The pact

*trigger warning (end of the chapter)*
I was standing by Jaime's locker waiting for him to show up. It was the next day and I had called him yesterday after I got home, but he made it obvious that he didn't want to talk to me. His mom answered the phone and said that he wasn't home, but I heard him talking in the background. I needed to make it up to him, even if it meant losing Jessie. If Jessie didn't want to see me anymore when I start hanging out with Jaime, Mike and Tony, then she is not worth being friends with.
Also, I decided to just tell Jaime the truth about Vic. I was sure he would understand, definitely after the conversation I had with him the other day. He was going to be fine.
Then Jaime walked to his locker and opened it without even glancing at me. It hurt to see him mad at me. Mostly, because he has been there for me since the first day.
'Hey' I said and he started putting books in his locker without saying something to me.
'How are you?' I tried again. Nothing. 'I've got a new CD. Well, I borrowed it, but still, I think I've caught the rock music virus.' He didn't look at me, closed his locker and started to walk away. I grabbed his wrist. 'Come on Jaime, I'm sorry I really am. It's not what it all seems...'
He turned around and tried really hard not to raise his voice. 'Isn't it? Because it looks like you rather sit with those empty heads who are going to let you down, than with actual thinking people who care about you. You know what Tony said after you had gone home that afternoon at Mike's house? He said that you were the coolest chick ever and that he could see us four becoming friends, but you made it very clear that you didn't want to be seen with us.' He talked faster when he got to the last words.
I still didn't let go of his wrist, I feared he might run if I'd let it go. 'I'm sorry Jaime, I know it was low of me and I can see myself become friends with you guys too. But Jessie is my friend too and I didn't want to lose her.'
'But you do want to lose us?' he asked. 'Because you're on your way. And I understand, you are new, you wanna be popular and stuff, but that group is not to be trusted and definitely not Jessie. I'm telling you she's just using you, she has done it to people before' Those lest words hurt me.
'I don't agree with you, but I do think that it shouldn't matter to her who my other friends are. That's just not right.' I let go of his wrist, but he didn't walk away. 'I just want to be friends with both of you and if you are going to judge me for it, then you're nothing better than Jessie.'
He looked to the ground in defeat. 'Yeah you're right.' it looked like it took a lot of effort for him to say that. 'but there's still that thing were you just left me on the streets all confused without giving any reason why you were going to walk home alone. That kinda gave me the impression that you really didn't want to be friends anymore.' He looked up to me again.
'Yeah, I wanted talk to you about that.' I looked around to see if there was someone near us. There wasn't. I moved a little closer to him so he would hear me if I whispered. 'you need to promise you won't tell anyone. Not even Mike and Tony. I trust you, okay?'
His face had gone from annoyed to worried. 'Yeah of course, I promise. What's wrong?'
'I needed to walk alone yesterday, because...I was kinda...helping Vic Fuentes out with his chemistry homework.' His eyes went big.
'Are you fucking insane?' he said whispering 'Even after what happened to Suzy?'
Suzy was also a new girl and she didn't know about the pact. No one told her, and according to the rumours she talked to Vic and since then she hadn't been talking to anyone and she had been seen going to the psychologist's office every single day. It was creepy as fuck.
'I couldn't help it okay?' I hissed back. 'I accidently walked into his room when we were at Mike's, he had trouble with chemistry and I'm good at it so...yeah'
Jaime closed his eyes trying to contain himself. 'This is definitely not smart, but it's your life.' he said. 'are you friends with him now?'
'I guess so...' I said. 'We actually had fun. He is really nice. Jaime, he is miserable. I know it, and I know what he did wasn't right, but no one should go through what he is going through. I would've gone insane. You know that even some teachers ignore him?'
He looked at me with a more understanding face now. 'I know and it's terrible, it's only, why should the same happen to you while you only tried to be nice and he has really done things? I just don't want you to get hurt.'
I smiled a half smile. 'I know, but it's going to be okay. I can take care of myself, but thank you.' I stood on my toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. He blushed. 'So, do I see you this lunch break?'
A smile appeared on his face. 'Can't wait.'

My first class was Chemistry. I didn't talk to Vic, he told me not to yesterday. It was weird though. Especially after our afternoon yesterday. We really shared a connection and I really liked him. We had become friends and I hated not being able to tell him that I really liked the CD he lent me. It was just so hard, because there was so much I wanted to say to him.
The rest of the day went by really fast. I sat with Jaime, Mike and Tony in the break. I saw Jessie giving me a death glare, but I needed to make it up to the guys. Luckily they all understood. I would make it up to Jessie later.
Pretty soon the conversation went to music and I tried to memorize all the bands they'd talked about so I could borrow their CD's at the library or something. They talked about Linkin park, the red hot chilli peppers, creed and papa roach. When they brought up 3 doors down I almost screamed: 'Oh my god, I know them!'
Everyone looked shocked at me. 'Luna my-mom-only-lets-me-listen-to-classic-music Fall, knows 3 doors down?' Mike said poking me in my belly. I tried to grab his fingers to stop him, but he was too fast. 'ah well, I heard loser on the radio the other day when I walked into a store.' I lied.
At 3 pm I was done at school and me and Jaime walked home again. I joked about my legs being tired and he actually carried me on his back to my house. I had laughed so hard my stomach hurt.
When I came home I put my bag in the corner of the room and put on Vic's 3 doors down CD. I head banged lightly to the first song. After a few songs I was dancing intensely to the songs and jumping up and down. I was lucky my parents weren't home.
That was also the reason why I asked Vic to come here instead of going to his house. Mike would probably be there and I didn't know yet what he would've think about me and his older brother being friends.
When the last song ended I walked over to my small portable radio and turned it off. Closely after that the doorbell rang. I ran of the stairs, with the adrenaline of the dancing still in my blood.
I opened the door and Vic was in front of it. 'Hi!' I said enthusiastically. I walked over to him and hugged him. It surprised him but he hugged me back. 'Hi' he said while I let him go.
I took his hand and let him to my room. His hand felt soft and bigger than I thought it would be.
He looked around and nodded. 'Nice room, it is...'
'Empty and not finished?' I said finishing his sentence. He laughed. 'I can't seem to make up my mind about the colour I want the walls to be.'
'What about black?' He said while looking at the wall my bed was against.
'Don't think my mom would like that.' I said while thinking about how cool it would be if my room was black.
'Your mom doesn't like anything. I think you should just leave it like this, at least you can't do anything wrong.' He said and he let himself fall on the bed. I picked up a pillow and threw it on his face. 'not funny' I said and he laughed, took the pillow of his face and sat up straight.
We started studying chemistry right away. It was an emergency. Tomorrow we had a big test and neither of us could afford it to fail it. Me because I was new and I had to prove myself to teachers and Vic because otherwise he had to do junior year over again.
You could very well notice that Vic was nervous for this test. He was constantly biting his nails and he thought too hard about things I asked him, so he answered almost all of them wrong.
We spent 3 hours studying on my bed and things only seemed to get worse. After every question he answered wrong, Vic got more stressed and I just noticed that this wasn't going to work like this.
'I can't do this' he said and he put his hands in his hair.
'Just relax' I said and I put my hand on his shoulder.
'I just can't!' he yelled. 'I can't be another year at this school, Luna! I need to pass this test! My life is killing me right now and I just need to believe it will get better after I graduate!'
He breathed very heavily and looked down at the books. I Knew that he didn't plan to say that, but it just got out.
I squeezed his shoulder. 'Maybe we should get out of here for a little while.' I said softly.
He looked up surprised. 'Why? We have still so much to do'
'You need to relax, Vic. Otherwise this is not going to work. Maybe if we go outside for a little while and then come back you will be relaxed and do better. Yesterday you even learned things you first thought you didn't understand, but you eventually you did. Maybe you picked up some things now too, without realizing it.' I said.
He smiled. 'You're right. I need to get out, otherwise I will get nuts. Maybe I already am.'
'Do you remember your name?' I asked jokingly.
'I said nuts not oblivious' he laughed.
'I'm not stupid, that question was to check if you still knew the difference between those things. If you answered by saying your name, I would've declared you nuts' I said and I stood up.
We walked out of the door and took my little portable radio and the 3 doors down album with us. I knew exactly where to go. I had gone to that place on my second day in San Diego to get away from the busy city.
It turned out that not far from my house was a forest, well not really a forest, because those don't really exist in San Diego. It was more like a large grass field with some trees here and there. It was quite big because when we were walking for a few minutes you couldn't see any houses anymore.
'Are you going to kidnap me?' Vic said and I punched his arm.
'Just be patient, you'll love it.' I said and I grabbed his hand and dragged him with me. The longer we walked the closer the trees were and eventually it looked like we really were in some sort of forest.
The sun shone down on the trees and it made the whole place light up in a light green colour. Sometimes a ray of sunshine came through the branches and leaves and fell on the ground leaving the place looking like there were tiny lamps in the ground.
Eventually an old, abandoned school bus came in view and I let go of Vic's hand. I jumped in front of the bus and gestured to the bus. 'Tadaaa!' I said.
He looked at the thing with his mouth open. 'It is an old bus.' He said eventually.
'yeah...so what do you think?' I said and let my arms fall next to my body.
A smile grew on his face. 'It's perfect.' he said and we walked inside the bus and sat down one of the worn seats next to each other. we put the radio on the seat on the other sight of the isle. My radio could run on batteries so we put on the CD and kryptonite blasted through the abandoned place, surprisingly the acoustics were amazing.
Vic looked around the bus, which was covered in moss and other plants. 'I have lived here my entire life and I never find places like this and you are here for barely two weeks and you discover this thing.' he said smiling at me. 'It's so awesome! It looks like one of those grunge movies from ten years ago.'
I laughed. 'Yeah it's kinda awesome isn't it? I found it on my second day, I needed to get away from my mom.' I said and I put my feet against the seat in front of me so I could put my arms around my knees.
Vic looked caring my way and put a hand on my arm. 'She is really that bad isn't she?'
I looked to my knees. 'She isn't awful, I mean she doesn't hit me or something like that. She just doesn't give me any freedom at all and now I feel like I have missed things. I can't talk along about music and movies, because she doesn't let me listen or watch them. And she doesn't approve of any of my friends. Or my decisions. It's like I can't do anything right. And I'm trying so hard to be the daughter she wants me to be, but I just can't, because it makes me feel horrible. But if I do what I want, she'll also makes me feel horrible. It's a cycle and no matter how hard I try, I won't ever be good enough for her.'
I bit my lip. I didn't mean to let that all out, it just happened. I was trying really hard to hold back my tears, I wasn't gonna cry in front of him.
'Then stop trying.' Vic said stroking my arm with his thumb. 'I did too, stop trying to please everyone and you'll eventually meet people who'll like you for you. First I thought it was bullshit and then I met you...'
The tears started streaming down my cheeks. 'Thank you, Vic. You're right. It's just a little hard to not obey my mom, because I have to. She's my mom. But I do need to think for myself now and chose what is right for me me.'
He let go of my arm and I brought it up to my face to wipe the tears away. I looked at him and he gave me a reassuring smile, I smiled back. 'Sorry for the crying.' I said 'And by the way, I do like you for who you are, Vic, don't ever change. I'm happy we became friends.'
I let my head fall on his shoulder. 'It's okay.' he said 'And thank you, Luna, you don't know how much that means to me.'
We sat for a while like that. In our personal little peace. I hadn't felt so relaxed and at ease for weeks and I was happy I opened up to him. I really hoped he would too, someday.
Then the CD came to an end and Vic leaned over me to replay it, when I saw something. The long sleeve of his jumper crawled up a bit, because he stretched out his hand.
My heart stopped. I'd seen that before. It all made sense now. That also must've been the reason why he always wore long sleeves even though it was always hot in San Diego.
I quickly grabbed his wrist and pulled his sleeve up without giving him any warning. I hoped it wasn't what I thought it would be, but it was.
I put my hand in front of my mouth of shock. It was exactly what I thought it would be. Lots of little scars and cuts were spread over his lower arm. Some deep, some not. Some were long and some were short. Some were from long ago and some were recent.
Vic self harmed.

Notes

heey guys!!! what do you guys think?

And yes the title is inspired by the bmth song ;) I might change all the titles of the chapters to titles of my favourite songs! So if they have changed, you know why!

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xxx Nicky