Page 182 of The Compass Series

AIDEN

T hat Monday after the party, I could tell Hailee was nervous about going to school. We sat on the bus, and I could feel her energy was off.

“You good?” I asked.

She nodded. “I’m good.”

“Liar.”

“Yeah.”

I squeezed her kneecap. “You’ll be good, though.”

“Swear?”

“Swear.”

“Do you think he feels bad?” she asked as the bus pulled up to the school building, speaking about Carlton.

The little amount of respect I had for the asshole completely evaporated after what he’d done on Saturday.

Truthfully, I always knew Hailee was too good for him.

There was nothing about Carlton that read “good enough” to me. Not even for friendship.

“If he does feel bad, he’s too much of a little shit to admit it. If he doesn’t, he’s more of a dick than I imagined.”

“I bet he doesn’t feel bad. Now, all the popular kids are talking to him because it’s funny.”

“It’s a weekly trend. They’ll drop him just as fast as they picked him up.”

“I hope he bruises when he falls,” she muttered, disdain in her voice. Her afro was pulled into a big puff that morning, and she wore an oversized sweater with leggings and tennis shoes.

“If you want, I can make sure that he bruises,” I offered, a tad joking but mainly serious.

All I wanted to do was pound my fists into Carlton’s head and make him feel an ounce of the pain he’d put Hailee through.

I knew she was hurting even more than she was letting on.

Hailee did that often—kept her biggest hurts to herself.

“No, Aiden,” she sternly stated, looking my way. She gave me a hard, authoritative glare and pointed a finger my way. “Do not do it.”

“I was joking.” I snickered, tossing my backpack higher on my shoulder.

“No, you weren’t.”

No. I wasn’t.

“He’s been staring at you from a distance all day,” I groaned, finding Carlton, yet again, creeping on Hailee from a distance.

He hadn’t had the balls to walk up to her and apologize, and I’d even seen him trying to play it off with some football assholes who mocked the whole situation.

He seemed more excited about getting attention from people who didn’t give a damn about him than the attention from the girl who would’ve given him the best friendship he’d ever have.

I wondered how many other idiots threw away something good to be deemed as cool.

Color me shocked when Carlton approached Hailee and me at her locker after last period. He didn’t seem as cocky as he had when talking to the football players and cheerleaders, though. He seemed more like his normal, wannabe cool self.

“Hey, Hailee. Yo-You think we can talk?” he asked, scratching his fingers against his neck. I didn’t know why that annoyed me so much, but it had. Everything about the guy annoyed me, but it wasn’t my place to tell him to fuck off. That was all in Hailee’s hands.

Please tell him to fuck off.

She shifted in her shoes, grabbed some books from her locker, then shut it. Pressing the books to her chest, she held on to them tightly as she stood tall beside me. She shook her head. “No.”

One word. One solid word from my best friend, and I’d never been so proud.

That’s my girl.

Carlton’s brow knotted, and he looked perplexed. “What? I mean, we should talk. You are my friend, after all.”

Hailee huffed. “Ex-friend, you jerk. I have nothing to say to you, so leave me alone.”

He reached out to grab her arm, and she flinched when he did so, which made me automatically step between the two of them.

“Back off, Carlton. She said she didn’t want to talk to you, so how about you respect that?” I growled, feeling my blood begin to boil.

“This has nothing to do with you, Aiden,” Carlton said, standing up tall—well, as tall as he could at five-foot-seven. “You’ve always been a bit too involved in Hailee’s affairs anyway. How about you mind your own business?”

In Hailee’s affairs?

Who talked like that?

I took a step toward him because he was starting to really piss me off.

Hailee put a hand in front of me to halt my advancements because Hailee Jones never needed anyone to speak on her behalf.

She was strong on her own. I was just there for extra protection because I was an overprotective best friend, and I wanted to pound my fist into Carlton’s face.

“We have nothing to say, Carlton. You showed me your true colors, and it would be stupid for me not to trust them.”

“What happened this weekend isn’t who I am,” he urged, making me roll my eyes harder than ever before. “And now, some people look at me as if I’m this jerk who tried to hurt you.”

“You should’ve thought about that before you got on camera and called me all those names,” Hailee said matter-of-factly. “So if you’ll excuse me, I have nothing else to say to you.”

She pushed past him, and I gave him a mocking smirk because fuck that guy. Hailee left him with his tail between his legs like the idiot he had been.

As we began to walk away, I heard some popular kids, including Cara, talking to Carlton. “You’re really going to let someone like Hailee Jones embarrass you like that? Oh my gosh, I didn’t know you were so weak,” they mocked.

They kept egging him on, mocking him, making fun of how a girl just walked all over him like he was nothing. I could feel the tension building up from the situation as I glanced back and saw Carlton growing more and more intense and nervous from the rude remarks.

“Tell her how you really feel, Carlton! Or are you just a weak little punk?” Brad Gates egged on. And if there was anything about peer pressure, it always engulfed the weakest links.

Carlton cleared his throat, stood taller, and shouted. “Whatever, Hailee, it’s not my fault I didn’t want to fuck you because you got fat over the past year.”

My jaw hit the floor.

Hailee’s footsteps paused, and I saw the color as it drained from her face.

Every insecurity that lived within her spilled out of her eyes.

The pain of Carlton’s words ran deep, and as she turned to look at him, I saw a moment of guilt flash over him before everyone around him broke out into laughter.

“Hell yeah! You tell that fatty who’s the man,” someone said.

Carlton blinked, released a smug chuckle, and shrugged. “I mean, I couldn’t even find where to put it because of her stomach rolls. Can you blame me for not wanting to have sex between two ham hock thighs? Honestly?—”

He hadn’t had a chance to finish his thoughts.

I rushed at him, knocking him to the floor within a few seconds.

My fist began to pound into his face as a bigger crowd began to form around us.

Carlton got one good hit to my left eye, but that was all I would allow him to have.

My knuckles ached from the contact to his face, to his gut, to his soul, but I didn’t stop.

Because Hailee was hurting due to his words.

If she had to hurt emotionally, he had to hurt physically.

An eye for an eye or something like that.

Carlton didn’t know what he was signing up for when he decided to bully the good girl with a best friend like me.

Anyone who dimmed Hailee’s light had to deal with her shadows, and I was the motherfucker standing there, all dressed in black.

“Break it up, break it up!” a voice hollered, an authoritative tone to the sound. I wasn’t surprised when I saw two teachers yanking me off Carlton, who was balled up like a jerk.

“Mr. Walters, Mr. Holmes! Principal’s office—now!” Mr. Jacobson shouted, holding me by my collar as Mr. Thompson went and scraped Carlton up from the floor.

My eyes connected with Hailee’s terrified stare as Mr. Jacobson dragged me past her, off to face my doom.

“You okay?” I mouthed.

Her eyes flashed with emotions, and she nodded slightly. “You okay?” she mouthed back.

I gave her a half grin, and it dropped the moment she was out of eyesight.

All I could hear in my head was my father’s voice, telling me that I was a fucking idiot.

“Are you a fucking idiot?” Dad grumbled as I sat in our living room with Mom. Well, Mom and I sat. Dad stood tall with his arms crossed.

“Sam, the tone,” Mom said, cutting in. At least I had one parent in my corner.

“Screw my tone. Your son pummeled his fists into another boy’s face and got suspended for the rest of the week.

We’re lucky I was able to talk to the principal into not expelling him.

Who do you think you are, huh? Attacking another kid like that?

You think that makes you tough? You think you’re a big man on campus because you can use your fists? ”

I sat with my shoulders rounded forward and fingers entangled.

I didn’t speak to him because I knew whatever I said would’ve been seen as an excuse, and my father didn’t believe in excuses.

He believed in the Walters standard. We didn’t act out in public.

We didn’t behave like savages. We didn’t create scenes.

We stood in line. We fought for important issues. We obeyed the law and never disrespected authority—my teachers and the administration of my school being the authority in this situation. If we did, the tabloids would report on it, and God forbid that happened.

“Oh, so you’re deaf?” he snapped, walking toward me. “Get off the couch.”

“Samuel—”

“Laurie, if you don’t see the disrespect he’s feeding me right now, then you aren’t looking hard enough.” He turned his attention back to me and away from Mom. “Get. Up.”

I stood, and I felt his intimidation wash over me. I stood at least four inches taller than my father, but still, whenever he was around me, I felt three feet tall.

“Lift your head,” he ordered.

I did as he said.

“Now look me in the eyes.”

I did as he said.

“Don’t say a word because I know whatever you say is going to be covered in excuses. All you do now is listen. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will never act out in such a way again. Do you understand me?”

I swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”