"I love her," Landon said.
Kali slapped him and backed away.
Bradin watch Kali run away once again. He always wondered why he never ran after her. He watched as Landon sighed and walked in the opposite direction of Kali.
"Like hell you love her," Bradin said making Landon look at him, "If you love her, you'd be going after her right now instead of Lucas."
Lucas caught up to Kali at her car and grabbed her arm. "You're not going anywhere. You need to talk to me."
"About what Luke?" she asked with seriousness in her voice. At this point, she wasn't crying. "My life's fucked up. What else is there to know?"
"Your father is back!" he shouted, "Our mother needs to know!"
"MY mom!" she yelled back, "She's not yours!"
Lucas backed off and stared at her in disbelief. She never said that to him. She never yelled to anyone like that without tears down her face. He knew that something was up. That afternoon, Lucas got home and went to his room to put his school things away. A picture of him and Kali caught his eye. He picked it up and threw it against the wall before leaving his room. He walked passed Kali's room and saw her wearing odd clothes and putting make up on.
"Where are you going?"
"Out," she said, "Mrs. Langstings wants me to help with something that she's putting together for Media. Since I got an A on that project, she's loved me."
"Why have you been running out of school?" he asked leaning on the door panel.
"Everyone caught me at a bad time. I always left early to get work done on this project."
"So, you haven't been ditching illegaly huh?" he asked.
"I'm not that dumb," she said loking at him, "I actually like school, as dumb as that sounds."
"I understand. Bradin and Landon fought today."
She asked, "Why?"
"You, Kali. They fought over you. Landon doesn't love you and Bradin does."
"Like hell Bradin does!" she yelled. She walked out of the room to leave in order to meet Mrs. Langstings. As she walked down the stairs, she saw Bradin looking up at her. She didn't know if she was seeing it, but, he had a bruised eye and cut lip. Neither were cleaned off and looked like the cut was getting infected. "Come on."
She led him to the kitchen and sat him in a chair. As she got a cloth wet, she took the phone.
"Mrs. Langstings?..Hi It's Kali...I'm fine. But, i'm going to be late. A friend of mine got hurt and I need to be here for him...Are you sure?...Okay. I'll see you tomorrow...Bye." She hung up.
She took the cloth, turned to and walked towards Bradin. She knelt down in front of him and began to clean his lip off. He squirmed and grabbed her hand. "Do you want it infected?" she asked. He shook his head.
"Don't you have somewhere to be?" he asked.
"She cancelled," she said as she continued to clean his lip off, "Her father went into the hospital."
"Oh," he said.
They went to silent mode as she finished cleaning his lip. She was standing at the sink rinsing the cloth from the blood when she heard, "Do you love him?"
She turned around and looked at Bradin who was looking back at her. "Who?"
"Landon."
She shook her head and went back to cleaning the cloth. She felt Bradin place his hands on hers to make her stop. She looked back at him and saw him leaning in.
