"Do you hate me?" He suddenly asked, still not moving his face. I quickly regained my composure and pushed him away.

"If I answer you truthfully then I will you answer one of my questions truthfully?" I asked and he nodded. "Fine. I don't hate you, but I'm not happy with you. I'm really disappointed in you.I'm disappointed that your really care about yourself more than others who have been there for you for ages. I really cared about you back then and I never wanted you to get hurt." I saw a flash of guilt and regret in Ali's eyes, but it quickly went away just like a shooting star.

"Now you have to answer my question." I said leaning back in my chair. "Why are you even trying so hard to get better grades?" I watched as Ali shifted in his seat. I waited patiently for him to answer. He sighed. "It's a secret."

"Are we were 8 then you probably knew them all." He said in a teasing voice back at me. We both smiled, but our smiles quickly faded away when we realized that we were referring to the old times when we were young and best friends.

"It was just a two month ago," He started and boy was I happy that awkward moment was left behind. "And my parents got a divorce. I just live with my mom now. Due to some issues, she lost his job and she's struggling to pay the bills. She met this guy a couple weeks ago who owns this successful company and somehow they fell in love and all that lovey-dovey stuff. They're planning to get married, but whenever I see that man, I see him as a stranger. Not a person in my family that i'll be able to depend on and all that stuff, but I try to act reasonable with him because if he does marry my mom, we won't have to struggle anymore about paying the bills. However, they got into a fight a couple days ago and they might be calling off the wedding. My mom is blaming it all on me and she's always getting drunk at night now. I thought that I might as well try to raise my grades so that I can at least get a scholarship to college so that I could get away from her."

I sat there listening to Ali's story and I saw his eyes filled with sadness and rage. His eyes are brimming with tears that were threatening to spill. When he finished his story, the tears never came out of his eyes. Ali's always been strong like that. Before I knew it, I was hugging him tight and whispering soothing words near his ear. I could tell he was shocked at first, but he wrapped his arms around me and it felt like how everything was 5 years ago.

***

It's been 4 days and I have to admit that Ali has been improving in his school work. He reached the average grade in English and went up a grade in Science and History, but he's still failing in Math... big time.

"This is hopeless." He fake pouted and closed his arms. I momentarily laughed and brought my hand up to his head to mess up his hair.

"Someone's a little cranky today." I joked while he continue acting like a 5 year old.

You could say that Ali and I were sort of friends. It's very confusing. Ever since that moment we had at the library 4 days ago, it just seems like he's back to his old self whenever he's around me. When he's around his friend he acts like some jock that gets everything he wants on a silver plate.

"You okay?" I heard Ali asking me. I quickly lifted up my head and regained my composure again.

"Yep." I said trying to act all happy while nodding. I could tell he didn't believe me, but he simply shrugged it off. I opened my mouth to tell him that he needs to practice on some more Math, but got cut off when a familiar high pitched scream fill the library.

Someone then pulled my hair hard and I fell onto the floor and may I saw..

"Bitch, you better not be getting attracted to my future husband!" A familiar voice screeched. I looked up and saw Brit hovering over me with an enraged face.

"I was just tutoring him so calm down and-" She cut me off.

"Calm down?" She then started laughing like some mad woman. I saw Ali staring at her as if she had two heads, but honestly... Who wouldn't when she's holding her stomach, bending over, and laughing like she's being tickled to death.

"Oh, you're telling me to calm down?! I'll teach you, you little bitch..." Brit started saying when she finally stopped laughing. She reached out to grab my wrist. She caught a hold of me and forced me to stand up. As soon as I gained by balance she slapped me. Hard.

It felt like fire was burning my cheek and that it wasn't possible to extinguish it. I slowly turned to face Brit again and she raised her hand to slap me across my other cheek and I closed my eyes tight, ready for the blow. It never came though. I slowly opened my eyes to see Ali holding her wrist with an angry glint in his eyes, yet he kept his face calm.

"That's enough, Brit. The nerd learnt her lesson." He said not taking his eyes off of my face. To be honest, his word stung.

"You're right. I wouldn't want to hurt my hand from hitting her block hard face." Brit said while hugging onto Ali.

I know I hate Ali and I remember how I promised myself that I would never get hurt again by anything he said or did, but what I'm looking at right now... it hurt. My vision started getting blurry and it slightly cleared up a while when I realized that tears were streaming down my cheeks. I know that many kids that stayed after school were crowding around the sight right now of me crying and Brit clinging onto Ali, but I couldn't care less.