|13.| cleaning up and the terrifying twosome

I don't exactly understand why my group of friends and I had decided to make our way over to the scene but no one was intervening and Luca looked about ready to pass out. Sid had made it to them before I had, Kat being pulled away by her boyfriend, the foreign boy reaching to help Oliver up, "S-s-sorry. Here let me- sorry."

Pushing Luca off of him, he went to stand and when he was on his feet, his eyes went cold as did his unforgiving stance. He was blacking out and letting his anger get the best of him as his fists clenched, his body shaking as he backed the little foreign boy into a corner of a crowd that had just started forming.

I don't know what possessed me within those few dwindling seconds before Oliver's fist collided with Luca's bee stung lips, it might've had something to do with Sid's hand shakily clutching Luca's, but Oliver was stunned and so was I when Luca opened his eyes a minute later to see my hand in a tight grip on Oliver's wrist.

Oliver assessed the situation as he looked down at my hand as if it were a nuisance before I quickly removed it. Luca went to apologize again, this time cowering back but Oliver was already picking food off of his clothes, shaking is head as if to excuse the matter, "Don't worry about it."

The people around us hadn't been expecting that, I saw a few phones out, ready to record the entire throw down.

I mean sure, Oliver wasn't crazy but Luca had spilled his entire lunch down his front and in his hair, anyone would be angry. And with the boy's reputation, I'd expected him to just shake me off and get to pounding a face or two in.

And Luca was as astonished as the rest of us, "You're not gonna h-hit me?"

I was helping Oliver pick up food, Sidney giving me a wary look as she pulled Luca out of the packed cafeteria, his breathing getting a little too rapid with all the eyes focused on him.

"It's fine," I'd heard Oliver mutter but his fingers were clamped around the tray and his jaw was locked. I'd briefly seen him glaring at the ground before he'd brought his tray to the stack away.

It was so silent you could hear a pin drop as I tried following Oliver out of the weird environment. I felt Katalina grab my arm, nails lightly scratching my forearm.

"Quit the fucking staring!" I heard a yell that sounded kind of like Oliver's brother, the lunch resuming as Elliot stood, bypassing me and following his brother out of the cafeteria. I briefly saw him knocking into Jovie Nichols who tried her best to pick up her lunch while shaking from the aftermath.

Either Elliot hadn't cared or he hadn't noticed as he kept at his speed, not even looking back.

No wonder the girl was terrified of their family.

"What was that?" Kat asked, eyes wide after she helped picking Jovie up from the ground. Brushing the invisible dirt off of her, Kat sent the wide-eyed girl a comforting smile.

But that smile must've been one of the scariest things she'd ever seen because Jovie high-tailed it out of there, tears running down her cheeks and breathing rapid.

Kat stared after her, mouth agape and pointing at the door before I uttered a simple 'don't' while shaking my head. Her hand slightly lowered as she blinked as if bringing herself back to her previous topic, "anyways... it's like he stopped because of you."

And I didn't know what happened or why it did but I intended to find out, "I'll explain later," I promised as my best friend nodded in agreement, the shock of Jovie slowly slipping away and the incident forgotten.

"You better."

That was my motivation for exiting the cafeteria as if there weren't people staring me down and the two raging Remmers weren't on the other side.

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"Elliot, I'm fucking fine, okay?" I'd heard Oliver's angst voice causing me o turn around, thanking high heavens.

Theoretically, chasing two teenage boys out of the cafeteria had sounded like a good plan. A good plan until I realized that this was a two story high school equipped with seemingly never ending halls and a lot of rooms.

I'd been looking for nearly fifteen minutes, going to the closest boy's restroom after a lot of deliberation. I checked a lot of empty classrooms and even the boy's locker room before heading back to check the other side.

And that bathroom on the left of the cafeteria is exactly where I'd found the terrifying twosome.

Elliot stormed out of the bathroom, flipping the middle finger back in the direction of his older brother before making his way past me, ignoring my presence altogether.

And then I'd seen him enter the cafeteria, swinging the door open, the sound escaping before he entered for the last twenty minutes of lunch.

Giving myself a mini speech, I'd eventually convinced my feet to start working, "Hey," I greeted, hesitantly stepping into the bathroom.

The boys' bathroom was -for lack of a better definition- gross.

I wrinkled my nose at the smell, trying to keep what little of a breakfast I'd had down. I was sacrificing my lunch, even though I barely ate cafeteria food and even if I did, it was a bite or two of an apple if stolen from Oliver, "do you, uh, need some help with that?"

The boy in question's hands were clenched around the sink as he stared down the drain. He seemed to be holding on to whatever sanity he'd had at this point and frankly, I didn't blame him, I'm-"

And boldly, my hand found it's way to his dark hair, pushing bits of potato salad that he couldn't see from lack of a mirror. My hand found its way through his dark locks as the food fell out of it and I found myself admiring the softness, "there."

He hadn't flinched back but only stared down at me with a hint of confusion yet amusement danced in his nearly colorless eyes.

"You seriously have no problem with touching me, do you?"

And I tried to act embarrassed, believe me I did but I really wasn't. Oliver didn't intimidate me nor did he embarrass me, "Not really, sorry bout that."

His shoulders went up in that indifferent shrug of his as he pushed a hand to reunite the flyaways to their right side, "Don't be."

It was silent as he pulled off his flannel, tying it around his waist as it left him in an All Time Low muscle-tee band shirt that looked a little too rugged to not be homemade. He looked down at his tattoo, subconsciously picking the skin thy must've hurt like a both when he'd gotten it done. It took all my willpower not to stare at the flexing of his lightly defined arms. His pesky strand of hair fell in front of his face yet again even though he'd just fixed it, and the lost look in his eyes emphasized the fact that was so often ignored.

He was still human and he felt what all humans felt at some point: insecure and targeted.

"They're really scared of me, aren't they?"

And I think that was when I really fell for Oliver.

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"Sid, your gargantuan limbs ruined my hair!" Kat had yelled loud enough to rise the dead as we sat in Sid's house later that afternoon.

Her kitchen smelled amazing, Mama Grayson was cooking and you could smell it all the way in the living room. We'd been lounging in front of the large 50 inch television for nearly four hours watching reruns of our old shows.

Flinging a pillow in the direction of Kat, Sidney rolled her eyes, once again flinging her long limbs around without a care in the world, pack of Twizzlers almost falling off her lap, "Stop using SAT words!"

I was trying to pay attention to my favorite couple Cory and Topanga but I heard the slight defensiveness in Kat's tone, "It's not my fault, they drilled it into my head like a- like a... something that drills."

Sid and I rolled our eyes simultaneously, her speaking up about the same thing I was thinking, "You can't figure out something that drills yet you use words like fucking garganjatun-"

"Gargantuan."

I rolled my eyes when if heard Sid's retort, "I hate you..." Picking up the remote, I paused the show, Shawn Hunter making a joke that even I couldn't focus on.

Kat smirked, "je t'aime."

"Why in flipping hell are you so freaking fluent in French? Fuck you." I heard my best friend exclaim, showing her amused annoyance.

"Don't hate."

And Sid grumbled, crossing her arms and grunting as she fell backwards, her body molding into the couch, "Maybe you should ask Luca why he's ignoring me in his native language."

"Just talk to him."

And something that had been bothering me was weighing down my mind and interrupting my thoughts as Kat asked what was wrong with me, "Can I ask you a serious question?"

"Shoot, babe," she said with a reassuring smile and I took a deep breath, readying myself to comfort the 'psychopath.'

"Did something, ya know, happen to Oliver? I mean, there must be a reason for his flying off the handle when he's too upset."

Sid's eyes widened at my question as Kat furrowed her perfect eyebrows as if she were thinking, "I heard -and I'm not sure if it's true- but I heard that his mom used to hit him before he went away... Remember that time he almost collapsed in the cafeteria and Elliot was panicking."

I didn't remember but Sidney surely did, "Oh, I remember that! Oliver's face was pretty bruised and he was limping. Do you know how fucked up it is to hit your kid like that?"

After that I was blanking out. I imagined Oliver and I imagined him hurting, it wasn't a sight I'd ever want to see, "Em..."

And my hands were itching to dial his number. He could've been home and if his home situation was as bad as I thought, I didn't want him home.

"I-I have to go..."

Kat stood up with me, sending my hasty exit, "What're you doing?"

"Does it really matter?"

"Nope," said piped up from the couch, shoving a Twizzler in her mouth, "Bring me some ice cream back, will ya?"

"Not likely."

And there I left my best friends on the couch.

'Can you meet me at the park?'

And I waited, pacing on my porch and trying to stop myself from thinking of the possibilities. Shutting my eyes, I tried to distract myself but the feet of a nearby jogger pounding the curb and the chill of the wind brought me back.

'Sure.'

I hadn't dressed very warm that day but I was too consumed in my thoughts to think of grabbing a jacket as I headed to the park, Oliver just becoming an outline as I got closer.

He was smoking, something I'd never seen him do before. The way his haw flexed as it stuck out from under his black hood had me at awe. His Adam's apple bobbed as he blew out, pale skin stretching; his lean fingers curling around the cancer stick as he took another drag.

And as I stepped closer, I saw him smile slightly, noticing my presence before dropping his only half-smoked cigarette as stomping it out under his shoe.

"Hey," I greeted, hesitant smile spreading across my face as I looked up to him, "I wasn't sure you'd come."

His lean shoulders shrugged as he continued staring at his house, look of confusion plastered there and I wasn't at all sure if it was because of me, "Why wouldn't I?"

I shrugged, goosebumps were trailing up my arms and Oliver must've seen me shiver because he pulled off his hoodie, handing it to me. But he still didn't look at me, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he smiled weakly, corners of his mouth twitching after a few minutes. But eventually he spoke up, feet kicking at the ground underneath him, "why?"

My eyes took in the way he was cradling his arm as well as the way he refused to show the other side of his face, "I just wanted to check..."

"You couldn't have just asked me that through text?"

"I just thought that-" gently, my hand rested on his right arm and he let out a hiss of pain, yanking away from me and in his fit, I'd seen what he was trying to hide, "what the fuck, Oliver?"

"I got into a fight," he excused. But his lip was bloody with the outline of his missing lip ring, a darkening bruise was laying across his face, and his eye was blackened. It wasn't just a fight and we both knew it, "It's fine, Emerson, I handled it."

But he looked a wreck and from the way he was clutching his arm, he was in more pain that wasn't as visible as his blemished face. Oliver's hair wasn't even done and anyone would that that was a huge deal. He never went anywhere without his hair at least looking up to par but he didn't look like he'd cared that day. His black locks were laying flat on his head.

"You know we're friends and I'm here, right?"

He nodded, eyes meeting mine briefly before they wandered back to the ground, "Yeah and thanks for that, most people wouldn't offer to be my friend..."

"Most people are judgmental assholes..."

He laughed, it coming out strangled as he stood, body banged up and hair swooped across his forehead unnaturally, "Hey, um, Emerson..."

"Yeah?"

He gulped before asking in a small voice, it was as if he didn't want me to hear him, "Do you wanna maybe hang out?"

"Hang out?"

I was skeptical. I mean, who the fuck wouldn't be skeptical if Oliver Remmer, the self-proclaimed loner, asked them to hang out? Oliver didn't hang out with anyone.

And he must've seen the look on my face and the hesitation that if most likey displayed because he was quick to explain his uncharacteristic actions, "Yeah, I mean, I'd really like to be anywhere but home right now and you're not that nauseating."

And the award for hottest douchebag goes to...

Unimpressed, I gave him a flat look which he retired with a sheepish smile, "I'm flattered, really."

But his smile was adorable so I might've le it slide just that once.

"So I take that as a yes?"

I thought about it... or I pretended to think about it for a second but really, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that I'd do anything so he wouldn't have to go back to an abusive home that night, "Where do you want to go?"

"I really don't know..." He shrugged his lanky shoulders, "Anywhere but here."

"C'mon..."

And I led the way home, Oliver in tow.