Chapter 21

It had been confirmed when I showed up at school the next day. No one saw a thing, and that meant the monster who hit me, didn’t get in trouble. Poe promised that he did some damage to his insides, and that it wouldn’t have healed for weeks. Even then, it would have been sore. That made me happy in a messed up way, and I knew playing in the lacrosse games would have caused the boy agony. He deserved worse.

“This just makes me feel silly,” I said to Ana and Jamie as we sat in history class. They insisted I move to sit in the back with them, because I needed guard dogs.

“Not even,” Ana said, flipping her brown, curly hair over her shoulder. The green streak stood out wonderfully against her darker skin, and olive eyes. “You’re friends with my boyfriend’s little sister, and that puts you under the protection of me, my little brother, and Jamie. You have backup, and you have no choice in the matter.”

“You don’t know me,” I said. “You shouldn’t care.”

“Too bad,” Jamie responded. “And we know you well enough. It’s mostly the principle of the thing. If any dude punched any tiny girl, I would want to protect her. Don’t feel special.”

Ana glared at him but smiled before she patted his shoulder. “Ass.”

“You like it,” he said.

“Though,” Ana added. “You look pretty tough with the shadows under your eyes. People won’t wanna mess with you.”

I didn’t comment. I’d gotten a look at myself this morning, and it wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting. I only wished I had a blood worker friend to make the bruises go away. My eyes watered if anything touched my nose, or if I breathed too hard. Other than that, it was okay. A couple black eyes, and a twitch when people moved too suddenly.

“Poe’s here,” Jamie said, checking his phone. “He’s got the next watch.”

I rolled my eyes. “You guys really need to cut it out with the secret service shit. I can handle myself.”

Jamie drew a circle in the air, pointing to my face. “You cannot, little missus.”

“I wasn’t expecting this though.”

“Exactly,” Ana said, backing up her boyfriend. “Something else can happen that you’re not expecting, and it could be worse. You can keep fighting, but you won’t win.”

No, I wouldn’t have won. I had Cathy and Poe leading this little army, and Cathy knew too many people for me to have fought it. I had to let them do what they would. At least Poe babysat me next.

The bell rang, and I tried hard not to smile to myself when I realized that Poe had showed up five minutes early. He waited for me outside of the door, grinning like he had some treat waiting for him. I took his hand at the same time he went for mine, but we didn’t comment. It would have ruined something if we had to have the talk again.

“Feeling okay?” he asked me. “I have Advil if you need, or I can take you home. We can watch TV, or nap. I know you like the snuggles,” Poe said, pulling me a little closer to him.

“I do,” I admitted. “But I shouldn’t skip more classes. A bad habit.”

“We’re close to the end of the year,” he reminded me. “We’re just getting study guides and busy work.”

Still smiling, I said, “It sounds like you’re trying to encourage me to break the rules?”

“Who? Me? Never. We can do our shenanigans after school.”

Poe slowed his walk, linking his arm with mine instead of holding my hand. “What might those shenanigans be?”

I didn’t mind the sound of a nap. Those got so good, the second they stopped being required parts of the day. Though it wasn’t a great idea to make it a habit to spend time with Poe in a bed. We liked each other, and I didn’t think I had the control to not instigate something. For example…

“I’m down for whatever.”

Poe’s smile turned crooked. “Well if that’s the case…”

Damn, I had to be better than that. “Sorry,” I said. “That sounded flirtier than I meant it to.”

“But you did intend for it to sound flirty?”

We stopped at his locker and untwined from each other. He had his eyes on the lock while I spoke. “It’s a little difficult, knowing how I’m supposed to act.”

“How are you supposed to act?”

“We’re friends, and we should keep the line drawn clearly.”

“Right,” Poe said, opening his locker. “Like holding hands in the halls, and making out once in a while, and then eventually getting an apartment and a dog.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Very funny. You should work on your taste in women, first off. You’re chasing someone who isn’t worth your time.”

“Not for you to decide,” Poe said, switching out his books. “Again, I get why you’re hesitating. Cathy said that it worries you, how I am.”

“Fucking Cathy!” I growled, glaring at the floor.

“Don’t get mad at her. I needed to know, and you clearly weren’t about to tell me. I don’t really know how to defend myself here, and I understand that no matter what I say, your crazy brain will find a way to turn it around and hurt you with it. You’ll still doubt me, and you, and what the both of us want. You told Cathy what was wrong. How about you try and explain it to me now?”

The conversation felt roundabout before it even started, but Poe would have dropped it if I asked. The thing was, I told Cathy, and didn’t say much to Poe. He deserved to be informed on why I made this choice for the both of us.

“What if it happens again?” I asked.

“What if what happens?”

“All of it? You don’t know me all that well. Eventually you’ll get tired of how I am, and you’ll want to take off. Which is fine. I know that relationships don’t always work out. But I don’t know what it would do to me if I thought I was making your life harder or making you unhappy.”

Poe closed his locker, making me wait a few painful seconds for his response. “If I thought it would convince you, I’d spend the next six hours explaining exactly why that would never happen. I would tell you how much I love being around you, and how nothing would make me happier than to get to be with you. I would remind you that I’m not like your ex, and I wouldn’t hurt you like he did, because I could, or I was angry, or whatever reasons he had. I would tell you that while I know you’re afraid of getting hurt, I don’t think that keeping yourself unharmed is best done by shutting down something before it really started. The facts are these, Clover. We like each other. I’ll wait if you need more time, and I’ll leave it alone if you just don’t want to be with me. Your reasoning isn’t any of my business, and not mine to dismiss or undermine. All I can tell you is that it wouldn’t be like it was before, because that was its own thing. Peter and I are not the same. One, I’m obviously better.”

I smiled.

“Two, he’s a constant asshole, and fine with it. I actually feel bad, and recognize when I’m one. I’m sorry that my being kind of sad bothers you. Trust me, I don’t like it either.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “I don’t know how to handle it. I can’t make you feel better, and if I feel like I’m useless, it’s upsetting.”

“It isn’t your job to heal me, and I don’t need to be healed. I have moments, but I get past them. All I need is you, being there with me. It’s enough. You, you are enough.”

Happier without you, happier without you. The words mocked me, telling me not to believe Poe, because how could that have been true? What did he get out of being around me?

“You are,” he said as if I’d countered his words out loud. “You don’t believe it, but maybe you eventually will. If you want to only be friends, then we can. You can even hold my hand in the hallway, and I won’t mind it. Whatever you need.”

That made me smile a little. “I feel like that would be mean of me.”

“Not at all. Take advantage of me. I welcome it.”

“If you welcome it, then I’m not taking advantage. Where’s the fun?”

“The fun is in our special naps.”

I attempted not to smile, but Poe caught on instantly. He tried to make it worse, inching closer to me as I mock protested. I didn’t even notice the students thinning around us as he put his face against my neck, and his hands at my sides. Poe tickled my hips, pressing his lips to my jaw. He was careful not to be too rowdy, since I seemed to be fragile.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked, giggling.

“Enjoying you,” Poe stated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I do it all the time. Sometimes, you’re even there for it.”

I rolled my eyes, and poorly tried pushing him off of me. I only ended up against the lockers, enjoying him right back. I wanted to enjoy him in the backseat of his car as well, and I contemplated how hard it would have been to sneak off.

“Well I guess you’re doing better,” I heard after a throat clearing. While my instincts said to freak out, Poe sighed, and looked over his shoulder at Peter. He took a moment to release me.

“Um, hi,” I said. “What are you doing here? Your locker is two halls away.”

Peter put his hands in his pockets, glaring in Poe’s direction as he spoke. “I heard about what happened yesterday, so I went looking for you. I didn’t realize you would be up and screwing your new boyfriend in the middle of the hall.”

While I contemplated murder, Poe was nice enough to step in. “I don’t even know where to start here, but I’ll go with fuck you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said. Fuck you. What Clover does is none of your business, and you don’t have to make her feel bad about it.”

Peter gave that smug smile that he got on his face when he thought he came up with something clever. The smile irritated me. “Sweets doesn’t feel bad. I get why you think that, since you’re new here. It’s not your fault though. I know my girl well.”

And there started the fire that had me putting my hand on Poe’s shoulder, pulling him back before he could defend me. I wanted to do that. “Call me your girl again, and I’ll be sure to let Kelly know how you feel.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. You know what I meant.”

“Yeah, yeah I did. I’m not yours. You have no claim on me. So if I want to play with my friend in the hall, I will.”

My ex raised his eyebrows. “You’re gonna give the wrong idea to people, Clove. People are going to start talking about what kind of girl lets a guy have at her in the hall.”

I scoffed, crossing my arms so that I wouldn’t punch him. “Screw what people think.”

“I agree,” Poe said, putting his arm around my shoulder. “Your opinion isn’t really needed here. Thanks, see ya later.”

Peter didn’t walk away. Instead, he watched me like I had done something wrong. Like I’d sinned and offended him. Peter remained heedless of what it did to me to have him around. No matter how many times I’d asked him to let me be, to not call me Clove, or sweets, he did it anyway. He used those words like they were his birthright, and he stared at me as if this were months ago, and his claim still stood. He didn’t want me, and he didn’t want anyone else to have me.

“Maybe you’re the one who needs to go,” Peter said. “I came here to check up on my friend, and it’s not cool that you’re being a dick about it. I get that you want in her pants, but the tough guy thing doesn’t work on her.”

“Is that so?” Poe asked. “And you think that’s my goal? That’s a real awful thing to say in front of someone you supposedly care about.”

I stood there, watching the boys go at it, feeling like the kid waiting for her turn to jump into double Dutch. They went back and forth, and I didn’t have anything to say. Nothing would have come out clever or well thought out. I wanted to spit fire, and I didn’t know how to aim for the fatality.

“I care more about her than you do,” Peter said. “For example, I wouldn’t feel her up in the middle of the hall.”

Poe smiled, and clapped his hands lightly. “Well good for you, Saint Peter. Aren’t you just an angel? Let’s chat about how you like to nag her all the damn time, making sure her self-esteem stayed low enough so that she wouldn’t have wandered from you.”

What? I tugged on Poe’s sleeve, getting his attention. “What does that mean?”

The heat drained from him, and he turned back into my sweet, careful Poe again when he spoke to me with gentleness. “If you think people won’t like you, then you wouldn’t go make new friends. You wouldn’t meet people. If you didn’t think you were pretty, then you wouldn’t have wandering eyes. If you thought the only person that loved you was Peter, then who else would you need?”

I panted as I worked it out in my head, trying so hard to make it sound like that wasn’t it. Peter wouldn’t have hurt me on purpose like that. He wasn’t mean. Was he?

I stared at Peter as I went over what we had been to each other. How many times did he tell me that I wasn’t meant to be around people? How many times did he take a jab at me, hurt my feelings, and write it off as being honest? Too many. I let those moments go, because I thought he didn’t mean any harm. It never occurred to me that this had been calculated.

“You don’t know shit,” Peter said between his teeth.

“Do you do that to Kelly?” I asked quietly.

Peter sputtered. “What?”

I forced my eyes up from the floor. “Do you make Kelly feel bad about herself too? She’s got friends. You must be worried about that. She’s got other people, when I had no one.”

“I didn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t have hurt you on purpose.”

“But you did hurt me. All the time. You have to have known you did. Watching me get quieter, and curl in on myself. You knew me well enough to understand when I wasn’t feeling good. Instead of trying to make me feel better, you did nothing.”

While Poe took my hand, Peter searched for something to say. “You know I suck at that kind of thing. I would have only made it worse.”

“You could have at least tried. It would have made all the difference. Even once in a while.”

But he didn’t do that. He never took my hand like this. Peter never spoke softly to me, telling me that even though everything felt like mush, and blackness, and hate, it would have been okay in the end. He didn’t try and make me laugh, or clear the tears off of my face. He only told me he loved me, when he’d screwed up, and put his foot in his mouth.

Did I make up everything in my head? Forming this wonderful, important relationship, when it had only been toxic? It didn’t make sense. We’d fit together so well, and it felt so right. My brain wanted to reject the idea that we could have been anything but perfect, and that I had lost something special.

What the hell did I know?

“You’re out of your mind,” Peter told me.

Poe took over when I couldn’t force words anymore. He spoke calmly, and with the confidence that came from knowing he was my favorite here. I didn’t grudge him that. “You came to see how Clover was doing. I’m taking care of her, so you’re not needed. You should go now.”

Peter looked to me, expecting me to put the boy in his place. I made it clear exactly where that place was. “Yeah, you need to go now. Thanks for checking up on me, but I can’t keep this up. It hurts me when we talk, Peter. I don’t want to hurt all the time. I can’t…breathe.”

He took my words, and I watched him think them over. He didn’t wear surprise on his face, but maybe irritation. Worry. Loss. Poe squeezed my hand as Peter said, “Fine. I get it. You don’t want me.” He shook his head. “What would you want with me when you have a shiny new toy to play with?” Peter sneered at Poe. “Have fun then.”

I watched him walk away, and Poe kissed the side of my head, asking me if I was okay. I told him no, holding his hand tightly. If I kept holding it, then the world wouldn’t have hurt as much. It would have given me something other than Peter to think about. And all I’d lost, and never had to start with.

Poe held onto me, and a couple silent beats passed before, in a light tone, he said, “Do you want me to pee on his car?”

“I think I would rather ditch class again. Are you in the mood to play video games while I rest against you, with nothing important or interesting to say?”

Poe smiled kindly at me. “Any time.”