I stand there in shock as he walks away like he hadn't just done that to me. "What the fuck" I breathily let out. What the hell just happened? Did he try to kiss me and just walk away. Oh my God that is so fucking embarrassing. Why did I let him do that? I look around the hall to make sure no one was lurking behind and to my luck there wasn't. I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding and try and shake off the previous events, heading to my class. Which conveniently, he is in as well.

Things feel different around here now. I'm finally single. I haven't been single for about 4 months or so, so I definitely feel the difference. I'm also in significantly less pain today. Don't get me wrong its still there, and I unfortunately still have bruising from some of the blows which I would much rather forget, but nonetheless today is a better day than yesterday, and I try my best to remain positive about it. Or else I'll breakdown.

And I can't be having that at school.

The positive's are that I am now free from that scumbag and I embarrassed him in front of everyone. He fucking deserved it after the shit he has put me through. Maybe I wasn't the best boyfriend and yeah people probably think I'm the dickhead that broke his heart and cheated but I honestly don't give a shit. I like this better than the alternative. At least it keeps up my reputation. If the school found out what he did to me no one would see me the same, give me pity any time they see me and most likely not respect me anymore. But whatever, that's high school I guess.

I walk into class late once again.

"Davidson" My teacher sighs as I walk in disturbing the lecture. "I would make a late joke but I feel as if they are a tad overused now" she jokes passive aggressively. I decide to ignore her and make my way to the back of the class. "What's the excuse today? I'm sure the class is dying to hear it" she continues to pester, earning a few stifled laughs since I always seem to come up with the most flamboyant excuses just to get a reaction out of the class. However today I don't feel in the mood for jokes.

I shrug taking my seat and flopping my backpack down beside me on the floor, "Uh, I don't have one today" I mumble out. I feel a bunch of eyes on me. Usually I love the attention but with what has been going on in my life lately, I'm feeling a little uncomfortable under the spotlight. My teacher senses my discomfort and decides to drop it which I am incredibly thankful for.

Everyone diverts their attention back to the teacher as she resumes her lesson. I crack my knuckles and pull out my binder and pencil. As I'm doing so I catch a glimpse at the boy beside me. He's watching me. I quickly divert my eyes back down to my notes, as if I'm even paying attention to the class.

I suddenly feel embarrassed under his gaze. Feeling myself want to curl up in a ball and shy away from the whole world. From him.

Why does he make me feel like this all of a sudden? I have never experienced this before. No one has ever made me shy before. If anything, I make other people shy.

*Ding*

Shit I left my ringer on. I mumble out a quick apology when my teacher turns to face me and quickly go to shut it off. When I turn my phone around I read the text.

Dumbass Prick : Your leg is shaking, nervous?

My palms suddenly feel sweaty and my face turns red.

The worst part, is he can see my reaction, so I try and rack my brain for a quick comeback.

I try my best to remain composed, stopping my leg immediately from shaking. So much for being subtle. I glance up at the teacher, making sure she isn't faced towards me and type back.

Me : I do it on instinct, why on earth would I be nervous?

Dumbass Prick : I don't know, you seem on edge about something.

I know what he's doing. Trying to hint at what happened in the hallway. I hate him so much.

Me : I'm fine, stop texting me I'm trying to work.

I shut my phone off and put it back in my pocket, not letting his texts get to me anymore. I hear a light chuckle from beside me which makes me roll my eyes. Fuck that prick.

The class goes on and our teacher assigns us some homework to do. I try my best to finish it in class so I don't have to when I get home. I hate homework almost as much as I hate Clay.

Apart from the first ten minutes, Clay has actually left me alone.

Well, until now.

Our teacher said we could work on the homework with the person beside us for the last 15 minutes of class. Alex and Nick partnered up so that left me with Clay.

In my opinion, working alone isn't so bad.

But of course, he took it as an opportunity to pester me.

"Your answer for question four is wrong by the way" he peaks over at my paper, confidently correcting me.

I decide to ignore him.

"Its C not A" he continues, shoving his paper in my face.

"I'm not taking answers from someone with a lower GPA than me" I keep my gaze focused on my paper as the annoyed tone slips off my tongue. I guess I was right about things not changing between us, but now it gets to me more for some reason and I don't know why.

"Suit yourself, maybe I'll surpass you if you keep this up" he provokes and even though I know he's trying to get under my skin I can't help but let it.

I make eye contact with him for the first time since I had seen him in the hallway, giving him a nasty look but as I face him I lose my train of thought. Why does he make me so nervous all of a sudden? It's like I'm scared of slipping up on my words around him. Wanting to be perfect for him. No not for him, to be better than him.

He smirks at me confidently. "What?" he asks. His calm demeanor enrages me. How can he be so well put together when I'm over here struggling to speak while looking at him. "You're annoying" I manage to spit out, earning a scoffed laugh from him in return. "Quite the insult Davidson. I was right, you are nervous" he responds making fun of my state. Great he noticed.

Before I get the chance to bark back an insult, the bell rings. Fucking finally. I don't know how much longer I could last with this asshole. He seriously is getting on my nerves lately.

Alex and Nick wait for me to gather my things and we all walk out together, Clay trailing behind speaking with a few other guys from the friend group.

The rest of the day goes by slowly and this is the part of my day that I had been dreading the most.

Biology class.

The class that I share a desk with none other than Braden.

Maybe I should just skip this period? I'm in a conversation with Karl and Will right now but I keep spacing out, not fully being present in what they are saying because I am so nervous for what is yet to come.

"What do you think George?" Karl asks, pulling me from my thoughts.

"Sorry I wasn't paying attention, what was the question?" I reply, feeling bad I had to ask him to repeat himself.

"We were just talking about Saturday"

"What's Saturday?" I drag out my words, amplifying my confusing.

"The big game! Remember, with all the scouts!" Will beams, flailing his arms around dramatically.

"Oh right! Yeah can't wait" I pump a fist up in the air unenthusiastically.

"Dude, are you good?" Karl questions confused but remaining lighthearted.

"Yeah sorry, its uh, its just the break up has been messing with me a bit" I say trying to give them a vague reasoning for my strange behaviour, even though my answer wasn't entirely not true.

They both give me apologetic looks, "hey try not to focus on it, I'm sure after the big game Saturday the guys will be all over you at the party!" Will says trying to cheer me up. I force out a laugh and nod, not really knowing what to respond to that. After a few more minutes we say our goodbyes and part our separate ways, heading to class.

I, however, have made up my mind and decide I will be skipping this period.

Well, that was until my teacher saw me fleeing the other way.

"George! I heard you were under the weather yesterday, glad to see you back!" She smiles at me. Great.

"Thanks but I was just heading home, I don't feel well again" I lie through my teeth. She's very sweet so I feel bad.

"Look honey, I have some Advil for you if you'd like, today's lesson is important and you seem to be slacking off in this subject. I suggest you stay" She says in a convincing tone, pulling out a bottle of Advil and handing it to me.

"Oh, thanks" I flash her a quick smile to which she matches.

"Of course! Now come on, the bell is gonna ring any minute" She pats my back in the direction of her classroom and I take a deep breath before entering, preparing myself.

"Oh and one more thing" she says and I turn to face her, "Clay told me about your break up and asked to switch seats with Braden so you wouldn't be uncomfortable." She informs me.

A weight feels like it has been lifted of my shoulders.

"He did?" I ask in disbelief. She nods at me enthusiastically. "He must really care about you!"

"Yeah, I guess so" I say unconvinced. Clay really went out of his way to do that for me? So I wouldn't feel uncomfortable. I feel loads of butterflies fill up in my stomach.

That was... Nice.

But then my mind quickly moves on to my next problem, I have to sit beside Clay!

Now the nerves have returned to me. But they are not the scared type of nerves, more the excited type.

I silently prepare myself for what I am about to do, taking a deep breath trying to maintain my cool.

Its just class, what is wrong with me?

Fighting the eternal battle my mind is having right now, I enter the classroom and head to my original spot. When I look up I see that Clay is now where Braden usually sits and vice versa. This still kind of sucks because Braden is right behind us. Great what if he gets mad with how Clay acts towards me and takes all his anger out on me. I mean at the end of the day he does know where I live, so its not like Clay can just protect me forever.

It does make me feel slightly better knowing that Clay took his spare key off him when he kicked him out, otherwise he could just break in whenever.

This boy has done a lot for me in the past few weeks.

I sit down not uttering a word to him. I know I should probably thank him, but that would just boost his ego, especially after all the encounters we've had today. And I know he knows I would be grateful for it, just hard for me to put it into words.

"You're welcome" he whispers leaning over to me. Despite not wanting to, I give him a genuine smile and nod knowing he'll understand what I mean.

I'm thankful he doesn't urge me to say more, and surprisingly he barely bothers me the whole class. He pays attention taking the notes on his laptop even offering if I would like him to share them with me, to which I said no because I don't need his work but it was the thought that counts.

He also knows this is my worst subject, so maybe he was doing it so I would actually listen? Who knows. I'm most likely overthinking it.

We gather our things and he makes small conversation with me till I reach my locker.

"Well see you tomorrow then" he says waving to me.

"You mean see you in five?" I confusingly respond, continuing to grab my football gear from my locker.

He stops in his tracks and turns to face me, furrowing his eyebrows together "What? You can't play"

"Why not" I shrug, closing my locker and walking in the direction of the change rooms.

"George, you couldn't even walk yesterday are you insane?" He asks trying to keep up with me, placing his arm around my shoulder and spinning me around back towards my locker, "you're going home" he resumes sternly.

I roll my shoulders making his arm fall off of me, "No I'm not, I feel fine" I say annoyed. Can he just leave me alone for two seconds? I don't need him to look after me.

"Well I'm your captain and I say that you aren't practicing" he says in a serious tone, crossing his arms like he's some authority. "Oh my God! So sorry captain" I reply mockingly.

I then roll my eyes, "Clay, since when do I ever listen to what you say? I'll see you on the field" and with that I leave him standing there, making my way to the change room one again. He opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out, and he shuts it once again groaning in frustration.

When I enter the changeroom almost everyone is already there, which means Braden is here. I make my way to my assigned locker and change into my football gear.

"Watch out everyone, George is single now so hide your bare asses!" Nick yells out jokingly gaining a few laughs amongst the group.

"Ha ha very funny Nick. Even if you were the last ass on earth I wouldn't even glance at it" I fire back which also receives a few chuckles.

We go on to tease each other back in forth until we reach the field.

At first we all start doing what we normally do and throw the ball back and forth to each other, nothing serious. I don't start to feel any pain until we do our before practice laps. This is when I struggle.

The pain shoots through my lower back as we run and it gets difficult to keep going without limping. But I manage to get through all of them. The bad news is, is that that was the easiest part of the practice.

Now I'm starting to get nervous.

As we run drills I find it harder than usual to keep up, which has my coach confused. He even pulled me over at one point to ask what was going on and explaining to me that I can't be slacking off like this especially before the big game Saturday.

I feel like all eyes are on me, wondering why I am doing so terribly when usually I am the standard that everyone struggles to keep up with. Howbeit, I tell him about the previous day I wasn't at school due to being ill, and say I'm recovering and will definitely be good for Saturday.

I return back to the field after that and my coach makes me wear a different coloured jersey signaling I am 'no contact' because I am not feeling well.

After what felt like the longest practice of my life, we all call it a day and grab our waters. I stay behind since it is my turn to help pick up all the equipment.

"Not feeling well eh?" I hear someone whisper behind my ear sending nervous shivers down my back. "Did I fuck you that good?"

I try and shake off the comment, pretending it didn't faze me even though it did. I scrunch my nose just thinking about it, "You're disgusting" I clap back, receiving a low chuckle from him.

"Come on babe, I'm sorry okay? I miss you" he grabs my face with both hands, holding me so my head is tilted up and my eyes are aligned with his. He gives me those puppy dog eyes he would use after every single one of our arguments. We are all alone in the equipment room. I didn't even realize anyone was following me.

I continue to say silent, knowing its best I don't piss him off when no one is around, but my decision making is cut short when I hear someone clearing their throat at the door.

He lets go of my face and we both turn to the noise, "just waiting to lock up" he says with a devious smile, leaning on the side of the door frame dangling the keys in the air.

"Right captain" Braden replies quietly, seeming irritated by the interruption, his mood completely shifting back to his normal one.

What a manipulative piece of shit.

He turns to face me giving me a soft smile, "we'll talk later, okay Georgie?"

"No the fuck you won't" Clay continues, pushing himself up from where he was standing and approaches us.

Braden scoffs, "What are you his boyfriend or something now? Get over it, you had one kiss"

"Says the one that can't seem to take a hint. Maybe you should take your own advice and 'get over it'" he says lifting two of his fingers to make quotation marks in the air.

As much as I want to make a sarcastic remark about how two guys are literally fighting over me right now, I hold back and decide to leave while I still have the chance, leaving them in there alone to do God knows what. Maybe they'll fuck or something.

That would be a great plot twist right author.