The Street Fighter (#Wattys2014)

Chapter 7.

"Can we get back on topic here?" Alex asked Un-amusedly. "Her slapping my face isn't the topic we should be on," I sobered up at his statement as I registered what he meant. "we should be talking about why your girl is even here!" He gestured towards Keeley.

"Princess?" I asked, ignoring the 'your girl' comment and looked over towards her while shoving my hands into my pockets.

"I wanted to check on you." She mumbled under her breath.

"Check on me?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yeah! She said that she saw you running by the park yesterday... what was it, three times?" Alex said as he looks in my direction.

"Yeah, that's right... It's just-I called you but you didn't notice. And then the next time you went by, you were running faster and then the next was even faster than that. I would have thought something was chasing you, but I didn't see anything." She says with a complex look on her face as she was studying me.

"I'm fine... I was just building up my leg strength, princess." I lied through my teeth. She didn't need to know my business, even though for some reason I felt like I wanted her to, which was scary.

"Okay..." She nodded, not looking sure of my answer.

"Princess?" I addressed her, making her look at me. "what is this... the third time that you've walked into dangerous territory?"

"Hehe..." she chuckled as she tucked hair behind her ear. "it's not so dangerous if you're around, right?." She shrugged, looking around instead of at me.

My chest tightened at how she trusted me, not only because I was happy, but because I was scared-she shouldn't trust me like that-she shouldn't trust me with her life. I took a gulp of air and covered up any emotion that I just had, hoping that no one saw anything.

"It still is actually." I narrowed my eye's at her slightly. "And what would you have done if I wasn't here? Huh?" I crossed my arms over my chest.

"Well, um-I-" she stuttered, her face slightly red.

"Exactly-" Alex's eyebrows rose high as he looked at me, not expecting me to be so harsh. "-you could have easily gotten hurt. the guys here are not someone you want to hang around, they are the kind of guys that would make you cry in your sleep from bad dreams. they are the kind of guy's that don't care how they treat anybody, and they are the kind of guy's that you don't want to meet in an ally."

"Dude, she was worried about you." Alex says growling at me. "Even if it was stupid for her to come here-" Keeley almost protested, but Alex cut her off with a look. "-she was just wanting to check up on her friend."

"She's not my friend," I frowned confusedly at Alex, then I glanced over to Keeley to see a slightly hurt look in her eye's. I immediately regret what I had said, but before I could take it back, I thought better of it and stayed silent.

"Oh… then in that case," She starts backing away awkwardly, her face down towards the ground. "I'll just be leaving, sorry for bothering you." She mumbles, then turns around and stars walking.

"Princess!" Alex called to her but she kept walking away. "dude, what's her name?" he quickly turned to me.

"Keeley." I mumbled.

"Keeley, Wait up!" he called after her again but she kept walking. "Dang it Garret! You always do this!"my eyebrows rose as he addressed me like that.

"What do you-" he cut me off.

"You know exactly what I mean! Every time you start to get close to someone, you get scared and you shove them away. And yes, I mean everyone!" He said when I opened my mouth to protest, effectively shutting me up. "Even when you met me, you had tried to shut me off. Then I finally got it through that thick skull of your's that I wasn't going anywhere, and now look where we are? I mean sure, you might not be as close to me as a brother would be, but the point is that you learned to trust me. You had learned to handle having someone there for you, someone you can depend on if you're in a tough situation. Someone you trusted enough to let them teach you how to fight with knife's, while actually swinging full force." He said that last on with a hint of a smile on his face, but what he said had really hit me hard.