Chaos | A Ninjago High School AU

Chapter 14

I take a seat next to him, moving my pillow so I can sit closer to him, "What happened freshman year with Cole."

His eyes widen. "I d-didn't mean to...you don't need to...." he starts to stutter, his voice raising an octave.

"I want to," I reassure him, shifting so I'm closer to him. "In order to understand the story, I need to put it in the context of my relationship with Cole. He was Kai's best friend for as long as I could remember. I always wanted to play with them, and of course Kai let me because that meant I couldn't get hurt somewhere else. Cole was fine with it; he embraced it.

However, when they got too old for 'playing', they also outgrew me. Kai would still hang out with me and play with me when it was just us, but whenever Cole came over I wasn't included in whatever they were doing. Kai insisted that their adventures were too dangerous for me, even though Cole would say they weren't bad.

When I got into middle school, things changed. Kai and Cole started hanging out more at places other than our house, so I saw him less. However, whenever I saw him at school, I started to get nervous. I had never been nervous before around Cole.

Considering I was a late bloomer, I still looked like a 4th grader. Cole had girls that were already fully developed going after him. When I realized I liked him, I knew I didn't have a chance, so I didn't even try. I just admired him from afar, and every time I saw him, I just wanted him to see me the same way.

When he went to high school, I saw him even less. He would occasionally come over for a sleepover wi Kai, but I would stay out of the way because I didn't want him to see me while I wasn't at my best. When I did see him, I would sneak glances at him. I noticed he was bulking up a lot, probably for football, and it just made me want to get with him more.

Throughout the eighth grade puberty ran its course, and I stayed in good shape because of gymnastics. In May, I tried out for the cheer squad, since they have try outs in May annually, and I made the squad. That's when Kai decided it would be a good idea to make me a part of his friend group, considering most of his female friends were on the cheer squad.

Over the summer, he brought me to a pool party with his friends. According to Cole, that's the day he first noticed me as someone other than Kai's little sister. We talked the whole time and exchanged numbers.

We grew closer over that summer, unbeknownst to Kai because he would've flipped his lid, and he asked me to be his girlfriend. When Kai found out, he was mad, but then he just told Cole that if Cole hurt me, he'd hurt Cole," I let out a bitter laugh, my emotions starting to rise up. I've never said this stuff out loud since that fateful night. It sounds so weird, and it stings.

As if he can sense what I'm feeling, Jay wraps his arms around me and pulls me into a hug. I lean into him and hug him back. His hugs are warm and comforting. "If you don't want to keep going, I understand."

"No, no, no it's alright. We're not even at the bad stuff yet. Cole always had a hard exterior. He could brush insults and feelings away like nothing, but he also didn't let a lot of people in. He opened himself up to me.

 I would sneak over to his house, and we would talk about our struggles and all the things we wanted to say to people. That morphed into also making out during that time which then morphed into more. He went slow with me though. Even though he had already done that before with his girlfriends in the past, considering he dated older girls throughout his first year of high school, he never acted as if he expected anything from me.

Up until that horrible day, I felt like Cole would protect me from anything. He had proved that to me. At parties when guys tried to touch me, he would defend me and go off at the other guy. It usually ended up in a fight. I didn't realize until after how helpless and pathetic I was. Why couldn't I just tell the guy no myself? I didn't need Cole to do what I could have.