The Way You Love Me: A High School Bully Romance

by Lannah Smith

  He cocked his head to the side and grinned. "I can warm you up."

  I threw him a dirty look. "Don't even think about it, Steele."

  He sighed but did like I asked. He led me to the room beside the greenery, a glass-walled luxurious lounge with a plush velvet sofa and chairs, a billiards table and bar. Seeing the billiards table made me wistful. He had taught me how to play when we were children and until the abrupt end of our friendship I could never manage to win against him.

  "Do you remember?" John suddenly spoke and I looked at him. He was leaning a hip against the edge of the table, staring at the ivory balls. "You were so angry that you lost you almost poked a hole through me with your stick."

  My eyes narrowed. "If memory serves, you antagonized me first."

  He chuckled. "It's not my fault you're such a sore loser, Evans."

  "You called my eyes chinky and asked me if I could even aim well with my eyes, you racist bastard."

  He threw his head back, laughing, and I felt my temper prickle. My eyes weren't even that chinky but he loved teasing me about them. I turned before I could do something I won't regret, removed my jacket and went to sit down in the center of the velvet sofa so John couldn't sit beside me. When I crossed my legs, I noticed him staring at them. I cleared my throat and he glanced at me. With an unashamed grin, he took the chair adjacent to me.

  "You may begin," I told him.

  He blinked. "Begin what?"

  "Honestly, Steele, do you have some brain problem I don't know about? You always seem to lose your head."

  He smiled over the irritation in my voice. "I like looking at you."

  I threw him a disgruntled look. "I'm leaving if you won't start making sense again."

  "I'm sorry," John said as he laughed. "Everytime I see you, I promise myself I'll get a normal conversation out of you, but then I either get distracted or you try to push me off center—"

  "I can't push you anywhere," I interrupted with a dainty shrug. "You're too big."

  He tipped his head and said, "I rest my case."

  I let out an exasperated sigh. He stared at me for a long, silent moment. Then he stood up and before I knew what he was going to do, he'd join me on the sofa and sat on the edge of my skirt. Gritting my teeth, I yanked the material out from under his thigh.

  "You... you stay where you are," I demanded as I moved farther away from him. "Don't touch me. When you touch me I... I can't think. Just... just stay there."

  He didn't listen.

  He reached for me and pulled me into his arms.

  I went completely still the second he touched me.

  When I came out of her stupor, I shoved against him.

  "How the heck can we hold a conversation if you're always holding me like this?" I grumbled at him.

  "Evans, if you continue to glare at me so prettily, I swear I'm going to kiss you."

  I gasped. "You arrogant, overbearing jerk..."

  "You're sputtering, babe."

  "Don't call me babe!"

  John sighed. "Are we always going to be like this?"

  "There's no we. Now let me go if you want to continue this conversation."

  "Bear with me, Terry," he whispered. "I need a little more time to gather my thoughts. This is difficult for me because what I'm going to confess aren't only my secrets. They're not easy to say."

  I'd stop struggling when he called me by my first name. My heart fell to my stomach when the sadness in his voice got through me. Some of my anger eased away. I stared at him while he made that admission. He stared back at me. The torment I saw in his eyes made my chest ache and the urge to offer my comfort very nearly overwhelmed me.

  "Alright," I found myself whispering. "Take your time. I'll wait."

  John was literally at a loss for words for two reasons.

  First was because of her easy acceptance.

  Second was because he didn't how to fucking start.

  Still, he needed to be honest with her. He'd had almost five years without her and it felt like five thousand fucking years. He was damned if he'd let her go again.

  This honesty was going to come with a price but he was willing to pay it.

  He took a deep breath, exhaled and spoke before he lost his courage, "It's because of him."

  Terry's brows drew together. "What?"

  He took another breath before answering, "It's because of Leon."

  Her eyes widened.

  Then they narrowed as she spoke in a dangerous tone. "What do you mean it was because of Gage? That night at my birthday party, are you telling me you cut me off from your life because of him? You haven't even met him—"

  He didn't let her finish. "Remember the boy I used to tell you about? My best friend from back home?"

  "Your little friend who refused to meet me?" She looked stunned. "He's that friend?"

  "Yes. It was him."

  "But whenever you mentioned his name to me, you called him Nicky."

  "His middle name's Nicholas. And I thought it was funny to see you jealous because you thought he was a girl," he admitted which earned him a slap on the shoulder. "When I finally confessed to you he was a boy you made me stop mentioning him at all," he rushed on to say in defense.

  "Your precious Nicky also refused to meet me when I asked you to introduce me to him," she hissed.

  "I told you. I tried. But he's shy to strangers. Especially to girls."

  Her eyes flashed and she pushed him off her. "Explain, Steele. Explain what you meant about him being the reason."

  With a long sigh, John leaned against the cushions.

  "His father left their home when he was 8 years old," he quietly began. She gasped and he closed his eyes tight. The memory was painful still, the telling even more and he needed to get them out before he changed his mind. "And his mother died when he was 9. She was beaten and violated before she was killed."

  "Oh, God," he heard her whisper shakily.

  "He was hiding in a closet, Terry. He heard everything. Everything. And he found her body. Told me she bled all over him and that he actually felt his mother's life draining out, leaking all over him."

  He felt her hand rest on top of his, squeezing, and he gritted his teeth.

  This wasn't his story to tell.

  It was Leon's.

  And doing so made him feel like he betrayed his best friend.

  But her gentle touch, the small, comforting circles her thumb was making on his fingers made the guilt he was feeling hurt a little less.

  John kept speaking. "Then more shit happened to him. Shit I can't tell you about. I'm sorry. I just can't. Just know that it was bad. And I hate that it happened to him. I fucking hate that all of that shit happened to him."

  He opened his eyes and they locked on her. Tears had gathered in her eyes, her body was trembling, but she still managed not to lose the battle with her emotion and it spoke volumes of her.

  That was his girl.

  Strong.

  And seeing her quiet strength helped him gather the courage to tell her more of the truth he withheld so long.

  "Do you remember? I told you about him. How he was smart, smarter than me even. How he was easily excited by everything, how he always smiled and laughed. How it sometimes annoyed me that no matter how much I was a brat to him he always forgave me, always made me smile and laugh. How perfect his family was and how I wished I was his brother because I loved him and his parents so much."

  "Of course, I remembered," she softly replied. "I remember everything you tell me."

  "Well fucking look at him now," he darkly muttered. "He doesn't smile. Doesn't laugh. Doesn't even talk much. Until Sophia came to his life, he barely got up from bed and didn't give a crap about anything. He's empty, like a guy who lives just because he's alive. He blames himself for the death of his mother because he thinks he could have helped her. Saved her."

  "And his father? Did he come back?"

  John's eyes slid over her shoulder and he looked out to the glass wal
l into the greenery. "Oh, yes he did. But it was too fucking late. Leon wouldn't even look at him. He hated his guts. I'd started living here when... when more of the bad shit happened to him and I was the only person Leon would let close so his father bought a house for Leon to live here."

  "Then what did that got to do with us?" Terry's voice was almost a whisper. "What did he have to do with us?"

  He lowered his head, squeezing his eyes shut. She was thinking she wanted to know the truth when in fact, she really didn't.

  "Just tell me."

  Her voice was shaky. She knew what it was about to do her but still she wanted to know.

  His voice got low and tight. "Mother made me choose. She told me if I stop being friends with you she'd let me stay friends with Leon. You know how she's all about reputations and what happened to Leon was totally fucked up. She said she'd let me take care of him, let me see him and help him."

  Terry sounded defeated and overwhelmed as she said, "So you chose him."

  He opened his eyes when she let his hand go. He grew scared, her expression had turned detached and he took her face into his hands.

  "I don't know why my mother drove me up the wall. I didn't want to lose you. But I had no choice. If I was older, I'd have told her to fuck off, that I'd do what I wanted to do but I couldn't at that time. I couldn't. "

  She didn't speak, just shook her head. She pulled his hands off her skin and stood up. Numb, he watched her turn and walked towards the glass wall, holding her elbows tight.

  "I was a kid, Terry," he blurted out in desperation. "I didn't know what else to do. Leon needed me. He needed me and I couldn't abandon him. I'm all he has. So I... I made that choice. I'm sorry. He needed me."

  She still didn't speak.

  And her silence felt like a knife twisting in his gut.

  I needed you too.

  I wanted to tell him those words.

  I wanted to tell him those words so bad.

  Everytime my mother beat me during one of her rages, it was him I thought about.

  Everytime my brother played his mental games with me, it was the knowledge that I was going to see him helped me endure all those things.

  And that night, during my party, under the pretty dress I was wearing were bruises. All over my body. My mother chose that day to give me a trashing because she didn't like seeing me too happy to be celebrating my birthday. She didn't like seeing my father fussing over me on my special day. So she hurt me.

  But I didn't care even if I was hurt all over. I knew seeing John would make everything better. But it didn't. Because he gave me the most damage that night.

  Tears fell over and slid down my cheek one right after the other.

  He said he didn't know the reason his mother made him stop seeing me.

  I did.

  His mother never liked me. Not since she first saw me.

  She didn't have to tell me, I could see the dislike in her eyes everytime we crossed paths. I didn't know the reason behind her intense dislike for me. I just knew to step out of her way and made myself invisible in her presence.

  "Say something," he whispered. "Please. Say something."

  I finally managed to put a handle on my emotions and I wiped the tears from my eyes. Taking a deep breath, I straightened my spine and turned to look at him. He was still sitting down but had leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together.

  "You could have just told me..." I started but trailed off when he shook his head.

  "I couldn't take the chance. You know my mother. She'll know. And Terry," he stared into my eyes, "You were never good at hiding your emotions back then."

  My brows went up and I replied scathingly, "So this is my fault now?"

  "No," he immediately answered. "It was never your fault. All of it is mine and mine alone."

  "All those times you ignored me. Not showing up the summer before my birthday even though we were practically neighbors. I was excited when you moved, happy when we were in the same school but suddenly it was like I had a deadly disease I didn't know about when you started to ignore me," I ended with a near-shout.

  His face paled and I watched him swallow.

  "When Mother gave the order I was... I was torn about doing it," he said haltingly. "So I... procrastinated. And Leon was in the hospital so I had them drive me back and forth to the city we both used to live in so I could see him and stay with him."

  His expression suddenly changed and he dropped his forehead to the tips of his clasped hands, squeezing his eyes shut.

  "I didn't even know what was happening to him, Terry. When I first saw him in the hospital, fuck, I wanted to kill the person who put him there. And I still do."

  Hospital?

  His entire body was rigid with grief and sorrow. My chest started to hurt, my throat too, and my heart felt like it has just been completely obliterated as I stared at him from across the room.

  "I... I promised to myself when his mother died that I'd be there for him even though I lived far away from him," he carried on, whispering brokenly. "I promised him that no matter the distance, I'd go to him when he called because we were brothers."

  Then his eyes shot to mine and I watched him give the word devastation meaning.

  I didn't even know what happened to Leon or why he was hospitalized but one thing was for certain. I also wanted to kill the person who hurt him because he had also hurt John.

  "Stee—" I swallowed and tried again. "John..."

  He kept speaking. "I know. I'm a shitty friend."

  "Just because you didn't know it was happening to him doesn't mean you're a shitty friend, John," I told him. "He didn't tell you either."

  He shook his head at me again. "I should have known. I was his best friend. We were tight. I... I let him down."

  I couldn't stop it.

  A tear slid down my cheek.

  I closed my eyes.

  If this was the degree of what he felt for Leon, then how much pain would he feel when he knew what had happened to me?

  Would his world come crashing down around him?

  Would he blame himself again?

  Bitter satisfaction had me arrested and for a moment, I wanted to see the same devastation in his eyes when I told him. It would serve him right, leaving me alone all those years. But the bitterness in my heard had no time to take root because what raged inside was something else entirely, burning it all clean like fire.

  John may have not gone through what I'd gone through but he still felt pain. Deep and terrible pain.

  I knew even as a child that he may act heartless but he could never ignore other people's misfortunes. He may be a brat but he wasn't cut from the same cloth as his mother. He may be a jerk but he never meant to hurt people.

  Wiping the stray tear from my cheek, I sat next to him. He still had his head down to his hands and so I put my arms around him, pulling him to me until his head was on my shoulder. I lowered my lips to his hair and kissed him.

  "I keep letting the people I love down," he mumbled.

  Fresh tears hit my eyes and I struggled to blink them back. "John—"

  His head came up and his hands came to my jaw, his face in my face, so close it seemed the world melted away until it was just the two of us.

  "I love you, Terry."

  My breath left me.

  "You were also my first love."

  This time, the tears didn't hover. They were falling.

  His thumbs slipped through them but his eyes didn't leave mine when he said, "It hurt, letting you go. And it fucking killed me when I heard you were going out with Russo. I never forgot about you. In the back of my mind, you were always there. In my heart you always stayed. So when you came to me that night at the party, I couldn't believe it. It was a miracle. And it sure felt like it when we slept together and I found out you gave me your virginity."

  "John," I breathed then said no more.

  A wild tumultuous happiness seeped into me.

&
nbsp; Whispered into my bones.

  Giving me hope.

  "I'm a jerk, I know," he went on. "And I'm sure you've heard that I slept around. I can never take back all of that and all of the things I've done that hurt you, Terry. I can never take them back and I can't force you to forget. But I'll do everything I can to make you happy and forget just a little. I probably will still be a jerk because that's who I am but I can assure you that I'll try to be the guy that is right for you. Starting right this very moment."