Lesley's POV

‘’I’m begging you please stop!’’ I’m pretty sure that saying this over and over wouldn’t be able to stop this little self-running machine. She kept ignoring me until we made it into the main way through the lunch hall tables, she sped up her pace and I only followed after her rapidly. I knew I was pursuing after her to stop her but a part of me kind of wanted her to beat him up to a pulp after what I heard what he did.

She stood in his way without any hesitation and that made him halt instantly, he paid his full attention to her and suddenly everyone in the lunch hall went silent as they were captivated by this sudden movement.

Oh God, she really did it.

I’m pretty sure that it was the first time that I would actually be this close to him in my whole school life but I didn’t wish for it to happen like this. Never.

He really was everything everyone had described and everything that I expected; a self-explanatory etiquette: tall, edgy looking image, smooth talking, charming, and the almost arrogant type. I felt like Krystal must have felt threatened and pretty much dominated by him up until now, the thing is… we don’t even know for how long this has been going on for and we somewhat felt responsible because we weren’t aware of it.

Clara had told us the promise Krystal made her keep and this girl in front of me had started to piece together all of the events.

And the girl. Yes. The only one capable to stand in his way was…

’’What the do you think you’re doing with Krystal?’’ she ran .

Tess. That’s right. Tess would be the only one with the guts to confront Zico about this. I breathed out in little packets of air because of this, I knew Tess wasn’t gonna go easy on him because he messed around with Krystal but then again… she was dealing with the player of the school, the guy with the most guts to be in your face and the guy that dominates in every fight. How can I not be nervous?

 I feared that Tess could get injured in this; I knew that he was capable of hitting a girl. In fact just by thinking about it made me angry because he could have hit Krystal. Just when I wanted to say something to him his eyes snapped to me almost instantaneously. It felt like I swallowed my voice altogether because no sound came out.

Tess suddenly grabbed his attention by attacking at his collar and I gulped in shock. He stared back at her, not reacting or anything, just listening to Tess screaming at him.

‘’What the hell did you do to her? Did you hit her? What happened to her? Why is she hurt?’’ Questions kept being asked but he still wasn’t saying anything. More people were starting to gather around in the lunch hall and I couldn’t do anything but hold tighter onto the scarf that hung around my neck. Tess, you better know what you’re doing. Just come out alive.

Don’t get me wrong, if I had the guts I would have also been there strangling him but I feared for my life so I let the one with the guts do her job, hence why I didn’t pull her away. I needed this situation sorted, I felt sorry for Krystal. Just how much did she endure?

We, as her friends pretty much knew her condition and we all just pretty much knew that she could get him angry. She’s pretty straight forwards and very truthful. She could have attacked him with words without even knowing that it’s offensive towards him. That’s why we all feared that he had hit her and she as scared as she is couldn’t say anything to anyone. We are trying to find out what the hell he did to her and why she ended up at the nurse.

‘’Look. That is none of your business.’’ Everyone reacted to him finally saying something to Tess. With one hand, he simply released Tess’s grip around his collar and then shoved his hand back into his pocket. ‘’What I did and what I will do to that girl is not your business and never will be.’’ He said as a slight smirk became evident on his face. ‘’You self-interested . Stay away from Krystal.’’ I heard someone with a brave voice push past me with a finger pointing towards Zico. My mouth had hanged open, like, literally hanged open.

I have never seen Summer so determined to stand up for someone in my life. She came out from the crowd just to warn him to stay away from Krystal and she didn’t seem to mind that it was Zico that she was throwing her rude words at. A few gasps had followed from the crowd as Zico tilted his head towards Summer. Clara suddenly showed up beside Summer and placed a reassuring hand on Summer’s shoulder as protection from an old friend. No wonder why Summer came out. She has her friends around her, all off them.

‘’Don’t tilt your head at my friend, you narrow minded jerk.’’

I have to say that Clara did pick up some lines from Summer since they’ve been together from primary school. I think she learnt the whole swear-word dictionary from Summer and I guess now it was the time to practice some.

I found that I was the only one who hadn’t stood up for Krystal or for any of my friends and so I joined Summer’s right hand side. I could see Tess smiling alone in front of us at our courage. Zico had started to look more exhausted with how this had turned out and he turned back to Tess as another round of rough words escaped .

‘’I don’t want you to go anywhere near her again. I don’t want you to be in her sight or to ever speak to her.’’ Tess had looked up at Zico and he lifted his lips onto a side. ‘’But that would be a shame. I just got her to remember my name, I couldn’t just walk away after that much effort could I?’’ He looked down at Tess with a serious face, he meant business, he wasn’t going to leave Krystal alone even after this.

Krystal’s POV

‘’Thank you, I’ll do just that’’ I said as I exited the nurse’s office. I breathed out and relaxed my face out as I finally had gotten out of there. She really was concerned about me but I told her that I could keep going till the end of the day. I refused to call my parents or contact Jessica because I knew I’d be a pest to their own problems. I carried my bag in my hand, there was no way I could carry it on my back and so straightened my collar slightly with my left hand.

I looked at my watch and realised that I had wasted most of the day here. Lunch was finishing in a few minutes and I thought of going to lesson straight away so I wouldn’t waste any more time. Once in the main corridor more and more people started to come back in the buildings to go to class and just as I walked through them I noticed that most had been staring at me weirdly. Mostly the girls, they had given me weird glances almost menacing ones. I wondered why, I mean no one saw anything right?

I tried to make myself invisible through the crowd and I finally got to my class.

‘Telophase’

I have been staring at this word for 40 minutes straight and I still can’t bring myself from moving on to the next one. I couldn’t bring myself from concentrating in class, not for a single second. Zico had dominated my thoughts constantly. I kept thinking back to this morning…

Even though I told him his name he still refused to release me in that moment, it was a few more enduring moments before one of his friends had come looking for him that he let me go. Zico had sighed and had bent down to give me my bag that was on floor. He told me to be careful and then he left after he made me promise that I’d go to the nurse’s office. I think it was more a threat that a promise but I went anyway. From there the nurse had been keeping me in just in case it was something serious.

I looked at the clock and saw that there were only twenty minutes left on this lesson. I looked around me to see the others spacing out, talking with their friends, some playing on their phones and the teacher sleeping soundly on his desk. This was the only lesson that would get out of control because this psychology teacher will just give us a task and then fall asleep. I’d just get out some other work I have for the important subjects whilst the others just do whatever they wanted but in silence, they knew that once the teacher wakes up the fun is spoilt so they’d just be quiet so no work is given to them.

My partner would do the same thing as me because he was one to actually care about his learning. I looked to my right and just at that moment he looked at me too. ‘’Hey umm…can I ask you something?’’ he suddenly said in a low key so that no one else would hear. I nodded hesitantly and listened. ‘’Did…Zico really open the front door for you? I keep hearing these rumours but I need to know whether it had really happened. It seems like a lie…