The First Fight [3]

(Kyle)

“I’m sorry,” she says, softly.

My head shoots towards her. I’m relieved that she’s finally awake. She’s looking down at me as I sit fidgeting with my fingers on the floor.

It’s been approximately an hour and a half since Olivia left with her mom.

“You’re up!” I eagerly acknowledge.

She slows her way into a sitting position on her bed. I get my butt off the ground and walk towards her. She’s sitting now, and I stoop just in front of her –becoming so short that I have to look up a bit for my eyes to meet with hers. She smiles at me, and it’s a comforting, genuine smile that I can’t help but return. She slams her hand down on the empty space beside her on the bed. I move to sit beside her. There’s a comfortable silence between us for a moment.

My smile fades. I drop my head. “I’m the one who should be sorry,” I say.

She looks out of the open door ahead. “This wasn’t your fault.”

But it was.

It was my fault.

Suddenly I remember how Adrien had seen my bruise. I remember how I had run off to the back of the bleachers to break down. I remember how frightened I’d gotten when I felt my body overwhelming with anxiety I couldn’t control. I remember how hard I tried to pull myself out of a panic attack right there. I’d stayed behind the bleachers until school had ended and I was sure that everyone had left. Then I went home.

I frown.

“You should have told me,” Malory says. She turns to me, worriedly. “The minute after it happened, Kyle, you should have told me.”

“I thought he would’ve sold me out.”

“I’m wondering why he didn’t,” she says, her tone filled with suspicion.

“I’m wondering why of all the people in the school, the new kid –the transfer student –the jock –Mr Prick Perfect- had to choose to get close to you,” I say.

She turns to me, offended. “Do you honestly think I’m so inferior that I’m not worthy of the hot guys noticing me? I did date a hot guy or two before, if you didn’t know.”

I scoff. “Oh, I know. All the seniors know. In fact maybe even the younger kids, too.”

“Your point?” she asks me, sarcastically.

You don’t deserve to be treated like a trophy, Lloyd.

You don’t deserve to have a guy tell the whole world about you only to say you’re just not polished and worth showing off anymore.

You’re smart but don’t let someone play with your heart like that.

Some things need to be protected more than others –one of those is the heart.

“You’re too good for that.”

I immediately regret saying that.

I immediately regret saying it.

When I get home the first thing I’m going to do is boil these lips of mine so I stop speaking like an idiot around Malory Lloyd.

I seriously gotta get my act together.

Malory blinks at me three times. “What?”

I’m desperate to change the topic. I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to say what I’m thinking.

But I can’t ignore my own conscience, can I?

“Can we stop this?” I ask her.

She raises a brow. “What are you talking about?”

That’s it, I guess.

I think I’m finally tired of it all.

I turn to her. “The fighting. I don’t want to fight with you. Not anymore.”

“I don’t either, Kyle. I don’t think I ever did. But you started it.”

I don’t remember it being that way at all.

“Did I?” I ask, uncertain. “Did I really?”

To sit and think through all the terrible shit we’ve done to each other would probably be like writing a history book. We’d be gathering facts and piling them into one piece. It doesn’t sound like much fun, in my opinion.

“Don’t say that like you don’t remember the first time we ever fought,” she says to me with a pointed look.

Oh, there’s no way I could forget that.

I laugh and turn to her. “How could I forget? You tripped over my new shoes at our first April Fest and then cursed me out of this world for ripping the end of that horrible blue dress.”

“You purposely tripped me, you oaf,” she says with a glare.

“I did not!” I say, genuinely surprised.

The truth of it is that the first fight we ever had wasn’t really a fight. It was a huge misunderstanding.

Suspicious, she attempts to pry me open for answers. “Oh? Then explain why you had the entire male population of our freshman year –inclusive of Olivia and my cousins and my crush laughing so hard at me they literally all started crying –not to mention you almost broke through the floor from laughing so hard and stamping around like an insane horse. Do you know how embarrassing it was for me? I’d made that dress myself... and when I tripped, half the skirt ripped from the end of it to my butt and I had nothing to hide the rip with. No jacket, no nothing. But no, you were laughing. You definitely did it on purpose.”

You... made the dress yourself...?

I stifle a laugh at the thought of Malory being embarrassed. Back then, what happened was really funny, but it’ not so funny now that I know her side of the story. Doesn’t make me want to laugh any less imagining Malory Lloyd with an embarrassed face as red as the punch that fell on her that night, though.

“I can’t say it wasn’t funny watching you struggle that night, Lloyd. It was hilarious.” I burst out laughing. I can’t help myself. She hits me on my shoulder and looks away, uneasy. “And you were such an odd duckling back then,” I continue. “You were always bumping into things or people. You were always wearing some massive T shirt and this one pair of converse –every single day. It was funny to look at just how sad your life seemed to be back then.” I sigh, grinning.

Her tone is one of disbelief, and she begins her rant on a whisper but it gradually increases in volume the more upset she becomes. “You really don’t know anything about me, do you Davidson? You don’t know that I had to stay up late at night to work and wake up early to do more work just to help my mom from going insane. You don’t know that my dad was a troublemaker and we relied only on my mother’s wage to survive. You don’t know that even though my family was crap I loved my dad to death... you don’t know that I’ve had to fight to get to where I am.” She forces a sarcastic laugh and turns away from me. “You don’t know that I do as many things as I can to keep myself out of having alone time because when I’m alone I remember bad things about my past. You don’t know about the slump I’ve been in.” She lowers her head, laughing again, heavy tears rolling down her cheeks. “I bet you didn’t know about that.”

I don’t like it when she does that. I don’t like it when she laughs but she’s crying. That’s not the Malory I know. It’s not the Malory I’m used to. It’s not the Malory I want to see. That’s just not Malory.

I feel like an asshole realising how much I’d spoken to hurt her without even realising it.

Forget boiling your lips –you’re bleaching them, instead.

How could I have been so careless with this girl?

“Maybe...” I say, as I recall her saying it, “Maybe we both just... never really thought of each other as people.”

She looks at me, bewildered. I scoff and laugh, softly. She wipes a tear from her eye and sniffles, smiling back.

There she is. The Malory I know.