To be honest, Lauren didn't get on Lily's nerves as much as she thought she did. Sure, the things she did were annoying but Lily and the rest of her friends had learned to ignore it.
Lily slid into her seat in her next class which she shared with River and Kasey. It wasn't exactly the most fun class but she sat next to River and River was funny in their own quiet way so she didn't worry too much about it.
The only person who's nerves Lauren was on, was Kai's. It looked like she took his invitation to skip, but not with him. She wasn't there when he walked in late, and she never showed up after. Kai was stuck sitting by himself to close to the surfer's for comfort. None of his friend's where in that class. Even if he was the "leader" of a high school bike gang. He felt uncomfortable without anyone else in the gang in that class.
The class moved slowly and honestly, Lily was just happy that Lauren never showed up. That girl needed to sort out her priorities. And River agreed. River was the only non-binary member of the surfers but no one else really minded. They were a good friend, there was nothing else to it.
As the class dragged on Kai found himself finding some kind of entertainment in flicking rolled up pieces of paper at Lily and her friends. It was fun seeing who might snap first. Kai's bets where on Kasey. If Lauren really had been messing with her this morning then she might still be tense.
River didn't care, Lily ignored it and Kasey was too busy stressing over her work to give even a shred of a damn. Lily refrained from looking back at Kai, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of her attention. "You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say he likes you more than he likes Lauren." River quietly confessed and Lily nearly choked on her laughter. "Oh that sounds so correct but I don't want it to be."
Kai could hear them laughing, It annoyed him. He sat back in his seat giving up on seeing who'd snap first. He missed Lauren already. Would she even call him tonight? He tried not to think about it to much. Instead Kai focused his attention back on his homework.
Contrary to what most of his teachers believed, he was actually smart. He understood all the homework, he just never cared to waste his time on it. Unfortunately, he had the same thought process about most of his school work too.
After what felt like forever to Kai the bell rang, and a few more painfully boring classes later, so did the final bell. Which meant the rest of the day was his. Well atleast untill curfew. A new thing Katie and Rollo had brought up since all the kids where gone till the early mornings. Except Ash, he was to antisocial to bother annoying anyone else but their family.
"Later surfer's!" He called as he passed a group in the hall, almost knocking one of them over with a shove that wasn't meant to be so rough.
That person happened to be JC, who bumped into Lily who ended up getting her face slammed into a locker door. Hard. To the point where it nearly knocked her out on contact.
She dropped to the floor, blood dripping from cuts the cheap metal gave her in her lip and forehead, not to mention a pretty heavily bleeding nose. "Lily!!" She was so out of it that she couldn't even tell who said it. But was the world always spinning so fast?
Kai turned at the sound of someone hitting a locker. He didn't push the surfer that hard…did he? He saw JC and Lily, his heart sank. "Ah shoot." If he stayed and a teacher came along he was doomed. If they told a teacher, he was doomed. Katie was gonna murder him. "Is she okay-?" He asked even though he could see that Lily was not in fact okay.
JC helped Lily off the floor and looked up at Kai. "You!! What the hell has Lily ever done to you to deserve this? She's done nothing!" "JC, don't…" Lily's voice wobbled, her head still spinning too fast to really figure out what was going on.
"Hey I didn't touch her, you're the one who crashed into her." Kai really should have just left. Besides what did he care if Lily was a little out of it from getting a face full of locker. A small group of people had started to gather at the shouting.
"JC, drop it. He's not worth it." Her head started to clear and she finally laid eyes on Kai. "He's not even worth it to his own parents." Lily started her way towards the nurse with JC right by her side to help her walk.
Kai didn't stop himself from grabbing Lily's shoulder and spinning her around. He pointed an accusing finger in her face. "I dare you to say that again," because maybe if he heard it again he'd actually have the guts to do something about it. His anger boiled.
"Why should I? Huh? You've done nothing but bother and bully me and my friends since you got here. If anything, you deserve to be reminded that the world doesn't revolve around you. That some of us are actually wanted."
"You're so stuck up in your own little word I wonder how you even get air up there, I'm wanted. My parents wanted me." Because why else would they have adopted him? Katie and Rollo had given him a home.
"Oh is that so? Well it's damn shame it wasn't by the first ones, now isn't it?" She wiped some of the blood from her face, staring directly into Kai's eyes. She wasn't scared of him. She never had been.
He froze. He knew nothing about his real parents. He'd met his mom once on the day the Six's had adopted him and that was it. "You don't know me, I suggest you don't make assumptions about my life." He let go of her and backed off. Kai pushed his way through the crowd who'd come to watch a fight.
Lily just watched him go, waiting for the crowd to swallow him before finally heading to the nurse. Turns out the locker had fractured her nose but other than that, the cuts and bruises were nothing to worry about.
Kai could barely keep himself from running to his motorbike. He wanted to get home before someone told a teacher and they called his parents. He needed to explain first, maybe then they wouldn't be so angry.
On the other hand maybe he shouldn't go home yet. He could crash at Eithans, wait till Katie and Rollo calmed down. The problem with that was that they would look for him at Eithans. Lauren was out of the question after what happened at lunch, and frankly Kai wasn't close enough with anyone else. He decided he'd stay at the school for as long as possible. It was really the only place they wouldn't look for him.
Lily walked out about 15 minutes later, her nose bandages but starting to bruise, the rest of her cuts starting to scab over. JC wasn't with her, she had her own car and drove to and from school. She spotted Kai and contemplated confronting him about Kasey that morning but her heart wouldn't let her. Lily did walk over, but for a different reason.
"Hey, I know I'm probably the last person you want to talk to right now but I just wanted to say I'm sorry. What I said was completely uncalled for and you didn't deserve that. I was just upset."
Kai looked up from where he sat near his bike. He was half surprised to see her and even more surprised about the apology. Apologies weren't a thing they did. Especially not to each other. "You had a right to be," he shrugged, still a little hurt from what she'd said. "Sorry about your face by the way." Even though he didn't consider himself directly responsible.
"What, this old thing?" He touched her bandaged nose with a sarcastic smile. "It's fine, just a fracture. Can't say I'm not going to get an earful when I get home but it's whatever." She shrugged. "And I really shouldn't have said what I did. I crossed a line. I'd be just as pissed as you were if someone insulted my family. But emotions ran high and I said something I knew would hurt."
Kai nodded his head, a half smile coming to his face. He was in fact still pissed. But her joke was atleast kinda funny. "Its fine. thanks for the apology. But your face- nose. How upset are your folks gonna be?" As much as he seemed to hate her at school, he didn't want to get anyone in trouble at home.
"Depending on if my mom's home and if she isn't, how long I have to come up with a believable lie, a lot. She knows about this whole…thing going on and she doesn't like it." Lily sighed, tugging at her necklace. "Dad will be more worried than mad but he'll still be upset that something happened."
"Why don't you just tell them the truth?" Kai looked down at his phone. Yet another call was coming in form Katie, and for what surely wasn't the last time, he hit decline. "My parent's already know, it's not like they're not already expecting an angry call from yours." Kai would be lucky if they only grounded him at this point.
"Because you don't deserve to get in even more trouble when I said what I did. I'd just feel guilty. And if I did, they might pull me out of a big competition I have in a couple weeks. It's the regional semi-finals, I can't just miss it."
"Oh dang, I guess that is big. I'd be pretty upset if Katie took me out of something like that." Granted all he ever did was bike, race from time to time, but nothing big. Just with friends and the gang. "Good luck?"
She couldn't help but laugh a little. "Thanks. But I hope I won't need it." Her eyes went from Kai to the bike next to him. "You know, I've really got to ask, did you build that yourself or did you get it? I've always been curious."
"I got that thing from a junk yard, Rollo helped me fix it up. Runs better then anything bought off the lot." Kai jumped to his feet like an excited little kid. "He used to ride before he married Katie. She said it would be the death of him, I think he's a little glad atleast one of his kids ended up liking motorcycles. I guess it's kinda like passing it down."
"Have you been riding for long? Well, I guess that's kind of a stupid question considering you probably haven't had a license for very long." A pink tint covered her cheeks as she realized the stupidity of her question.
Kai laughed, "gonna be upset if I say I've been ridding since before my license? And yes, my dad came pretty close to murdering me when he found out. But I'm pretty good." He grabbed his helmet and offered it to her. It felt wrong doing this, like he was cheating on his whole gang. "I'd love to prove it, Ya'know, just so you can't tell everyone the bikes just for show."