nothing less ➸ demar derozan

twenty-one

Isabella

The game tonight was thrilling but it still bummed me. Everyone had a good game tonight except DeMar. I tried to not pay attention to him but it was hard when he was the only one who was playing horrible. He had only six points that he got from free throws and his playtime was cut short. I could tell he would be heated just by the way he was carrying himself.

"Where are you going," Haro asks as he sees me walking towards the boys' locker room.

"I'm waiting for someone," I say. I didn't want to say who because I knew he would get mad. Haro was furious when he found out that DeMar and I broke up, but I don't think he understood why. He wouldn't even really listen when I would told him and that it's for the better.

"Who?" His eyebrows furrow and he raises his head up.

"I'll be in the car in a bit," I say and keep on walking.

He sighs, "You better not be trying to meet up with DeMar."

"I'm not," I groan. "Leave me alone."

"I'm just trying to prevent you from crying-"

"I know, Haro, but I'm fine. I don't think you really understand what happened between us and why it happened. So until you do, quit telling me stay away from DeMar." He nods and then slowly walks away. I sigh and am about to knock on the locker room door but it opens before I could.

DeMar stands there with a confused look, "Do you need someone?" He points to the locker room and I shake my head.

"Can we talk?"

He hesitates, "Sure." I could tell he was a bit agitated so I was trying to not be long.

I pull out a gift bad from my camera bag. Since I didn't wear purses, I stuffed his gift in the only bag I carried. "I-um brought your gift from Christmas. I would've gave it to you earlier but I just totally forgot about it."

"You didn't have to," he says. I hand the bag over to him and he accepts it. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," I say. The bruise on his cheek is still evident and it is beginning to turn green. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened to your cheek?"

He looks down at the ground and then motions for us to start walking. He begins to chuckle, "I'm trying to make up a lie but I can't. It's like I can't even remember the lie I told the boys."

I look at him and just sort of nod. I wasn't even sure what to do because at least he was being honest. It wasn't the fact that I was mad, I was just trying to understand him. I wasn't sure if he couldn't lie because it was me that'd he be lying to or if it was just that he didn't want to tell me what was really going on.

He glances at me and then shakes his head, "I got punched this morning."

"Like in a fight?"

He nods, "Something like that. That's kind of why I wasn't in first period." I don't try to keep on asking him what happened so instead I close up my bag. "Do you want to know?"

I look at him. It's weird looking at him now that we aren't dating. It's like there's this wall between us preventing us from begin affectionate towards each other. I reply, "If you want to tell me, sure."

"This morning, in the locker room, Haro came in and he was mad at me. I didn't know but he was mad about what happened to us, and then he was calling me stuff so we kind of just got into it," he explains. I am shocked because I didn't think Haro would do something like that. I hated how Haro simply didn't understand and took things into his own hands. It wasn't like I was mad at DeMar or anything.