XO (BWWM)

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

   Having a boyfriend was different than what I had expected it to be. Movies often gave the wrong impressions of love which I guess had me tricked and deluded that being in a relationship would be absolutely perfect but it wasn’t and that was the best part about it all. I paced myself with Dane, I didn’t let him meet my father and I didn’t let him meet my mother till we reached the four month mark and I was sure that we were something serious. When I was with him I felt like I was with someone who completed me and I know it sounds incredibly cliché but it was the absolute truth. Never had I had someone in my life who understood me like he did, who listened to me like he did, made me laugh like he did, made me feel like he did. Never. So when Aaliyah didn’t stop with her negative attitude towards him it didn’t just make me sad it made me angry.

   I don’t know what was wrong with her. I had known Aaliyah for ages and usually she wasn’t a bad person like this but her attitude was getting too much for Dane. He decided that the best way to stop him from arguing with her was to avoid her which meant that I spent break times with Dane and lunchtimes with Aaliyah and Shay. That bothered me. I didn’t want to have to hop between my friends and my boyfriend but I had to because although Aaliyah was being difficult she was practically my sister and I would not stop being her friend because of this, especially when I was more than certain that something else was going on. I knew Aaliyah too well to just assume that the way she was acting was solely because she didn’t like Dane. At first I did but the hate was too much and I knew something was up. She didn’t tell what however, I found out.

   “Serena tried to talk to me.” Aaliyah said taking off her jumper while I slipped into my onesie. Her movements were so fast and her arms stayed close to her chest, as if she was hiding herself away from me which was something she didn’t do. Aaliyah and I had been getting changed in front of me for ages; we had seen each other half naked on countless occasions. But I didn’t pay much attention to it…then.

   “Saying what?” I asked raising my eyebrow at her. I was sleeping at her house as we were spending the weekend together studying.

   “Trying to talk about you and Dane.” She said turning around to pull out her pyjamas. That’s when I saw them. The dark purple marks under her bra strap and down her sides.

   “What the hell is that?!” I asked rushing over to her. Aaliyah screwed up her face to me.

   “Nothing.” She said quickly with her eyes wide open. They did that when she lied. I felt my heart race in my chest and I pulled her arms away from her body to find a bright red mark she was covering on her chest. How the hell did she get those?!

   “You’re lying to me!” I cried taking hold of her arm. Aaliyah snatched her arm away and quickly got dressed in her pyjamas telling me to leave her alone.

   “Oh my God.” I gasped once she refused to look at me again. “Tre.”

   “Alex it’s not what it looks like.” She said shaking her head at me with tears welling up in her eyes. “Listen it’s not his fault.”

   I felt a rage build up inside me. “What do you mean it’s not his fault? What did he fucking punch you up on accident?!”

   “Stop shouting at me!” Aaliyah screamed as she burst into a fit of violent sobs. I sighed then brought her in for a hug and she cried and cried and cried. I was mad. Aaliyah was my best friend, she was practically my sister. When anybody tried to get too cheeky with me Aaliyah was always there to back my case and I the same. We had no secrets, I told her everything and she told me everything, we were so close not even being almost completely opposites could bring us apart and now I was finding bruises on her body made by Tre that she didn’t tell me about I was mad. Not at her, but at Tre.