With nothing for him at school and no one to talk to Nico was back to square one, Clay switched his seat in the one class they share, and he made it clear to Christian that he wanted nothing to do with him so now he's all alone again.
It's night and he's at home on the couch with nothing better to do than to stare at the wall and think of all the ways he's messed up, Nico's mom walks in "hey," she sits next to him and he doesn't bother looking at her or replying. "Did all your homework?" He nods, "and studied for you chem test?" Nico nods again, his mom realizes she's not going to get much out of him so she starts talking more. "I was thinking earlier about how I haven't seen much of you lately," she thinks it's because he's out having fun with friends but really he just drives to Clay's house and sits outside in his car thinking if he should go in. "I mean I guess I would have something to say about that, but I got your progress report the other day and so far they're all As."
She smiles and Nico is too far gone to take a compliment but she continues, "I know Darlington can't be easy, but you're very smart and I'm so glad to see you're proving me wrong." Nico doesn't want her seeing how sad he truly is, but hearing her say that hurt him to his core because he knows he hasn't been doing good. The only reason he's focused in class is because he has nothing else to put his focus on, but her saying he's proving her wrong makes him sad because he knows he's not. "I'm proud of you Nico" as soon as she reaches over to touch his back, all the tears he was afraid to show just fall down his cheeks. She sees and moves closer asking "what's wrong?"
"Nothing" he quickly stands up wiping his eyes walking away to lock himself in his room.
Another day of school meant another day of Nico trying to talk to Clay and Clay not caring. While at his locker shoving books in his bag,
Clay shuts it when he's done and turns to find Nico standing there. He sighs "what do you want?" "Will you talk to me please?"
"No, Nico" Clay puts his bag on his back walking away.
"Ok then can you at least listen to me?" Nico makes the mistake of grabbing Clay's hand, not expecting him to react the way he does, the
next thing Nico knows is Clay pushing him against the lockers holding him there.
"I told you to stay away from me!" He barks and everyone walking by looks at them "Is there a problem?" A teacher walks up to them asking
"No" Nico quickly denies as Clay lets him go, "we're good." The teacher walks away "I wanted to end
it ok, I tried multiple times to tell Christian that I couldn't keep doing this because I knew it would hurt you, but he wouldn't let me. He said that if I ended things with him he'd tell you the truth" Nico talks and Clay doesn't show any interest until the last bit.
"He forced you?" Clay looks at him
Nico shakes his head "no, but it felt like I didn't have a choice"
"Seems like you did have a choice and you made it." Cl