March the Line (7)

-Olivia-

"Great practice you guys, have a good night, we will see you tomorrow at our first competition," said Mr. Bink. The students all exited the field but I stayed behind to collect rifles.

"Here let me help you with that," Drake takes a huge load from my hands.

"Thanks," I blush, grabbing my shoulder bag. Truth was we haven’t defined anything since the dance last week. We haven’t kissed, or gone out but we have been talking at school a lot. We walked in silence for a while before I decided to slightly humiliate myself.

"So, what are you up to tonight?" I slip on my sunglasses, hoping that hiding my eyes would make it so he couldn’t read me as well.

"Um, well, I was just going to ask you that." Drake confesses, giving a tilted smile that I thought was adorable. "How does ice cream and bowling sound?"

"Sounds original." I observe his creativity.

"Thought it’d be something different." He shrugged making me smile.

"Would this be a date?" I stop our walk to face him.

"Would you say no if it was?" He asks back.

"No."

"Then yes, it would be a date." He declares.

"Alright, it’s a date." I grin, already trying to decide what I might wear tonight.

************************************************************************

-Lauren-

I wanted to get out of her as fast as I could so I kept my head down and ignored any interactions with others. But there he was, leaning against my car like it was the most normal thing.

"Chester," I hiss. "What are you doing?"

"I’ve been waiting for your little practice to get over." He says, "I thought we could go out." Placing his hands on my waist.

"No, Chester, I don’t want to go out with you anymore." I told him clearly.

"Why, you think you're better than me or something." He pushes me up against the car roughly. I feel the pressure of his strength starting to hurt.

"No, I just don’t want to." I try again quietly, but it had no use when he just slammed me up against my car harder. "Owe, Stop it Chester." The parking lot was pretty much cleared out at this point and it made me nervous.

"Don’t tell me what to do." He shoved me again but this wasn’t enough, gripping his fist into a ball tightly he punched my stomach then my face.

"Hey!" I hear someone show from the other side of the parking lot making Chester let me go. I fell to the concrete coughing. I rolled over tasting the blood fill my mouth. My eyes had gone fuzzy since my glasses were knocked off my face, but in the distance I hear scuffling and grunting. Then a voice, that didn’t belong to Chester, growled, "Get your ass out of here."

Something red was filling ground in front of me. Warm hands covered my shoulder.

"Lauren, can you hear me?" He asked me and I groaned in response. "What can I do to help?"

"Glasses." I coughed again. I felt him shuffle around before going ‘Ah!‘ and placing them on my face. The lens was cracked on the side Chester hit me, but no doubt I was looking at Kyle. He quickly unzipped his gym bag grabbing a water bottle and a clean shirt that just happened to be white. He propped me up against my car and carefully wiped off my face. Things started to become clearer and he let me use his water bottle to wash out my mouth.

"Thank you." I murmur when most of the blood was gone.

"Where can I drive you?" He asked concerned.

"It’s okay I can drive-"

"No, not in this condition." He insisted. I tried to protest but it was no use. He had me in his truck moments later. I directed him to my house which happened to have my dad outside, working on his car.

"WHAT IS GOING ON?!" Daddy ran out to the truck to help me out of the vehicle. "What did you do to my daughter!"

"No, sir-"

"I don’t want to hear an excuse, get the hell off my property!" Daddy yelled.

"Daddy it wasn’t him!" I yell. "It was Chester. Kyle is just trying to help." After Daddy took a long look at Kyle he just nodded and the two helped me inside and onto the couch.

"Don’t let your eyes off her." Daddy instructed Kyle before exiting the room for an aid kit. He came and sat on the ground next to me. A few moments of silence surpassed.

"You and Chester...?" Kyle tried to comprehend. I nodded and rolled my eyes, letting his t-shirt still cover my mouth. But then I gave him a funny look before pointing at him. He sighed, "I was still at the field cause Bink wanted to know about the tutoring and how it was going. When I was done talking to him, I was walking back to my truck and saw you two and thought something suspicious was going on."

My face became gracious and he knew what I was saying, "It’s not a problem."

"I just grabbed a bunch of things," Daddy came back into the room with bottles of stuff, bandages and rubbing alcohol. "I have no idea what I’m doing. Your mother was better at this stuff than I ever was," he confesses.

"Sir," Kyle speaks up. "If I may." Holding out his hands for the aid kit. Reluctantly he handed it over. Kyle went to work, checking my swollen cheek and bloody mouth. "Now, if you wouldn’t mind, lifting your shirt a little bit." Kyle’s cheeks burned pink just asking and Daddy’s hand cautiously gripped his shoulder. "Sir, I have to check her ribs." Daddy let go and I lifted my t-shirt just enough. Kyle’s hand felt my stomach and ribcage area making me blush as well.

"Well they aren’t broken, but there is a possibility there is a small fracture but your muscle is definitely bruised. Sit up a second," Kyle directed me. He wrapped my ribcage and handed me three different pills, for the pain and to make me sleep it off.

The whole time, Daddy had protective eyes on the whole situation till the phone rang, forcing him to leave us alone in the room.

"So where did you learn how to do all this." I ask curiously after swallowing the last pill. He set a blanket over me, prepping me for sleep.

"My mother is an ER nurse and father is a doctor, they found it necessary for me to learn how to do all this stuff just in case," he shrugged. "So what does your parents do?"

"My dad is a mechanic down at the Auto Shop downtown." I tell him.

"And you mom?" Kyle puts away the instruments he used to fix me up.

"She passed away when I was 9 from cancer," I tell him. He stops and looks at me.

"I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed-"

"It’s okay. You didn’t know." I gently smiled at him.

"Well," Daddy returned. "Thank you so much..."

"Kyle. Kyle Wringly," said the adorable blonde.

"It means a lot what you’ve done today," Daddy shakes his hand.

"Feel better Lauren. If your side isn’t feeling better by Monday, I’d go the hospital and ask for Doctor Wringly, he will know what to do." Kyle gave my dad a smile before nodding at me and leaving.

"I like that kid," Daddy tells me.

"So do I." I agree thinking I’ve never seen Kyle act like that before. But, I came to realization that everyone has a shell, some are just harder to crack than others.