“Okay. It’s not like you're a violent person, that's why I was so shocked.” I shift myself towards him more. 

We were quiet for a few minutes. He continued to smoke his joint. “Does your hand still hurt?” I asked him.

“No.” He took a hit and spread out his fingers showing his hand. It was too dark to see but I knew he was playing tough.

“Are you going to tell your mom?” 

Mathew paused for a minute. “No, why would I?”

“What if they pressed charges or went to the hospital?”

“They wouldn't. No one reports party fights and if they do I’ll just have to face the consequences of my actions. I choose to fight and now it is my problem to deal with it, not yours. Don’t worry about me, okay? ”

I lay on his chest holding hand with his left arm around me. Mathew finishes his joint. “Come on.” He taps my back. “Let’s go to bed.”

 I get off of him, he stands up and we head to his room. We brush our teeth and I start to wash my face. The makeup won’t come off. 

“Here let me help you.” Mathew tells me. 

“No. I look ugly right now.” I replied to him. The makeup is all smeared now.i can barely see without it stinging. 

“I don’t care. You're always beautiful.” He turns me around, picking me up and sitting me on the counter top. He puts a towel on my lap. “Now let me try.”

He puts the face cleanser on his hands and starts to rub it gently into my skin. The makeup is just moving around not coming off. “What did she use? This won’t come off.” He laughs and reaches into his mirror cabinet grabbing  lotion. He removes the other cleanser and adds more water to my face. The lotion starts to work. A oil cleanser would have really helped right now. “Wash it off.” He helped me off the counter and I took it off my face.

“You can go to bed, I'll just wash it off one more time.” Mathew kisses my head and goes to bed. I clean off the rest and use a cleanser after. This is the part of Halloween I hate. Makeup and fake blood. It never tastes good. What we do for the costume.

I head to bed to join him. He moves to cover letting me get in. Once I do he starts to spoon me. Mathew always falls asleep right away. I don’t know how me sleeping on his arm doesn’t bother him. 

The next morning I feel the sun hitting my face. It warms it. I feel the sun beams hitting my eye while they’re closed.  All I see is red so I wake up. We have a normal morning like we normally do.

“I’m going to babysit all week so I might not come over.” I announced. 

“I work too.” Mathew replied.

“So I guess I’ll just see you at school then?” 

“Yeah.” He grins ear to ear. 

That Monday in my first period the guys behind me were talking about what happened Saturday at Logan’s party. I guess the whole school had found out by now but every different period the people were telling a different story. Like everything else once gossip starts it changes from the original story from the people who actually saw it. But sometimes the people who saw it also don’t know what happened.

“I heard Mathew got jumped by five guys.” 

“Oh really? I heard that they jumped Marco and he jumped in.” The other guy replied. 

This is going to start more rumors now. In second period no one said anything. Probably because Mathew, Troy and I are all in that class. Or at least they didn’t say it out loud that we could hear. Mathew was too busy messing with me and talking with the group to realize or care if they were. He never cares about rumors anyways. 

Third period with me and Troy the guys at our table asked us what happened. 

“Bro what happened Saturday? Why did Mathew beat the shit out of those guys?” The guys laughed lightly to not make it awkward. 

“Yeah.” The other guy commented. “I just remember hearing screaming and Logan ran upstairs so I followed him. All I saw was guys bleeding Mathew screaming and getting pushed out the back.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Troy replied. “They were talking shit and got handled.” 

“What they say?” One of them asked.

“Ask Mathew if you want to know. I don’t remember.” I didn’t say anything. Troy was doing just fine defending our friends. Like I was saying it would be different even from people who were there. 

During lunch we were all eating our food. No one was talking when one of the guys that sit with us broke the silence. 

“Damn Mathew! I saw what you did Saturday.” Mathew just ignored him. continued to eat his food. 

“Yeah, remind me never to fight with you. Damn! That shit was crazy to see.” Jace commented. Everyone laughed.

“No but for real though. If I’m being honest with you bro. You need to learn to hold back. You just go for it and don’t stop hitting.” Marco told Mathew. Mathew finished chewing his food looking over at Marco. Sometimes Mathew is really hard to read. I didn’t know what he was going to say or if he was mad or not. 

“No, you're right. But I’m not letting them talk all that shit thinking nothing would happen. They were ready to jump you.”

“Yeah no one fucks with us.” Jordan joked. 

“Yeah. I’m not saying they didn’t deserve it. Just don’t go so crazy next time.” Marco puts his arm around Mathew's shoulder. Mathew smiles back at him. 

Our lunch period was over and we all started heading to our class. Mathew started walking my way. 

“What are you doing?” I giggled.

“I’m walking you to class. We won’t see each other outside of school so.. ima walk with you.” 

Mathew walked me back to my class all the way to the door. “Hey Matty!” One of the girls in my class shouted out of the room. Some of the girls and guys have called him Matty since elementary school. No one in the group calls him it but he does have it as his social media user. 

“Hey.” Mathew replied. I started to walk into the class.

“When are we hanging out? Text me back.” The girl said. 

Mathew smiled at the girls. “I’ll talk to you next period.” Mathew shouted at me. I just smiled back. The people who were in class all paying attention to our interaction between the three of us. Even though I’m friends or cool with “popular” people I guess it still throws people off that we’re friends. Everyone knows I’m best friends with Marco but I barely ever talk to any of them at school if he’s not there. I'm mostly with the “partiers”/potheads like Logan, Chris and Mark. Or I’m with Nina, Stephine and them. 

I go to my seat and sit down. The class isn’t going to start for a few more minutes so everyone is in their groups talking to each other. “I heard they fought because they called Mathew the f slur or something so he started swinging at them.” I heard from one of the groups. 

A girl in a group right next to them turned around.”No, I heard they called Marco the f slur and they were all going to fight when Mathew just started attacking them.” 

I just ignored them and kept to myself. I get on my phone hoping they don’t think of me so they don’t ask me what happened. They would know I was there and around it. After class Mathew was outside my classroom waiting for me. He just smiled and we went to our sixth period. It’s Monday so we were going to be doing anything today really. 

We got into our group in our chairs and just started talking. “Okay so can one of you tell me what happened and why?” Stephanie asked us. Mathew, Troy and I all just look at each other seeing who would answer. 

“I honestly just remember them screaming the f word and Marco going to fight them but I don’t know what happened. I just saw Mathew swinging and Alexis pulling you over. People all started to run away or come closer to see it. '' Nina commented. 

Some of the people started to hear what we were talking about and started paying attention and looking over. I’m surprised no one recorded it. It did happen really fast, maybe a minute or two. 

“Basically Alexis and you walked up, Mathew looked over at Nina, “walked past them and the guy said ‘how does he get getting bitches while wearing makeup’ or something like that. Marco heard him talking about Alexis and told them to ‘chill’. The guys started getting all tough guy and posting up. Marco and him went back and forth a few times and the guy called Alexis a faggot.” Mathew looked over at me to see if I was upset or if he should stop talking. I just looked at him, not giving him a signal to stop. Mathew stops leaning on his chair and sits up.

I break my look from Mathew and see people staring when he said that. More people looked. I looked at one person and as soon as they saw me looking back they turned away. 

“After that Marco started walking up to the group more and they started pushing too and talking shit. I saw what was coming so I just punched the guy. He fell and I tried to hit him again when his friends started punching me. So I started fighting all of them. That’s when the guys pulled me off and Logan came up.”

“Damn. Wow.” Stephanie replied. “I thought you knew them or something. “ 

“Nah. There were a lot of random people there I didn’t recognize.” Troy added. 

“How are your hands?” Nina asked Mathew. Mathew looked at them and placed them on the desks we were all sitting around. 

“They’re bruised and cut a little bit but they don’t hurt.” Mathew replied. Nina and Stephine both take a hand looking at them. Mathew has been hiding his hands from his parents these past few days. They would be mad if they knew what had happened. They had bruising and cuts marks on his knuckles. 

“At least they weren’t broken.” Stephanie told Mathew. 

“More like the other guys' faces were broken.” Troy added. 

“Yeah you left them bad… I’m not saying don’t defend your friends but go easy.” Stephanie told Mathew trying to not upset him. We’ve all been telling him the same thing. I hope he doesn’t get mad. 

“I know I won’t. I just don’t remember how strong I am sometimes.” Mathew tells her removing his hands from on top of the desks moving them away from them. 

He puts them by his side and I grab his right hand. He looks at me and winks. “Anyone know if Chris is still having his party on Halloween.” Nina asked.

“Yeah it’s still good. Mathew should come as a boxer to be ready.” Troy laughs. 

“Stop.” The girls tell Troy. “This is why guys always try and fight.” 

The class ends and we leave. Mathew starts going the same way as me like after lunch. “What are you doing you’re class is the other way upstairs?” I told him.

“Oh you know what class I’m in?” Mathew teases me.

“Yeah I watch you do your homework. I pay attention to what you tell me too.” Mathew smiles and we keep walking. He almost walks me all the way to the gym locker rooms. “Go back, you'll be late.” I told him.

“Doesn’t matter. This is the only time we have this week.” Mathew reminds me. “It’s going to make me want you even more Saturday so be ready.” I roll my eyes and he heads back. 

The rest of the week everyday after lunch he walked me to class. After that class we walked together to our sixth hour and after that he walked me to my last class. I would make him walk back half way so he wouldn’t be late. I know his mom hates it when he’s late or misses school. During the times he would walk me sometimes we would talk and sometimes we wouldn’t he would walk besides me rubbing against my shoulder or standing right behind me when the hall was too packed. This all leads up to Saturday Halloween night.