Before You Leave

16. 'Gid'

By lunch time, people were talking more than usual. I didn't like it. It made me nervous because somehow, I knew it was about me.

I was practically glued next to Aria. "What is happening?" I whisper. Half of the student body was looking at me.

"I have no idea. I've been with you all day," she reminds me, hooking her arm through mine. I started gulping every few seconds.

And then someone said it.

"Maybe she kissed Aria, too," a deep voice said, smirking as he said it to a girl on his lap. Corey, Samuel's roommate.

I tightened my arm on Aria's as she said, "Don't lose your cool."

I was trying not to. But it was hard.

"You can always kiss me when you get bored of Samuel," Landon Rowe remarked, standing up with a taunting smile. "Maybe a little more with an ass like that."

"Oh, I'll show you a little more." My nostrils flared and I gritted my teeth as I lunge for him and his shoulder length hair, trying to grab the dirty blonde pieces.

But a hand clamped on mine. Aria's. But so did another's. A man's. I knew it was Gideon's before I even turned my head to look at him.

I was being dragged away from the cafeteria. I hung my head, clenching my fists as I walked slowly with them holding my elbows.

When we got to the quad, Aria said she was going to leave us alone. And then I was left with Gideon for the first time since last night.

I pulled on my elbow to get it away, but he kept his grip. I tried again, and he didn't let go still. I groaned as he took my chin in between his thumb and pointer finger to tilt my head up. My eyes wouldn't find his.

"Look at me."

He made me feel like a child, but I met his icy blue eyes anyway.

"Are you okay?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Okay? You're asking if I'm okay?"

He raised an eyebrow. "What am I supposed to be doing?"

"I don't know! Screaming at me. Telling me I'm a terrible person for kissing Samuel," I mumbled.

He released my chin and my arm and laughed softly. "That's what you hunk I care about right now?"

"Isn't that why you dragged me out like a child?" I glared.

"I dragged you out here to talk to you, not to scold you." He ran a hand through his hair.

"Who are you right now?" I asked, scowling at him.

"You can't have slip ups, JJ," he said, inhaling a frustrated sigh. "You and I both need to graduate and get out of this place."

I looked down at my shoes.

"I'm not particularly happy that you kissed Gideon," he admits, his cheeks turning pink as I look up at him.

"I was just proving something to myself."

"Like what?"

"That I wasn't into him."

"Were you right?" I couldn't hear him breathe as he awaited my answer.

"Yes," I said quietly.

"Was it before or after you kissed me?" He asked.

"Before," I whispered.

"And what do you think of m—"

"I don't know, Gideon," I sighed. I crossed my arms and repositioned my stance. "Look I have a lot on my mind right now. I have my grades and my mom and trying not to be a bitch—"

"Hey!"

I wanted to slap whoever kept interrupting things—

It was Camryn, looking worried as she looked at me and only me. Her eyes were bothered. "Hey, sorry to intervene," she said, kind of out of breath. "But I just wanted to apologize for what Corey said."

I put one of my hands in my back pocket. "Why are you apologizing for him?"

"Well, he's my boyfriend," Camryn says, as if it was obvious.

My eyebrows shoot up. That early after Gideon? Oh, who am I kidding? I kissed two boys in one day. I can't judge.

"Look, he never would have said anything if Samuel hadn't opened his big mouth about it first—"

"Wait," I interrupted. "Samuel? What did Samuel say?" I cut a glance to Gideon. He looked at me, looking actually a little angry.

She went a little pink. "I have a feeling I shouldn't repeat it."

"I'll repeat it," Aria said from behind her, arms crossed, too. Her rings glimmered. "I might have just beat it out of Landon Rowe."

Her knuckles were red.

"He called you a tasteless whore with hardcore blowjob skills." She scrunched her face. "He said you'd do any guy as long as he walked."

I was burning. I would kill someone tonight. I knew I would.

"Gideon, look, I didn't give him—"

But when I turned to explain more, Gideon was stalking off to the school, fists clenched.

"Shit." I looked at Camryn. "He wouldn't."

Aria smirked on the other side of me. "For you?" She looked down and into my dark hazel eyes. "He would."

"Fuck."

I ran after him, and Aria after me. But Gideon was too tall and too damn fast. My legs were too short for this.

So he reached Samuel first near the center of the lunch room, telling a story about I railed him. "So, she was ridin' me, right?"

Gideon's his fists tightened right before he yanked Samuel's ponytail. Hard. I could see his scalp turn white and red. He raised his other fist, about to swing.

But I tried to catch his elbow.

But was too slow.

Samuel tried to yell, tried to whack Gideon's hand away, but there was no stopping it. Gideon's fist connected with Samuel's nose with a sick crack. Blood squirted onto my face and onto Gideon's knuckles as he bent back from his seat, his head knocking into a blue stool from the other table, making him smash his head, too.

Gideon was about to go in again, but I stepped in front of him this time.

Some kids were silent. Some were loud. Some were whispering. Some were cheering for a fight. But I didn't care.

"Gideon. No."

His eyes weren't his. "He's not going to keep saying stuff about you."

"You're right, he won't. If he does, I'll kill him myself, Gid, but you will lose everything if you keep doing this." I allowed desperation to crowd my eyes. "Please stop. Don't let everything you've worked for go to waste. You're Gideon Andrews. You don't get in trouble. You don't fight people. Not for people like me."

He swallowed a bit as he lowered his fist. "Gid?"

"Shut up," I grumbled.

"Gideon!" Crap. Ms. Werrington was walking down the lunchroom's hallway, stopped in mid walk as she gasped. "What has this girl done to you?"

I slowly slid my hand from Gideon's elbow to his hand, caressing his palm once before interlacing our fingers. I heard his intake of breath. I looked down at our joined fingers. Gideon's knuckles were a deep shade of crimson. Samuel's blood. A bruise was forming and I could tell that his fingers would turn purple soon. His thumb wouldn't move. As if it couldn't.

I cracked a small smirk and held back a snort and— to be honest— a giggle.

Gideon punched wrong.

I looked back up at Gideon, at his icy blue eyes.

Of course he punched wrong.

It was Gideon.