Treat You Better

Chapter Fifty-three: Scary Kid.

A good amount of them groaned.

"Let's pretend we didn't hear her." One girl whispered with a giggle.

"We can't do that, she's my friend." The red head girl said and waved. "Hi Violet! Hurry up!"

Angelo turned away once she reached them. So her name was Violet, that wasn't so different from Purple Girl.
He also wondered if she'd be wearing a red raincoat instead of a purple one if her name was Rose.

"Hey guys, where are we going?" She asked, walking with them.

"The woods." One of the boys, Sam replied and everyone waited to see if she'd be scared.

"Oh... okay." Was all she said, but she did slow down her steps.

Angelo bravely led the way into the forest, using a few skills he found in a woods survival book at the orphanage library like leaving behind a trail so that they could find their way back.

In his case, he used Pedro's special crayons... he wouldn't mind.

"Wow, you're so smart, Angelo!" The red head girl with glasses told him when he told them the brook they were following might lead up to a waterfall. He wasn't even sure, but he did see it on the internet somewhere.

"Yeah, you're really cool!" Jason said. "Hale's said a lot about you."

"No I haven't." Hale protested. "Come on Jason, let's go ahead of everyone and get to the waterfall first."

"No thanks, Angelo has binoculars! Whoa." Jason said, looking around with them before stopping on the red head girl's face. "Wow, your hair is really curly, Faith!"

She gasped and turned several shades pinker. "Thanks!"

Angelo sighed, being around this many people was already tiring. He looked behind him at the other kids, three girls were walking with their arms looped, giggling and two other boys were trying to catch frogs.

There was no sign of a particular purple raincoat anywhere.
Angelo looked forward, dropping another crayon to the ground. There was no way she was lost, otherwise her red head friend would have been worried.

He looked at said red head and she was busy staring at Jason's head like a love sick puppy.

"Gross." Angelo grimaced. Love was gross and icky and stuff. But he slowed down his steps till he was at the back of the group, wondering if Purple girl was eaten alive or something. What if he had to fight a bear?!

With a sigh, he took out his woods survival book and pored though it, following the crayon trail and heading back the way they came.

It didn't take long to find her. She was playing some kind of odd game where she'd stomp into a puddle then talk to something in her hands. It was the weirdest thing to watch.

"...and always know that you'd have plenty of new friends when you're big, okay?" Splash! "And that when you're big, you won't care if they leave you behind." Splash! "Or call you names..." Splash! "Or... or tell you you cry a lot..." This time, she just bent over the next puddle, running the back of her hand over her cheek.

Angelo shuffled his feet behind her. He felt horrible.
Even worse, he couldn't even tell why he did, all he knew was that it was her, she was making him feel bad! With her crying and her sadness and her.... crying!

"Do you want to get eaten by a bear?" Angelo asked and she jumped to her feet, startled, then turned around.

"N-no!" She squeaked, wiping her eyes quickly, with a single wildflower in her hand. "Sorry!"

"Huh?" Angelo said. Wasn't 'sorry' for when you actually did something wrong? "You shouldn't be alone in the woods."

"But my friends told me to stay here. They don't want me and...and I was scared to pass that tree because it... looks mean." She pointed at a tree in the distance.

"It's just bent weird." Angelo shrugged. "Come with me."

When he said that, he didn't expect her to basically fasten to his arm as they walked, but that was what she did and he felt his face grow very hot. If he told Mey, Noah or Inna about this, they'd laugh at him.

Once they were a good distance past the 'mean' tree, he decided he'd yank his hand away, but she looked up at him and grinned.
"Thank you!" She said.

Angelo blinked, his face growing even hotter.

"I thought you were scary." Violet said with a smile. "But you're not, you're brave!"

Scary? Angelo thought. She was the scary one, she was very much like a ticking time bomb, it was always a matter of time before she burst into tears and that just made him feel so uncomfortable... he hated seeing her cry.

She looked fine now though as she happily pointed at something and ran off to climb on a boulder right at the edge of a downward slope.

"Be careful!" Angelo said, hurrying over to grab her by the raincoat in case she fell. Then he saw what she was excitedly pointing at. Through the slight clearing in the forest, they could see a rainbow.

"Pretty," She said and Angelo had to agree, it really was a nice sight to see. They stayed there for while in the drizzling rain, just enjoying the view, then Violet's soft voice made him look at her. "Your real hair is showing."

Angelo's hand immediately went up to feel his hair now damp, his hood must have fallen off while he was staring at the sky. Funny how he didn't mind if she saw his roots.

"It's so shiny, like sunlight." She added before hopping off the boulder. That meant she liked his hair, the thought made him want to actually smile.

They hung out together the rest of the while, finding comfort in each other's company, and when it seemed it was time to go home, Violet gave him a hug that only lasted a second, but they were both red in the face after it. "Will you still be my friend tomorrow?" She asked a little sadly.

"Yes, sure. And the next if you'd like." Angelo replied, nodding. She grinned happily and waved before skipping away.

That was the last time Angelo actually saw her in the next few years though. The very next day he had to be taken back to New York due to an emergency which had caused Hotel Lotus to be unsafe for him and he was left without an opportunity to say goodbye to his friend, Purple Girl.

A//N: I'm half awake I'm sure. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, thanks for all the views, 3k is a pretty big deal especially since i'm not even done with the book yet lol. Updates might be slow because I've started working on another project, but i'm wrapping Treat You Better up very soon. Love Y'all