ALL I DO.
{ irl }
matt walks into class late, breathing a bit heavily due to him having to run through the halls to get here. after miss elsher is done scolding him, matt walks over to his desk.
as he passes niola's desk she grabs the material of his hoodie, making him stop walking and face her. "why the hell are you suddenly late to class every single day?" she mutters, quiet enough that nobody else can hear how harsh her voice is.
he smiles at her, making her hold on his clothing falter. niola suddenly realizes that despite how long they've been keeping up this fake-dating act, she's only seen matt truly smile when he's with his brothers. it's not rare for him to smile. but for him to smile out of pure joy and nothing else? that's what's uncommon. when she lets go of his hoodie, matt walks to his desk and sits down in his chair.
miss elsher only talks for a moment or two, explaining that everyone will be working on their projects for the period since the presentations are due at the end of this week. as soon as she's finished with her short lecture, niola turns around.
niola spins her chair around to face matt and glares at him, waiting for his explanation. matt just digs into his pocket and pulls out the envelope. "a nice friend of yours invited us to her seventeenth birthday party tonight."
"a friend of mine?" niola takes the envelope and rips it open, pulling out a little card. in neat cursive writting, the girl wrote down her address and the time of the party. niola raises a brow at the letter and looks up at matt. "you know i don't have friends. and if i did, i wouldn't be friends with someone like her."
"someone like her?" matt repeats, not expecting that sort of outlash from her. "do you know that girl?"
"i did." niola says, tossing the paper back to matt and crossing her arms over her chest with a huff of irritation. "and let's just say, she has some nerve inviting you to her party while thinking that we're dating."
"sounds to me like you're being a bit protective of your boyfriend, silvers." matt teases.
niola scoffs, "you wish."
matt leans his elbows on his desk, resting his chin in his hand. he blinks at her, silently begging her to tell him the story. niola having drama with someone is more rare than matt smiling at something other than his brothers. "there's no way i'm missing out on this story." he tells her.
"there isn't much to tell, honestly." niola admits.
matt watches as a sorrowful expression takes over her expression. simply by watching a frown grow across her lips, he feels like he's been punched in the gut. the way her brows knit in sadness, the way she avoids eye contact. every detail of her face pains him physically just by seeing her upset.
"you don't have to tell me if you're not comfortable." he reminds her, lifting his head off of his palm and resting his hand on her shoulder. this makes her finally make eye contact with him, causing his heart rate to increase.
"i want to tell you, it's just hard." she admits. "because i don't exactly know what happened between us."
"take your time," matt says softly.
niola nods, sucking in a breath before explaining. "the girl you met is named amelia – she used to be my best friend. we were friends for eight years. but in seventh grade, she decided to ignore me out of nowhere. she started to hang out with the exact people we talked shit about. she turned into someone i hardly even recognized. and whenever i would try to approach her – in an attempt ask what the hell i did wrong – she would act like she didn't even know i existed."
matt moved to this school in eighth grade. which means he met niola after all of this shit happened. he wasn't even there to possibly console her or try to be her friend through all of that.
"one day," niola continues, "i finally had enough. i decided to confront her. so i walked up to her at lunch and demanded that she explained what i did to make her ignore me like this. i put her in the spotlight, causing all of her 'friends' to look at her. they were waiting for her to make fun of me or force me to leave. but even if she tried to ignore it – we had been close for almost a decade. there's no ignoring that fact."
"so," matt says hesitantly. "what'd she do after you asked that?"
"she made up a lie about me in front of the whole cafeteria. she started crying and said that i slept with her boyfriend." niola explains. "but she never talked to me anymore, so i didn't even know she had a boyfriend! long story short, the rumor spread throughout the entire school within that same day. which immediately made everyone hate me."
matt can't help the way his breath hitches. his jaw clenches as he tries his hardest not to storm out of the class and find the girl niola is talking about. but he knows revenge isn't worth it. what he needs to do right now is comfort his girlfriend. fake or not, she trusted him with this information. her pain is clearly not fake, neither is the remnants of sadness that still lingers on her face.
she tries her hardest to hide the way amelia's betrayal still haunts her, but matt can see through her facade. he can read her better than anyone else. she can create the most carefully crafted mask and he'll still always see past it.
"ever since then, i quit making friends." niola mutters, reaching up to her shoulder and holding matt's hand in hers. "i never thought i would able to confide in someone after that. but i can. for some reason – despite how much of an asshole you are – i trust you completely, matthew."
"and i'm glad that you do." matt says, rubbing her hand comfortingly. upon feeling his soft touch, she relaxes instantly.
"i'm not sure how i feel about it yet." she tells him truthfully. "that's why i always leave when i think we're getting too close. it's why i don't like to admit that i don't see you as an enemy anymore."
"then..." matt trails off, his eyes eyes widening. "then what do you see me as?"
niola lets go of his hand and stuffs her own hands into the pockets of her pants. is she crazy?what is she doing? why did she just say that? this sleep deprivation is really getting to her head.
of all people for her to open up to like this, why'd she open up to matt? they've hated eachother since middle school. their rivalry is the only contant thing in her life – the only thing that isn't always changing.
rayne's moods are as spontaneous as the curves of a roller coaster. her mom's working shifts are never set in stone. and her father doesn't even communicate with her. her grades are always changing because she's been turning everything in lately due to how much care rayne requires.
as much as she hates matt, she needs to hate him. otherwise, he'll just be another thing that she's unsure of. another thing that's always changing. another thing that's out of her hands.
"uh, i have to use the bathroom." niola quickly tells him as she clears her throat and stands up from her seat. matt frowns as he watches niola walk away from her desk and up to miss elsher. when their teacher allows it, she exits the class and heads to the bathroom.
the sound of her shoes tapping against the floor are the only sound in the hallway. this area is normally swarmed with students who are rushing to get where they're needed. it's strange to see it so empty. except it isn't. she notices in the distance that there's someone else walking in the opposite direction as her. instinctively, niola dips her head lower as they pass.
"niola?" she lifts her head at the person's voice. now standing right in front of her is zade. he looks down on her as though she's worthless. "we haven't run into each other in quite a while, now have we?"
"yeah and it's been peaceful." she asks bluntly, subconsciously taking a step away from him. he notices and grins. "what do you want, zade?"
"what? i'm not allowed to go to the bathroom?" he asks her, innocently tilting his head at her.
"no." she tells him, pointing down the hall at the large sign that says restrooms. "not when the bathrooms are in the other direction."
zade takes a step closer to niola, now standing just an inch away from her. at his sudden proximity, she glares up at him. her brows lower and her eyes thin, trying her hardest to show him that she's not in the mood to deal with his shit. but zade's grin simply widens.
just like everyone else, zade has gotten told of niola's history with supposedly sleeping around with her friends' boyfriends. this is what drew him toward her. he expected her to be some kind of hoe and wanted her to fall for him. but he soon realized that this rumor wasn't true when she refused his offer to sleep with her.
freshman year, zade saw her walking toward her bus. he pulled her aside and said said four simple words that ended with her kneeing him in the crotch. "i'm good in bed."
from then on, zade practically worshiped the ground she walked on. he thought she was attractive at first, but after finding out that she was able to stand up for herself, he fell in love with the poor girl. to niola, zade always freaked her out. but even though he was a bit strange, he never did anything harmful until this year – senior year – when he started to flirt with her much more intensely.
"you're not going to ask if my nose has healed well?" zade asks her.
"i honestly don't give a shit about your nose." niola scoffs. "i hope you had fun with spreading rumors about matt and i, but my opinion on you hasn't changed. you're still a perverted bitch."
"oh, you could do better than that, my dear." he says, raising his right hand and brushing the backs of his fingers across her cheek. "your boyfriend isn't here to protect you. and frankly, your insults need work. how will you defend yourself now? you're all alone."
he uses his left hand to grab her waist, forcefully pulling her body against him. niola grunts, trying to shift out of his hold. but she cant. just as she's about to re-break his nose, someone else beats her to it. zade falls a few feet backward from the impact of someone running up and punching him in the jaw. niola and zade both turn and face the person at the same time. camille.
"all alone?" camille repeats, massaging her knuckles as bruises begin to form on their hills. she holds an arm out in front of niola, protectively. "to me, you look like the one that's all alone."
zade stand up from the floor and glares at camille. just as he's about to say something else to her, he notices yet another person coming over to them. his eyes widen and he pathetically rushes away, turning the corner to get out of that area.
once zade is completely gone, niola turns around to see who made him so afraid, but camille already knows who's there. chris. he has his hood pulls up and his is hair parted so he looks like matt – which is why zade ran away so quickly.
"chris?" niola asks as he walks up to the girls.
"no, it's totally matt." chris jokes, making camille playfully roll her eyes. she walks up to him and pulls his hood off of his head. she then fixes his hair so it's back to normal.
then she takes a step backward and smiles at her work before saying, "now you look like yourself."
camille and chris stand there for a moment, just admiring each other. niola watches them awkwardly before finally speaking up and ruining the moment. "i'll just leave you guys. i still need to use the bathroom."
"i'm not leaving you to go there by yourself." camille says with a frown. "if zade were to come back, i wouldn't want you to deal with that all alone."
"so that was zade." chris says, looking at the general direction where zade had run off to a few moments ago. "i've never met him, but i know matt hates his guts. he told me that he's a disgusting asshole."
"he's not wrong," niola says, approving of matt's description.
"anyway, i'll leave you guys to go to the bathroom." chris excuses himself. "i need to get back to class, i've been out here for like twenty minutes."
"is that why you were dressed up like matt?" camille asks with a chuckle.
"yeah. so if i get caught skipping, matt would be thrown under the bus." chris explains with a shrug. "nick is too good of a student, so a teacher would automatically be suspicious of him skipping."
"matt's a pretty good student," niola points out, causing chris' and camille's eyes to widen. she was actually defending him.
for the past month, they've all been riding in the van together. niola has been officially added to their little group. but still, none of them have been able to get her to open up, or for her to show any interest in becoming their friend. she joins into conversations and she likes to tease matt a lot. but other than that, her friendship with chris, nick, and camille is very one-sided.
but they're all curious as to why matt is so deeply in love with her. they're all dying to be her friend to find out what he finds so appealing.
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a/n : it annoys me to make niola so reluctant to being their friend but trust me it's for a reason 🤯🤯
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