Homework (Lams AU)

He Doesn't Notice Me

"Get off of him!"

The punching stops, but I keep my eyes closed tight as I hear Jefferson chuckle.

"Or what?" He asks.

There's then a sudden relief of pressure and I finally open my eyes to see someone had pushed Jefferson off of me or something. He was laying on the ground next to me, holding his nose. Before he could get back up, someone was standing me up and dragging me through the crowd of teenagers that had formed.

I couldn't quite process anything properly, and it was difficult to see with one swollen eye, but I could see the person with the hoodie was leading me out of school. They sit me down and I finally get a chance to look up at-

"Laurens?" I ask aloud, my voice raspy.

He looks down at me and smiles, moving his hood down. "Yeah, yeah it's me. What the hell did you say to Jefferson to get him so angry?" He chuckles and sits in front of me. "Oh, shit you look awful..Um.." He digs through his backpack and pulls out an extra shirt. "Here, put this against your nose to stop the bleeding."

I stare at him in shock as he hands me the shirt. It was a light blue shirt, so I shook my head and wiped my nose on my sleeve instead. "No..I don't want to stain it.." I mumble, still looking at him with caution.

He sighs softly and puts the shirt back in his bag. "Okay.. We need to get you an ice pack then. For your eye and-"

"Why are you helping me, exactly?" I interrupt.

He stares at me. "Um..What?" He asks, clearly playing dumb.

"Why are you helping me? Your little group beats me up every single day, and you always just stand there. Now someone else is beating me up and you suddenly don't like it?" I ask, hugging my knees to my chest.

He sighs and looks off to the side. "Um...Well...When the Schuylers do it, I know they're not strong enough to hurt you that badly. But Thomas definitely could've done some real damage, and I didn't want you to end up passed out or something.."

I tilt my head. "What do you care?"

He looks at me and then seems to brush it off. "You do my homework, genius. Can't have the one person helping me out out of school for a couple days, can I?" I roll my eyes.

"Of course not.."

He pauses. "Here, come on, I'm going to bring you somewhere so we can fix you up a little bit."

"And what about school?"

"What, you wanna go back in there like that? Just take the rest of the day off with me, Alex."

He smiles at me and everything I know, every little bit of common sense is telling me to say no. I mean, why would I go with him of all people? It just doesn't make any sense.

"Okay."

And all the common sense flew out the window. I just couldn't say no. Not to that smile.

He helps me up and we walk together, away from the school. We pass by the park we always meet up at and then walk a couple more blocks to a pretty big house. I look up at it and then over at John.

"Is this your house?" I ask.

He nods. "Um, yeah. My dad is at work and my little sister is at school, so you're good to stay for a few hours. Come on, we need to get your face cleaned up and iced."

I follow him inside and look around the house. It was beautiful. I don't know what I was expecting, though. His family was filthy rich.

"You can head to the bathroom down the hall and wash you face in the sink, I'll go get the ice pack."