Page 36 of Meet Me at the Metro (Gildenhill #1)

36

BLOODY MESSES

T H E O

I ’ve never quite experienced rage like this. Rage that rushes through my veins so intensely that my entire body is consumed by its unrelenting blaze. Though, for once, I don’t extinguish the inferno building inside of me.

I welcome it .

I allow it to fuel my movements as I tear his body off Nora’s.

I want to strip him clean of every shred of wretchedness inside of him. I want him to feel every fucking particle of the anger inside of me.

I pin him against the wall, pressing my forearm up against his neck and stealing every bit of power he thought he had seconds ago. I take a long, good look at him, memorizing every feature of his disgusting face before I distort it entirely.

“I’ve been waiting to meet you,” I growl, pressing against his neck harder. “John, innit?”

“Get off,” he snarls, face red as a beet.

It’ll look like a damn prune by the time I’m finished.

“Get off?!” I maniacally laugh.

I recall everything he’s put Nora through. The cheating. The way he had his hands on her the night at the train station. The stalking. The way he just had her pinned against the ground. The way he had his hand reared back to hit her.

Pathetic piece of fucking shit .

My eyes only soften when I glance at Nora to ensure she’s okay. She’s rising from the floor as I hold John in place, tears staining her reddened, fear-stricken face while she straightens her disheveled clothing. The skin of her neck is marred with scarlet stripes and my gut wrenches.

“Are you alright, baby?” I rasp, managing to speak softly, just for her .

Always for her.

She nods warily, and her feeble attempt to convince me that she’s anything but shaken to her damn core has fury seizing any ounce of composure left in me.

“I’ve heard so much about you, you know?” The muscle in my jaw tightens as I pin John with a glare that promises nothing but vengeance. In a deathly icy tone that I don’t even recognize as my own, I gravely inform him, “They haven’t been good things.”

I don’t waste my time spewing any more words before I slam my fist into his face, enjoying the satisfying crack that fills the air when my knuckles connect with his left jaw. The brutal, unexpected impact has him cursing out in pain and stumbling forward.

John lurches for the bathroom door, but I snatch the back of his shirt and drag him backward, stealing him of any opportunities to flee.

“Where do you think you’re going, huh? I’m not fucking finished.”

He tightens his reddened jaw as I push him back against the wall.

“What makes you think you have the right to put your hands on her like that?” He remains stubbornly silent, so I award him with another shove. “Answer me!”

“This has nothing to do with you,” he seethes. “This is between El and me.”

“The fuck it is!” I fist the collar of his shirt and jerk his face toward mine, baring my teeth as I assure him, “This is between you and me now, and when I’m done wringing you dry of your fucking arrogance, you won’t have the nerve in you to even think about her again. You understand?”

“Fuck you!” John swings an elbow at me, but I catch him by the wrist and give him another punishing blow that has his head bobbing back and his lip bleeding.

He spits the blood gathering along his teeth. “She’s mine!”

“She’s her own, you entitled piece of shit!”

I rear my arm back to send another punch, but John catches me off guard as he dodges the hit and kicks between my legs. A searing pain rips through my groin that has me doubling over. He uses his fleeting seconds to his advantage and shoves me before I regain my composure. My back meets the bathroom’s tiled floor with an impact forceful enough to have me coughing for air.

Nora rushes to my side, but I heave myself off the ground as quickly as John dashes through the bathroom door.

Nora yells as I bolt after him. “Theo! Wait!”

John’s racing for the courtyard outside, his swift, heavy footsteps echoing through the dimly lit corridor, but unfortunately for him, I’m much faster. I rush in front of him, enjoying the flash of fear on his face right before his body collides with mine.

“I. Said. I. Wasn’t. Fucking. Done. With. You.”

Adrenaline is the only thing steering my body when I shove him back and send him sprawling out against the floor. John grunts with pain but plasters a cocky, arrogant grin on his face as he looks up at me.

“She must be screwing you real good, huh?”

“What she does or doesn’t do isn’t any of your damn business.”

“That’s a yes,” he laughs bitterly. “She always had a way of pleasantly surprising me when the lights went out.”

“Watch your fucking mouth.”

He cocks his head challengingly as if he’s got nothing to lose. “My favorite was when she’d scream my name when I came at her from behind.”

Everything inside of me coils at the vulgar comment, and if he said it just to get a rise out of me, well then, mission fucking achieved.

“She told you to leave her the hell alone!” I shout, my voice shaking with rage.

“Theo, people are watching,” Nora breathes shakily behind me.

A door swings open farther down the hall, but I don’t have the time to pay it any mind as I take another dominative step toward him.

Let them all watch what I’m about to do to him.

“Was she not clear enough that she wanted nothing to do with you when she blocked you on everything?”

A look of embarrassment flashes across John’s face, quickly crumbling his conceited facade.

I advance toward him and sneer, “It kills you, doesn’t it? To know that you don’t deserve her. To know you’ve lost any chance you once had to be with her.”

“Screw you. That’s not true! I just need to get you out of the way.”

“It is true,” I snap, inching closer. “She wants nothing to do with your pathetic arse, and it fucking kills you. She hates you .”

Those words cut the final thread stitching him together. John launches off the floor and charges straight for me. He swings his fist, and when he lands, the aching blow along my cheekbone…

Utter hell breaks loose .

Nora’s shouting as I brutally tackle John to the ground. We wrestle for what feels like only a few seconds before I gain advantage and clamber over him. I’m grabbing him by the shirt before my mind has a second to contemplate, and by my next breath, I’ve slammed him back against the floor so forcefully he’s coughing for air.

“You’re done following her, you understand?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the sea of bodies swiftly filing out of the dance studio and hurrying toward us, but I don’t let anything rip the center of my focus away from John.

I fist his shirt tighter. “Do you understand?”

“I’ll do whatever the hell I please until she’s willing to hear me out!”

“Wrong answer,” I growl, enjoying how his head rebounds as I strike him right in the nose. He lets out an agonized groan, and the crowd that’s suddenly gathered around us gasps as a stream of blood starts to rush from one of his nostrils.

“You’re going to stop harassing her!”

Another punch lands .

“Babe, please! Stop! You need to stop now!”

“You’re going to stop stalking her!” My fist meets the side of his head. “ And if you ever lay a single damn finger on her ever ag— ”

“Theo! Get off, mate!” Harvey shouts, breaking through the crowd to try and pry me off John. I pull out of his hold the second he grabs me as I’m overcome with another surge of anger.

“I. Will. Fucking. Ki— ”

“Don’t, Theo!”

As I rear my fist back again, an arm wraps around my midsection so tightly I nearly heave. I’m forcefully yanked off of John before my knuckles get the pleasure of meeting his flesh again.

I jerk my head back and find that Connor's got a hold of me. “Let go of me!”

“Just calm down, alright?” Connor urges, struggling to keep hold of my writhing body. “Theo, calm down!”

“He had her pinned to the fucking ground!”

Connor’s eyes darken as they settle on John. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Content barrels through me as I see the damage left behind in the shadows of my outrage and watch John stagger to stand. His nose is still bleeding, causing a stream of crimson to flow past his swollen, split bottom lip and drip onto the floor. His left eye is so swollen he can hardly blink.

All I can think about is how I wish I could have done more.

Connor snarls at John, “Have you had enough? Have you learned to leave her alone now?”

John slices his eyes toward Nora and pins her with a glare that has my heart pounding so loudly I can hardly discern the tumultuous conversations in the mass of people encircling us.

“These all your boyfriends, El? Have you become their little whore?”

“You fucking bastard!” My instincts strike me like a remorseless whip, and I barrel toward John like a bull, and he’s my target.

Harvey yanks Nora back as she rushes to intervene while Connor flies in front of me before I can get my hands on him again.

“No more! Look at him, Theo! Look. At. Him. He’ll be nothing but a bloody pulp!”

“What in the world is going on here?! ”

The familiar, commanding female voice stops all of us in our tracks.

Kimberley parts through the multitude of students gathered watching, and everything grows grimly quiet. Her jaw is on the floor as she takes in the five of us: Harvey shielding Nora, Connor standing as a barrier in front of me, John and his bloodied face, and me, locked tight in a fighting stance. Her question is answered with nothing but distant whispers and the steady shuffle of fleeing bystanders as the crowd around us swiftly dissipates.

“Someone better start talking,” she warns, her hazel eyes darting mostly between Connor and me. “Now.”

“This pathetic wanker has learned to leave Nora the fuck alone. That’s what happened.”

“My God,” Kimberley sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose as she stares at the remains of our fight. John looks utterly wrecked, and she shakes her head in disbelief. “You’ve made a bloody mess. That’s what happened.”

“Do you want me to grab someone, Mrs. Pearson?” someone further down the hallway uselessly suggests.

“No!” she snaps. “I’ve got it handled. Tell them to continue with auditions.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she firmly replies. “Let’s go. All five of you. Administration office, now.”

Kimberley’s office door slams behind me, trapping Nora, Harvey, Connor, John, and me in the confines of its suffocating four walls. Harvey and Connor are wedged between John and me, the only physical things standing in the way of me getting my hands on him again.

And boy, do I want to get my bloody hands on him again .

I pull Nora closer, nuzzling her trembling body into the crook of my arm and shielding her from having to look at John’s pathetic arse.

He doesn’t get the privilege of even looking at her anymore—not if I have any say in the matter.

Kimberley’s heels clack against the floor as she moves toward her desk. She grabs a box of tissues and disparagingly tosses them onto John’s lap. The second he presses a handful of them against his nose, a dark crimson is soaking through.

“Are you guys insane?! Starting a fight like that on campus. Hell, Theo, you could have seriously injured him.”

“He’s been stalking her, Mum,” Connor says. “Harassing her. Following her around campus.”

I finally find it in me to really look at him since our feud at dinner.

There was no fucking clue where the two of us stood, but I appreciate the way he’s taking up for Nora right now.

“He’s gone beyond that,” I growl, narrowing my eyes at John’s slumped body in the office chair. “Why don’t you tell everyone here about how you’ve followed her to her flat? Or how you had her pinned to the fucking ground!”

John doesn’t utter a single word back—he’s completely silent.

“Ellie, is this true?” Nora nods, and Kim releases a long exhale. “And who exactly is he?”

“I’m her boyfriend.”

“You are not!” Nora snaps, finally having enough. “You are nothing to me anymore. Nothing! ”

“So he’s your ex, then?”

“Yes. I broke things off months ago, but he can’t seem to get that through his thick skull.”

“Tell them why that is,” John retaliates. “Explain exactly why you want to break things off.”

“Because you cheated—”

“No, no, no,” he scornfully laughs, shaking his head with ridicule. “The real reason— the truth. You just found someone else to screw. ”

Harvey’s hand is a warning against my chest as I move. His calm voice keeps me still as he tells Kimberley, “This has been an ongoing issue, Mrs. Pearson. She’s made a report to the police and everything.”

John’s jaw drops to the floor, face growing ghastly white. “ You what ?”

“Don’t act fucking surprised. She did what we need to do right now,” I growl. “Let’s see what a tough boy you are when you’ve got a restraining order on your arse and get kicked out of Uni.”

“Let’s talk outside,” Kimberley abruptly interjects, motioning everyone but John outside. She spares him a warning glare as we file out of the door. “Don’t you dare even move an inch. I’m not finished talking with you.”

Kim sighs as soon as the door to her office shuts. “What do you think will happen to you if you go to the police, Theo? Sure, they might handle John, but what about when they see what you’ve done to him? You could be charged with assault and battery.”

“Assault and battery?!” Connor exclaims. “He was protecting Ellie, Mum.”

“Yes, I understand that, but they won’t see it quite as graciously as I am. They’re going to take one look at his bloody—possibly broken—nose, ruptured eye vessel, and bruised face and present Theo with charges that could threaten his entire future.”

Nora goes stiff in my arms.

“I don’t give a damn, Kim. I care that Nora’s safe.”

“You are one semester away from graduating, Theo. One semester away from seeing years’ worth of work finally pay off. You seriously want to threaten that—throw it all away when you’re this close? Your father would hate that.”

“Don’t bring him into this,” I snap.

“She’s right, Theo,” Nora whispers beside me. She’s looking away as I glance down at her, but I don’t miss the tears gathering in her eyes. “You can’t risk getting in trouble. This is my problem, not yours.”

“Look at me,” I tell her softly, tilting up her chin. “Your problems are equally mine. Besides, you didn’t ask for any of this. Nothing that’s happened has been by your choice. ”

“So let me choose, then. I don’t want to go to the police. I don’t want you to get in trouble, Theo— to lose everything .”

I shake my head vehemently, disagreeing completely. “I want you safe. I need you safe, Nora. It means so much more to me than the consequences that might come from this.”

“You’ve worked too hard to let this destroy your future.”

“You’re my future.”

“Please, Theo,” Nora begs, tears spilling down her cheeks. The sight of it tears me up. She’s had so damn much thrown her way. It’s not fair. “ Please, please, please. Don’t make us go to the police. Don’t make me steal everything you’ve worked so hard for.”

“You won’t be. None of this is your fault.”

“I can take care of John,” Kim suggests.

All I can do is shake my head in disbelief.

“I mean it, Theo. I will handle him. I’ll ensure he’s prohibited from participating in extracurricular activities, including the spring production. I’ll rearrange his schedule so that he’s not on campus at the same time as Ellie. I’ll make sure that he knows that if he tries bothering her again, it will be reported directly to the Chancellor, who will immediately terminate his position here at Gildenhill .”

“You can’t make that happen now ?”

“Do you not see the state of him? I’m doing my best to take care of this without raising suspicions. I’m trying to keep you out of trouble.”

“I don’t care about keeping out of trouble! I care about her.”

“And I care about you,” Nora interrupts. “I care about keeping you out of trouble, Theo. That should count for something, shouldn’t it? If going to the police is going to risk you getting charges that could have you serving time or getting kicked out of Gildenhill , then I don’t want to go.”

This girl is too damn selfless and stubborn for her own good. It’s destroying me.

“Let me fix this,” Kim offers again. “Let me help.”

I look toward Harvey and Connor, seeking any advice or direction they could offer me about the messy matter on my hands, but their gazes are set on the floor. Nora’s red-stricken eyes are the only ones sharing an opinion.

I want to scream. Hell, I want to cry. I’m so damn worried for her—so enraged for her. All I want to do is get her help, but the way I’d prefer to do that would crush her completely.

“Please let her help,” she begs, squeezing my hand.

I’m completely torn. I clench my eyes shut momentarily and try to quell the pounding in my head.

“Please, Teddy.”

The name she has for me has every ounce of my composure crumbling.

I exhale deeply. “You promise me you’ll handle this to the best of your ability? That you’ll help me keep her safe.”

Kim nods somberly. “To the best of my abilities, I will handle it.”

My thoughts are scrambled, and as I glance toward the closed door of her office and remember who’s waiting inside, I don’t feel the slightest bit settled.

Nora’s neck is still marred with red streaks, and I can’t blink away the image scorched in my mind of him on top of her. Her hands and fingers tremble as I grab ahold of them and lead us to a secluded, dark corner of the administration office nearby—offering us a moment of solitude.

I keep my voice at a whisper for her sake. “I don’t feel right about this, baby. What if I wouldn’t have gotten to you when I did?”

“You did, though.”

“But what if I didn’t? He would have— fuck, Nora,” I wince. “I can’t even say it.”

“Theo, I am begging you. Please do not make us go to the police.”

“You’re killing me,” I groan. “I wish, for once, you would stop worrying about everyone else and prioritize yourself. You deserve that.”

“Kim said she would help, and her way will keep you out of trouble. That’s what I want, Theo. I want you out of trouble. I want to finish out this school year with you by my side. So this is me prioritizing myself, alright?”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. ”

“ Please . I just want to go home. Please, let her handle it for now and take me home.”

Kim’s head carefully peeks around the corner. “I’ll get it handled, Theo. Take the poor girl home. I’d say she’s had enough trouble for tonight.”

The sound of a door opening in the distance has all of us startled, and my stepmum hurriedly pushes Connor and Harvey toward us.

“Go now,” she sternly orders, motioning the way out.

Connor, Harvey, and Nora file out the door swiftly, but I find myself halting in the doorway long enough to spare her a final glance.

“Tell him it’ll be worse the next time I see him.”