone?"

"I don't think he will," I say even though I'm not quite sure of that myself. "Simon has told me about him and he's never actually hit someone unless they instigated a fight with him, which I don't plan to do."

Lexy is quiet. "Well, be careful, okay? If it does start to get worse, promise me you'll tell Derrick."

Man, I hate when Lexy asks me to promise her things because I can't ever say no.

"Fine," I give in. "If it gets worse I'll tell Derrick, I promise."

"That makes me feel a little better at least."

There's something I've actually been wanting to talk to Lexy about that's been bothering me recently, most prominently this past week. Maybe she'll be able to understand more of what's going on than I'm able to. I don't know, but I need to talk to someone about it.

"Hey...there's something I wanted to talk to you about," I say, breaking the silence that befalls us. "Something I've noticed happening over the past couple of weeks."

"Oh, okay. What's that?" Lexy asks.

"Well...it involves Simon," I begin. I absently pull at a loose thread on Derrick's blanket as I continue, "The first day he took me to the roof, I asked him if I could hold his arm because following him was kind of hard, and he was cool with it, which was awesome. But when I touched his arm, I...it's hard to explain. I had this weird feeling, but it was also nice. Like touching him produced this tingling sensation and, ugh, I don't know how to really explain it, but it felt nice and I liked it. I've noticed since then when he leads me around, that feeling is still there, and it's been getting a little...ah, more intense, I guess."