Not made for each other - 7. Friends? Friends.

This Chapter is dedicated to my amazing friends, Lisa and SidLove for being there when I needed them the most

Chapter 7: Friends? Friends.

Nine of them were prowling towards us in a menacing manner.

“Zune,” Edward whispered. I looked at him. “Run,” he ordered.

I didn’t give it a second thought. Edward grabbed my hand and we started running in the exact opposite direction. I didn’t have any idea what was going on behind us. We were just running blindly for our dear lives on that gloomy and ominous road. Then I heard vehicles coming. I looked back. Those assholes were racing towards us in their fucking cars, honking their horns mercilessly.

“I love hunting babes,” one of them shouted.

“It’ll be fun to win you from your ‘good for nothing’ boyfriend, hottie,” another one yelled.

There was no way they couldn’t catch us with their vehicles. We were so gone. All of a sudden, Edward took a left turn, still clutching my hand and led us into a crowd of innumerable trees and shrubs. I didn’t ask him anything. I thought he was doing the right thing as those dickheads wouldn’t be able to drive their vehicles in here, but I was also certain that they would never quit chasing us.

It was still thundering and lightning all around us and raining cats and dogs from the clouds. After running for God knows how long, I was exhausted but Edward was still running at same speed, dragging me along. Finally, my legs answered. My clammy hand slipped away from his and I stumbled and fell in the bushes. Edward stopped abruptly.

“Zune… Zune, are you…are you okay?” he asked, breathing heavily. ‘What a great question’ I thought.

“I can’t…can’t… do this…do this…anymore,” I declared feebly, gasping for air, still bedded on the wet ground among those stupid shrubs.

“Those dicks are probably still chasing us; we have to…we have to get out of here as soon as we can,” he reasoned and helped me to stand up.

“B…but I can’t run now, oh God, I…I can’t even stand properly. I am done,” I informed him in a perpetually tired voice.

He frantically looked around for a few seconds and led me to a prodigious broad-leaved tree with widespread branches.

“We can take refuge under this tree for a while,” he suggested, without looking at me. I didn’t question his judgment, and nodded agreeably.

We sat there for a few minutes in complete silence. I could hear the noise of the thunder, rain and leaves brushing together because of the nipping wind. I was shivering with cold and was unsuccessfully trying to keep myself warm by rubbing my wet hands together.

I was doing my best to not to think about the kiss but I guess my best wasn’t good enough because my mind kept bringing me back to that feeling. Edward kissed me…and I…I kissed him back. Why? Edward is not gay; he’s a homophobe for God’s sake, but he still kissed me. Edward hates gay people but he still saved me more than once. And…and what about me? Why did I let him kiss me and why did I kiss him back so insanely? How could I do that to Kev? I was perplexed and feeling guilty for, ‘in a way’, cheating on Kev, even after how bad he had treated me in the past few hours.

I looked at Edward. He was sitting a few inches away from me and looking ahead unblinkingly. We were both probably thinking about the same thing. I was about to talk to him about our kiss but destiny had some other plans in mind.

“I must say, you look more delicious in these wet, clinging clothes, babes,” I jumped out of my skin. It was the same guy; he must have eyes equipped with X-ray vision. Another red-headed bastard was with him. They were standing a few steps away from us. Edward was in front of me in a flash.

“Don’t you assholes dare touch him,” Edward warned with seething anger.

“Awww, so sweet. I really admire your caring and possessive nature for your superhot boyfriend, but I’m afraid you won’t be able to save him today,” Redhead remarked with mock sympathy and squinting eyes.

Edward didn’t give him the opportunity to bark anything else. He immediately shifted position and his feet crossed; the left foot in front of the right foot. He spun on his left foot, with the right foot coming up and out, catching his opponent squarely on the nose. Redhead fell to the ground clutching his bloody nose.

Edward advanced towards X-ray but before he could do anything, that asshole used a roundhouse kick which missed Edward’s head but hit his arm and stalled them both for just a second. Edward recouped quicker and returned the kick, and connected just under his eye. His victim was flipped down to the ground in the blink of an eye.

During this whole movie-like fight sequence, I was just staring at Edward with amazement.

Before any of them could regain their senses and stand up again, Edward raced towards me, took hold of my hand and a second later, we were running once again.

This time we kept running until we were back on that deserted road. We both stopped and leaned on one of the trees which lined the left side of the road. We were panting heavily.

“H…how did you…do that?” I asked breathlessly.

“Do what?” he questioned completely clueless to what I was talking about.

“You fought off those assholes as…as if they were nothing,” I elaborated.

“I have a brown-belt in Judo,” he divulged nonchalantly, looking around. I didn’t ask anything further and he didn’t say anything either. We stood there silently in the rain, leaning on that tree and holding each other’s hand absentmindedly waiting for any vehicle to pass us, which could drop us off back in the city.

“I’m tired,” I admitted wryly.

“Me too,” he nodded in agreement.

“I so wanna sleep.” I yawned, unintentionally leaning my head on his shoulder.

“Me too,” he responded putting his head against mine as I closed my eyes.

“Zune?”

“Hmm.”

“Do you… do you love Kevin?” he asked out of the blue.

My eyes flew open and I looked at him and studied his face but found nothing; no expression, no emotion.

“I…I…don’t know yet,” I answered honestly, averting my gaze from him and we were again lost in our silent thinking.

“Why did you save me today?” I asked hesitantly after few moments. It was not raining anymore.

This time he looked at me with his analyzing eyes, and then he closed them and pressed his head against the tree.

“You know Zune, I had a friend; a best friend. His name was Stephen Torres. I was his only friend. He trusted me more than his parents. He always used to take care of me. He was the one person who had the capability of making me smile in any situation. Whatever he used to do was for me, for my happiness. It was like I was his entire life.”

I could feel pain in his voice. I was already aware of Stephen, thanks to Becca, but I had no idea why was he suddenly talking about him.

“We used to share everything with each other with the belief that the other one would understand his best friend, and respect him without judging him. But when…” he opened his eyes and looked at me with a sad grimace, “…when he shared the biggest truth of his life with me in hopes that I would hug him tightly and tell him that he was still my best friend; I…I betrayed him. I will never forget the way he looked at me when I outed him in front of the whole school. He was devastated. That day I failed as a friend, as a person. He never said anything to me but I continued to act like a jerk, continued to make his life hell. Finally, he quietly left the city after a month.” I could see tears rolling down his cheeks. He wiped them with the back of his hands.

“Steph was gay. And from childhood I was taught that, ‘homosexuals are sinners and deserve nothing less than hell’. When he confided in me about his sexuality, I was torn between my beliefs and my friendship. Eventually, I chose my beliefs. I treated him like shit; insulted him like he was a terrorist, called him names, and I hurt him in every possible way. That day I didn’t only lose him, but I also lost myself.” He stared at me intently while he confided in me with a sense of enormous guilt.

“When I saw you on the first day of school, I don’t know why, but you reminded me of him. You guys don’t have anything in common, but everytime I saw you, I could visualize his face, his demeanor. And that’s the reason I saved you today, because I still…”

“…regret the way you treated him, betrayed him and his trust.” I completed for him. He nodded with a gloomy sigh.

“When you know that whatever you did to Stephen was wrong, why are you still doing the same thing with others?” I asked, pretty much knowing what he was going to say.

“Because I can’t disappoint my father. He hates homosexuals and expects me to feel the same way. He’s been my idol since childhood. I can’t let him down, even if I have to do something which I think is not right. For me, his wishes, his happiness comes first. I love him more than anyone in this world,” he stated, looking ahead at nowhere in particular.

“So you don’t hate gay people. You just pretend to hate them?” I questioned. In response I got a slight nod from him. “So you don’t hate me either?” I continued, curving my lips into a smile. He looked at me with a tight smile, but never answered.

“Okay, if you don’t want to, there’s no need to answer that but let me know why you told me all these things. It’s not like I’m complaining, but yeah I’m curious. You could have still acted like that, ‘arrogant piece of self-conceited shit’, and pretend to hate me, then why didn’t you?” When I muttered, ‘arrogant piece of self-conceited shit’, he just raised his left eyebrow instead of shouting or showing any sign of anger.

“Because…because I’m tired of running away from you,” he confessed a few moments later, gazing down at the ground. Oh gosh, he was so sounding like Edward Cullen, but this time I didn’t mention that.

“When I lost Stephen, I never thought I would ever want to share my feelings with anyone else again, but whenever I see you, I don’t know why, but I want to talk to you, spend time with you. Believe me, I did everything to hate you, and ignore your presence around me, but…but I failed poorly,” he conceded sheepishly. Becca was so right about him and his feelings.

“Friends?” I didn’t think for another second and extended my hand without any hesitance.

“Zune, at this moment I don’t want anything more than that,” he stated truthfully, looking at my extended hand, “but I’m sure it wouldn’t be a good idea,” he insisted weakly with a faint smile.

“And how do you know that?” I asked tilting my head a bit.

“Because, whenever I would have to choose between my father’s beliefs and you, you know I would choose the former,” he forewarned me, raising his eyebrows.

“I don’t have a problem with that, but till then, friends?” My hand was still there, waiting for Edward’s approval. I had no clue about the mess I was dragging myself into.

He pondered for few seconds and finally shook my hand gently, suppressing a beaming smile.

“Friends. But I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” he nagged again, but I could say that he was happy, very happy.

Later on, he insisted on keeping our friendship a secret as he didn’t want his father to find out about us. I agreed, because even I wasn’t ready for my friends to know about Edward and me. It’s so strange; generally people hide their love affairs and here we were concealing our newly found friendship, but I guess it was better for both of us that way.

“You must at least thank me,” I advised him.

He gave me a questioning look.

“Just because of my promises, you don’t have to do what you know is wrong,” I clarified. And he smiled without any constraint. Since I’ve known him, this was the first ‘full-fledged-unconfined-smile’ I had witnessed on his face. I smiled back. And yes, we never talked about that kiss. I guess it was just a weak moment and nothing more. I mentally shrugged that topic from my mind for forever.

Exactly a moment later, something caught my attention.

“Hey, Mr. Arrogant, look there.” I diverted his attention towards a telephone booth, situated few meters away from us.

“Do you have a coin?” he inquired, searching his pockets as he asked the question.

I shook my head and mouthed ‘no’. In the excitement of going out on a date with Kev, I forgot to bring my wallet.

‘I’m such an idiot.’ I cursed myself in my mind.

“I don’t have any either. I guess my wallet was lost somewhere in the woods, but don’t worry, we can still call the cops,” he announced. He held my hand and we hastily ran towards the telephone booth.

He hurriedly dialed 911 and informed them of our location and he told them about those thugs. After that, we began waiting for the cops to come. We stayed on the outside of the phone booth. I asked him how he knew where I was. He told me that he usually goes for a walk after dinner. He likes to be alone at that time, with no disturbances, no interferences. He just loves spending time by himself. He calls his driver when he’s ready to go back home, but unfortunately he forgot to grab his phone today. I guess I was not the only idiot out there. He said he was so submerged in his la la la land that he had no idea when he arrived at this dreary place.

I also made an offer that I could relinquish him from the third promise if he wants, but he said he’s looking forward to the time we would spend together. I smiled in response but my smile disappeared from my face when I saw the same BMW and Volvo racing towards us. Before our legs could respond, nine of them were out of their vehicles.

“Get them,” Vicious Smile, ordered the others. Edward’s two victims were also there with their bloody nose and cheek. As we turned around to run, I found that they had already formed a circle around us. I knew Edward had a brown-belt in Judo but I was afraid even he couldn’t fight them off.

“Let him go,” Edward drawled with a stern face. I looked at him. He was not worried about himself, he was scared for me.

“After playing this exhaustive ‘Tom and Jerry’ game, if we let this hottie go without claiming our incentives, then we would be the fools of the century,” X-ray sneered and all of them began laughing scornfully on his gross joke.

All of a sudden, Edward attacked him and began throwing punches in his gut incessantly. It took four of them to stop him. I pleaded with them to leave him but they ignored my pleas. I was seized in the firm grasps of two of the goons. I was helpless.

They slammed Edward int0 the Volvo’s door and trapped him against it; two of them on either side of him.

“Leave him, please, let him go,” I begged for the umpteenth time.

“Don’t worry, we will leave him, but after our much deserved revenge,” Redhead sputtered, tightening his grip on my arm. The asshole’s nose was still bleeding, thanks to Edward. He shared a demonic look with Vicious Smile, who mouthed ‘sorry’ to me and moved towards Edward and with no remorse, began slamming punch after punch on his face.

“No, please, no. Leave him alone, please, for God’s sake, please!” My deafening pleas were doing nothing to stop him or to divert his attention away from Edward. I was trying hard to get freed from those bastards, but it was all in vain.

When that asshole finally stopped, I was aghast to see the view before my eyes. Edward’s nose, the corner of his lips and the area just under his left eye were bleeding. There were several bruises formed on his face, particularly on his forehead. He stared at me with half-open lids.

“Edward! Edward, are you okay? Are you listening to me? EDWARD!” my screams got no response. Four of them loosened their grip on Edward and he fell flat on his face to the ground. He wasn’t conscious anymore.

TBC.