My Hater, My Lover (Book One)

Chapter 4 - She knows (Miguel)

Class ended and I was going to my locker.

 I was changing my outside shoes to indoor shoes, when a shadow cast over me. I quickly turned.

 "Miss me?" Eron drawled lazily.

He looked beautiful, in a damaged way, with his purple nose, the bruise giving his eyes a dark smoky look. 

I finished changing my shoes as calmly as I possibility could, but I could see my hands were shaking.

"What do you want?" I said, faking my bravo.

 "After all this time, I finally find you, and this is how you act? Don't be act tough, we both know you're not."

 I was mentally recalling all the things I had learned in my martial arts class. Go to the groin, eyes, nose. Well, that one was done. 

Wait, what did he mean, finally find me?.... 

 "I'm stronger than you remember," I spat.

God, shut up, don't make him mad. 

But what did he mean, finally find me? Was he so disturbed in the head, he followed me all the way to my new school just to keep tormenting me? 

He slammed a hand against the locker behind me. My heart pulse picked up, and my body tensed up.

I posed into a protective form. My arms were tense, ready to punch or protect me.

He leaned in without fear, although I saw he noticed my defence stance.  

 "You were always strong in my memory," he whispered in my ear.

He pulled away and walked off.
Once he had left, I could hardly stand  in my pose. 

I lost all the energy and collapsed against locker. I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed out heavily.

I opened my eyes and looked up.

 One of the four close friends, Charlotte Bleux was looking at me, her face was devoid of emotion. She had just seen what had happened.

Charlotte Bleux was as tall as I was, with long thin legs, flat chest and thick flowing blond hair. She could have been a model, except she wasn't pretty.

Her eyes were slanted down giving her sad eyed look. She was big into drugs but you couldn't tell in school.

She mostly kept to herself. She was a close friend if mine. I knew she was kind, polite even if she was quiet and shy. 

 I started to stutter, to try to explain myself. "That dude is crazy, I have no idea what he's talking about," I began.

I had no reason why she looked upset. 

Was it because she was finally seeing how weak I really was?

"You used to know him," she said, her voice was low.

She was a bit damaged but it reminded me of myself and I liked that in her. We had met in a school party and become close friends after we had a one night stand. She was sometimes cold and distant but I didn't mind.

I wasn't sure if I actually liked her or not. I wanted to lie, but I couldn't to Charlotte.

 "...Yes."

She said nothing more and just walked past me. Seeing her ignore me really hurt.

Charolette never acted this way with me.  I dragged my glum self to the classroom. A strange hush came over the classroom. I felt uncomfortable.

The only person smiling was Eron. Of course, what had changed?

A week later, during lunch, it was really awkward. I was sitting with my four friends, but none of us spoke. It was usual gang, Charlotte, Pithu, Bruce and Robert. The order to closeness was Robert, Charlotte, Bruce and then Pithu.

I was eating, when Pithu suddenly said, "Is it true you're really into guys?"

Pithu was from India, but he had come to Canada at an early age, so he had a very small accent, almost indistinguishable.

 I almost choked on my food. I had a flashback to Eron's voice as my head was being shoved into a toilet, "Faggot."

 "Who the hell said that?" I asked angrily. Pithu flinched.

"A weird rumor going around, is all," he said weakily, although he looked uncomfortable from my outburst.

 I looked quickly at Charlotte. She was looking down at her sandwich, saying nothing but I knew what she was thinking, from the incident last week, when Eron was leaning all over me at my locker.

"If it isn't true, Miguel, you don't need to bit off our heads," Bruce said, in Pithu's defence.

Bruce was Vietnamese, with slick black straight hair he kept in place with gel. I was the least close to Bruce from all our friends. 

"Of course it isn't true," I snapped. I thought back to my first time, with Charlotte, back in the beginning of grade 10, when I transferred here. 

I wasn't gay, was I? Even if I thought Eron was handsome. He was downright crazy!

 "Whatever you say dude," Bruce said.

Robert glared at Bruce's attitude. Robert had curly black hair with brown highlights. He was Irish descent but was Canadian white, through and through.

Robert and I become friends when we found out we took mixed martial arts together after school. He was the closest thing I had to a best friend, since Charlotte and I never dated.

 Bruce looked at Charlotte but she didn't see him looking at her. Even thought Bruce clearly liked her, I wasn't sure Charlotte liked Bruce back.

I felt somewhat pissed at that. Bruce was just being an a**hole because I knew he liked Charlotte. This whole situation had me pissed.

I couldn't wait for mixed martial arts class this evening.