solar clarke's pov:
I sometimes sneak out for a smoke with Kieran in between the classes, which is stupid because I don't even smoke. Instead I just sit on my side of an old concrete pillar, big enough for two and watch Kieran taking hurried drags from his cigarette. It's a habit Choni tells him to quit over and over again, but somehow he never does.
Sneaking there is stupid because it's quaranteed you'll get in trouble if you're caught doing so. I mean, I could somehow understand why the smokers did it, but seriously, what was I getting out of it?
Anyway, that was the reason I heard the commotion from the school yard, so it turned out sneaking to the secret smoking place wasn't as fruitless as I thought it would be.
"Did you hear that?" Kieran asked, even though it was obvious I did, when I was craning my neck towards the noise. He crushed the rest of his cigarette with the sole of his yellow sneaker and I followed after him to the school yard. Yet, as soon as my brain registered what I was seeing, I sprinted past him.
It was Nathan, I could tell that from the blue hoodie he was wearing. As I had learned after taking a closer look at the Dawson twins, Nathan was the only one wearing anything brighter than brown.
One of the two guys standing in front of Nathan was my teammate, but I wasn't sure if his name was Peter or Sebastian. They all looked the same to me. But I didn't need to know his name to kick his ass, which was what I was planning to do the second his fist connected with Nathan's jaw.
"What the fuck?" I shouted as I ran towards them across the yard. The punch had caused Nathan to stumble and he was sitting on the ground when he lifted his head to look up at the other guys.
"Leave him the fuck alone." I shouted then, using one arm to yank Peter/Sebastian away from Nathan and the other to pull away his friend. I gasped when I saw the bloody nose of Peter/Sebastian, but I didn't feel even a hint of empathy towards him after what he had done to Nathan.
"He started it." The third guy spat, his broad face contorted by anger.
"Yeah, right." I glared at him poisonously, standing in front of Nathan to keep them away. Once Kieran joined us, the two idiots changed glances and shrugged, starting to back off.
"Whatever, he's your problem now." Peter/Sebastian retorted before turning on his heels and fleeing from the scene with his friend.
I crouched down to take a closer look at Nathan. At first, when I lifted his head with my fingers under his chin, he gave me a startled look. I mentally cursed myself when I lost my train of thought and started revering the shade of his eyes. It was the blue of the summer sky, so bright you couldn't help but stare.
"I d-did start it." Nathan mumbled then, looking down and biting his trembling lower lip. "At least k-kind of."
"Why would you do that?" I frowned, but he just shook his head and shut his eyes. "I'll take you to the school nurse."
"No way!" Nathan's eyes darted open again. "My p-parents will kill me, if the p-principal finds out what happened."
I didn't feel comfortable with the idea of not going to see the nurse, so I turned to look at Kieran over my shoulder. He just shrugged and mouthed: "I don't know."
"I can take you home then, but I'm not letting you go alone." I helped Nathan on his feet after he had nodded in agreement and took him to my car. Kieran left for his class, but made sure I would keep him informed if anything happened.
Nathan and I didn't talk. He sent a text to Nicholas and told him he didn't need a lift today. I could tell he was feeling embarrassed by what had happened, when he kept his gaze turned towards the window the entire drive to his home. I wanted to press him to tell what had happened, but I didn't. He would talk when he wanted to.. if he wanted to.
The house was just like I had expected it to be from the look I had gotten from outside. There were no oriental carpets or creaky floors, but light earthy colors. The living room/hallway was an open space, and even though it wasn't a huge house the high walls and doorless frames gave it a roomy impression.
My gaze wandered to the pictures on the walls, and before I knew it I was smiling at the familiar faces of Nathan and Nicholas. I couldn't tell the difference between them in their childhood pictures. There was the third brother, Jonathan, as well, and the two parents who I had seen by the house when I took Nathan home that one night.
"Who's this?" My curiosity got the best of me, when I picked up a picture of a middle-aged man with warm blonde hair, a goofy grin and thick glasses. He was wearing a white cap and he was posing with a baseball bat.
"That's my dad." Nathan was playing with the hem of his shirt, keeping a safe distance from me.
I set down the picture and tried to estimate the damage his face had gotten. The skin on the side of his chin looked ruddy and there would no doubt be a bruise on it by tomorrow. There was also a small bruising on the corner of his mouth, but other than that he seemed fine. Thank the lord or whoever was responsible for misbehaving teens.
"Do you have any frozen peas? Or ice?" I asked. "How about a first aid kit? You also need a towel."
"It's fine." Nathan objected, but I kept insisting until he finally got a bag of frozen corn, which I wrapped in a towel and handed back to him to hold against the bruises, and a first aid kit. When I bedabbled a cotton swab with disinfectant, he lowered his face, his cheeks reddened all over, and stammered: "I can do it myself."
"Just let me play the hero for once." I grinned, hoping to lighten the mood and make him relax.
"Since when are nurses heroes?" Nathan lifted his gaze, giving me a small smile.
"Are you kidding me?" I chuckled and began to clean the dried blood from the corner of his mouth. "Nurses are superheroes. It's one thing to be a doctor, but nurses are the real heart and soul for the healthcare system."
It's possible I gave him a long, dedicated speech about the importance of nurses and how underappreciated they were. Nathan listened to me with an expression that either meant he was impressed by my words or had no idea why I was still speaking. Either way, he listened to me intently and even smiled at my enthusiasm.
"The cold should help, but I'm afraid there will be a respectable bruise on it tomorrow." I watched how Nathan rested his head against the backrest of the sofa. He sighed and closed his eyes while pressing the bag of corn against his jaw. I followed his example and we fell into a comfortable silence. I noticed that even though Nathan made me nervous, he was also easy to be around with.
Then I heard the front door opening and I had barely gotten on my feet when a hand gripped me by my collar. It was like having a déjà vu.
"Didn't I tell you to leave him alone?" Nicholas snapped, a deep frown on his face. "And that I'd end you if you touch him again?"
"Nicholas, stop it." I had never heard Nathan raising his voice before, but once he did, he sounded just like Nicholas. He got up, separated Nicholas from me and stood between us. "Solar didn't do anything, he was just helping me out."
"Oh, right. How did you get those bruises then?" Nicholas glanced at Nathan, clearly not buying it, and then glared at me like he wanted to murder me right there and then.
"I-I hit someone and he hit me back."
"Why would you hit someone?" Nicholas looked incredulous, and this time I couldn't blame him. Why on Earth would Nathan get into a fight?
"Because they said something.." Nathan's shoulders slumped, making him look shorter than he already was.
"Because they said something?" Nicholas repeated, looking even more incredulous. Then he took a deep breath and started lecturing: "You shouldn't just go and hit someone because of what they say. Getting into fights is irresponsible and you need to think about —"
"They called me and Jonathan retarted, and then asked if it was because mom was an addict too." Nathan cut him short. Nicholas gasped, and I watched him as the words slowly sank in.
"They said that?" Nicholas' face turned red and he furrowed his brows while he clenched his fists. "Who were they?"
"Does it matter?" Nathan shrugged.
"Of course it does, I'm going to kick their asses." Nicholas fumed. So much about not hitting people after what they said.. Although, I must admit, I was truly regretting not beating them to a pulp now that I knew what they had said.
When Nathan just shook his head again, Nicholas sighed and slumped to sit on the couch. Nathan sat down next to him and I sat next to Nathan. And so there we were: me and the Dawson twins hanging out in their perf*ct house.
One was holding a bag of corn on his bruised jaw and one was fuming and clenching his fists. Me, well, I was feeling completely out of place.