Short Scene: Gaining the Wrong attention

"What did you do to Bella, asshole?!"

I yelped and jolted into the air for a bit as I was startled from behind.

Quickly turning around to face the intruder, I saw that it was none other than someone in Bella's cheerleader posse. She had a pissed off accusatory glare on her face which was fully directed towards me, and I couldn't help but gulp since I realized that it might not be underserved.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my locker door and faced the girl, "What are you talking about?"

Might as well gather info and see how the school population sees us based on the rumor mill.

"Bella has been skipping cheerleader practice ever since you two started dating!" She started off, getting all up in my face, "Do you know how much she obsesses over being a cheerleader captain? She takes the role very seriously and it's one of the reasons why our school's cheerleader squad is so famous in the district! It's completely out of character of her to just suddenly decide to stop caring, especially if it's just to hang out with a loser like you!"

Agh, shit. I knew Bella would start attracting attention to herself soon. No doubt, the love potion was causing her to reprioritize her entire life to focus around me instead of following her own goals. How the hell am I going to get myself out of this mess?

"Look, I wasn't trying to **** her to skip cheerleading practice. She kept insisting that she wanted to go back to my house to hang out, and I didn't know how else to say no to her." I tried to explain truthfully.

"Bullshit." She spat, before poking a finger at my chest, "I know you did something to Bella to make her act all gooey and affectionate towards you, and don't you dare even deny it. It wasn't that long ago that she thought you were the scum of the Earth. I especially know that you have plenty of reasons to hate her guts too, so there's no way in hell there's a chance that the two of you could suddenly click together and fall in love so easily!"

Christ, I have no idea how to counter-argue that. It's not like she was even saying anything wrong either, that was basically the truth.

"Look, I don't know how to answer that. Bella and I figured out that we liked each other after talking it out and decided to give it a shot to start a casual relationship." I tried to downplay as best as I could.

With a frustrated growl, she shoved me back towards the lockers, "Just admit it! You're blackmailing her, aren't you?!"

"W-Wait, what?! ****?!" I repeated incredulously.

"Don't act innocent! You somehow got some kind of dirt on Bella and now you're blackmailing her to act like your girlfriend out of ****!" She went on, "You're forcing her to put up a cute girlfriend act in public to humiliate her! I bet she's so scared of whatever you're blackmailing her with, she's doing everything she can to satisfy your disgusting demands while crying in agony on the inside!"

Uh...

Seriously?

"Well let me tell you, loser!" She continued ranting as she repeatedly poked me in the chest, "No one is falling for it! Everyone who's friends with Bella knows how much of a **** driver you are! One way or the other, we're going to find out what you're doing to her, and we're going to make you let go of Bella before we kick your skinny ass!"

It's amazing how much this girl seems to care for Bella despite the fact that they're all sociopaths who have bullied and belittled innocent students who've never done anything wrong. If anything, if the situations were reversed, I'd have no doubt that Bella and her crew would maliciously exploit me until I'm nothing more than a dying husk of waste on the street.

Also, seriously? ****? That's the accusation that these people are settling on? And what, they haven't done worse to others before? Fuckin' bunch of hypocrites...

Feeling a little frustrated at being berated by this idiot girl who has no idea on the situation, I sternly reassured her, "Look, if all you're trying to do is get Bella to break up with me, just give it some time. At the end of this year, she'll be back to normal before you know it. So stop bothering me."

I turned away to start walking to my next class, before suddenly feeling my face impact with the cold metal of my locker.

"Ow."

"I knew it! I was right!" She shouted triumphantly, pushing me against the wall while holding my arm up in a **** grip, "You are blackmailing her! There's no way Bella would ever want to go out with some nerdy trashy guy like you! She's like the queen of this school! You're so far beneath her league, you might as well be like a tiny ant in her eyes!"

What exactly is her game plan here? Hold me against the wall until I, what, tell her what she wanted to hear?

Sheesh, it's not like I'm even scared of her to begin with. The only reason why I was ever scared of her and her group in the first place was because of Bella. She was the mafia leader who controlled these mindless idiots. Without her around to tell them what to do or think, it was hard to even take any of them seriously.

"You're nothing but trash, and you have no right to be getting kisses and homemade lunches from Bella! You better let her go right now, or I swear to god I'm gonna shove your chemistry book RIGHT UP YOUR ASS-"

"Tiffany? What do you think you're doing to my boyfriend?"

I could somehow get a secondhand feeling of a chill running up the girl's spine as I heard Bella suddenly appear from behind.

Glancing behind me just enough to see the situation, there seemed to be this aura of doom surrounding Bella as she held a hand around her friend's shoulder. Despite the atmosphere, Bella had nothing more than a polite and friendly smile, which was pretty disconcerting in of itself.

The girl, Tiffany, suddenly let go of me and turned to face her friend, "Bella! You were listening to us."

"I did." Bella nodded politely, "You were being really rough on John for no reason at all, Tiffany. You could have hurt him."

"Listen, Bella!" Tiffany passionately held onto Bella's hands and proclaimed, "You don't have to keep this act up anymore! I know what he's doing to you and I swear I'm going to make him pay! Me and the others, we'll teach him a lesson and get you back on your feet in no-"

"Hold on to that thought for just a second, okay Tiffany?" Bella interrupted by pulling Tiffany's lip closed with her finger, before wrapping her arm around her friend's shoulder and stepping away while also reassuring me, "I'll be with you in just a second, John!"

"Uh..." A part of me felt like I needed to grab a hold of that Tiffany girl and try to run away from Bella as fast as humanly possible in order to prevent a crime from happening.

---

Bella and Tiffany traveled far away from John and turned the nearest corner, making them out of earshot and line of sight from the boy.

Still having an arm wrapped around Tiffany, Bella gave her friend a delightful hug, "Oh Tiffany, you and I have known each other for so long now. We're practically the bestest of friends, aren't we?"

"Y-Yeah!" Tiffany smiled back, unaware of the scent of danger looming over the horizon. "You know I got your back! What are girl friends for?"

"Yeah, yeah- BFFs for life- Anyway," Bella moved the conversation along, "Remember that house party at Travis's place we all went to celebrate our school's third winning streak at football?"

"Uh... Yeah?" Tiffany replied confusedly, "Of course I would. Oliver and I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Bella nodded along, "Right, right, Oliver. You and your boyfriend. You two make such a cute couple, I ever tell you that? How long have you been together now?"

"Since... since elementary school?" Tiffany continued to grow more confused as the topic veered further away from the original discussion with John. "Hey, Bella, weren't we just talking about you and John-"

"Uhp-uhp-uhp- I'm getting to that, don't worry." Bella waved her away, before resuming, "You and Oliver are pretty much inseparable, you know? You two are like the Romeo and Juliet of our lifetime. It's just so precious and adorable..."

"R-Right. Thank you." Tiffany couldn't help but blush at the compliments, "Oliver and I appreciate it."

"Speaking of appreciation, remember when we were playing Truth or Dare at that party? We all gathered around and made each other do stupid things just for the heck of it and had a blast?" Bella asked, "I think Oliver had to leave to use the restroom mid-way because he got sick from drinking too much ****, right?"

"Uh... I guess-"

Without letting her finish, Bella quickly moved on, "While Oliver was gone, Marcus landed the bottle on you and made you do a really risky dare, didn't he? That adorable pervert dared you to take your top off and let all the boys take turns sucking one of your tits. You remember that, right?"

Tiffany began to feel an anxious pit in her stomach as Bella continued along, as nervous sweat dripped down her head.

Bella continued on, "You were partly drunk, so you thought it'd be a fun idea and offered your sexy little tits to each boy, one by one. All the boys had their fill, and you managed to pull your shirt down before Oliver came back to see what happened while he was gone. Lucky break, right? Imagine if he ever saw what you did behind his back with all of his guy friends?"

"What are you trying to tell me, Bella?" Tiffany asked nervously.

"I'm just saying that it was such a fun memory to have between the two of us. Something that we can keep to our graves, without Oliver ever knowing." Bella pulled out her smartphone and went into her picture gallery, "See, I even secretly took a picture of it while you weren't looking!"

In the photo was just as Bella described, portraying Tiffany with her shirt pulled up as she allowed one of their friends to grope and suck on her nipple. She had a huge red blush on her face and a goofy smile, fully enjoying the moment like it was a wild ride.

Bella smiled as Tiffany gave a horrified look of the photo, feeling the girl stiffen up like a statue right under her arm.

"It would be pretty funny if I decided to post this in our shared group chat, don't you think? Everyone who was there would appreciate the memory and have a good laugh at what you did that day." Bella giggled innocently, before gasping, "Oh, but wait! Oliver wasn't there, was he? In fact, it might actually break his heart if he ever saw this photo! It might even ruin your entire relationship with him forever!"

Tiffany couldn't say anything as she looked at Bella with a **** yet fearful expression.

"You don't want me to upload this picture online, do you? Tiffany?" Bella asked with faux-concern, pouting at the girl in her grasp.

Tiffany violently shook her head no while almost on the verge of crying.

"It's a real shame that I even have this photo. All you have to do is piss me off once, and it'd be a good enough reason for me to leak online for everyone to see." Bella tilted her head curiously, "Thank god we're such good friends though, right? You'd never give me a good enough reason to do that! Right?"

Tiffany nodded her head yes, still staying silent lest she say the wrong thing and have her life ruined.

"Good." Bella giggled, pulling her arm away from her friend.

Before Tiffany could even get the recover her bearings though, Bella suddenly pulled her straight back in and **** Tiffany's head to be right up against Bella's ear.

"And if you want to keep it that way, leave my boyfriend alone and never bother him ever again." Without any pretenses to mask her intentions like before, Bella directly threatened her, "If I ever catch you trying to get him to break up with me, or even hear plans about hurting him, I will do so much worse than just ruin your relationship with Oliver. Do you understand?"

Tiffany's eyes were completely diluted in fear, and she could only make a squeak in response.

Pulling away, Bella resumed her cute schoolgirl act and said, "Great! Well, I'll be hanging out with John again at lunch today. Hope I'll see you later after school!"

Without another word, Bella happily skipped off to go back to John, leaving Tiffany to herself alone in the halls.

It took a decent while before Tiffany began to break down and cry as she ran to the restroom in order to hide herself from the world.

---

"That was completely uncalled for." I muttered.

"What do you mean?" Bella asked innocently, latched onto my arm as we walked down the hall.

"You didn't have to threaten her like that, you know. I was listening in on the entire thing. I was worried you were about to do something stupid and attract attention to us."

"Oh don't worry," Bella waved away with a scoff, "Tiffany's a good girl. If I make it clear that I want her to keep quiet, she'll stay quiet for us."

"She wasn't even doing it for malicious reasons either. She was just worried about you as a friend since she thought I was blackmailing you. You could've at least take it easy on her or something..."

"Doesn't matter who it is or for what reason. No one gets away with bullying my boyfriend under my watch." Bella stated firmly, "Never again."

Never again, she says...

Sigh, why couldn't this version of Bella Cardigan be the norm?

"You know, it wasn't that long ago that both of you would gang up together and bully me." I reminded her. "Remember that time you both tripped me outside the school and pulled my pants down? And then you both stole my belt and ran away before I could do anything about it? And then I was **** to chase you down while holding my pants up for the entire block before you shoved my belt down a sewer drain?"

That seemed to knock the wind out of her sails, as she frowned and glanced away out of guilt. With a quiet voice, she muttered, "I really am sorry about that... I shouldn't have let that happened to you in the first place."

...

Fuck man, it was way too hard to hate her while she was like this. I couldn't even come up with a proper response to that.

"If... If you want..." Bella started to shyly suggest, "I can do something to make it up to you... for that incident..."

"Make it up to me?" I asked.

"Yeah... I could do favors for you to make up for each and every horrible thing I've ever done to you. One by one, I'll work hard to get you to forgive me for everything I've done."

Favors, huh? Hm.

Bella steadily pulled on my arm to make me reach down so that she could whisper in my ear, "I won't say no to anything, even the naughty favors~"

DAMMIT FUCK FUCK, C'MON I JUST LITERALLY HAD SEX WITH HER IN THE RESTROOM RIGHT BEFORE THIS! DON'T START TEASING ME NOW ALL OF A SUDDEN!

With a heavy blush, I shook my head and looked away with a frustrated grunt, "Stop doing that! You know I hate it when you take advantage of my weakness like that!"

"Sorry, I couldn't resist!" Bella giggled, "You're just so cute that I couldn't help it."

I groaned, before deciding to ignore her as we made our way to class.

After a while though, she spoke up again, "I was serious though, about the favors. I'm willing to do whatever it takes in order to make it all up to you and get you to forgive me."

I gave her a quick glance, before facing forward and churning my mind for ideas.

While it would be nice to tell her to do this and that in order to get her to make up for all the transgressions she's ever performed on me, I didn't think it would be right. Despite my hatred for her, I never made the love potion in order to turn her into a **** that I could just boss around. I just wanted her to leave me alone.

With that being said, I don't think she'd take it fairly well if I told her that I wanted her to leave me alone as a favor. Especially after everything we've done and said over the week while she was my "girlfriend."

Her offer might be beneficial for me if I really think about it, however...

"Okay, I got something you can do for me then."

Bella looked up in surprise but stayed silent for me to continue.

"You've been hanging out with me constantly ever since we first started this relationship. Since then, you've pretty much ignored everything else in your life just to focus all of your attention on me. For example, your social obligations with your friends, your education (though I doubt you've really done much of that to begin with), and probably even your family."

"Well... I guess?" Bella shrugged, "So?"

"Don't you realize that you're starting to worry a lot of people when you ignore your own responsibilities just so that you can go and hang out with me?" I started listing off, "Your grades are already probably lacking in the first place, so it definitely wouldn't help if you kept slacking any further. Your parents have got to be at least a little bit worried about the fact that you keep staying over at my house all the time instead of going back home. And you literally had to talk to Tiffany about a minute ago to stop her from accusing me of blackmailing you. Imagine how the rest of your friends feel when they don't ever see you showing up for cheerleading practice."

Bella gave it some thought, before casually shrugging, "Who cares about everyone else though? The only thing that matters in my life is you anyway, so fuck 'em."

Sigh... and there lies the problem...

Rubbing my head from stress, I thought outside a box for a bit to come up with a proper response to that. After a while, an idea came to me, as I explained, "Well, you know what I care about? I care about you keeping up the status quo so that we could both live our normal lives together in peace. It's going to be troublesome to have to deal with people always butting into our relationship simply because they're worried I'm overtaking your life."

"O-Oh..." Bella mumbled thoughtfully.

"So do me a favor, can you kinda just... live your life the way you normally do before we starting our relationship?" I offered, "Go home and eat dinner with your parents occasionally, make it clear they won't have anything to worry about. Try to study and do your homework properly so that you don't get a failing grade and have to repeat your senior year again. And for the love of god, keep going to cheerleading practices! You're a cheerleader captain aren't you? What kind of example would you be setting if the captain herself doesn't attend their own practice sessions?"

Bella seemed to find this idea terrible, and she made her annoyance clear with a loud groan, "Eeeeugh, but I want to hang out with my boyfriend more! If I focus on all of that stuff, we'd be spending less time together! I hate the idea that I won't be able to see your face all the time!"

Christ, what is she, a spoiled seven-year-old?

Okay, so it didn't seem like she was very open to the idea. Based on how obsessive she was about me, even if I try to **** her into going back to her normal lifestyle again, she'd just grow tired of it and quit altogether in order to declare me as the main foundation of her life again. That'll lead to way more headaches down the road, and I'd rather not have to do that.

...

Fuck, I guess it's time to use the trump card.

Fuuuuuck, I didn't really want to do this, which was why I was saving this for only emergencies...

With another sigh, I awkwardly scratched my head and offered, "If you can do me this favor, promise to behave, and not draw attention... Then I'll..."

Bella tilted her head at me with an intrigued look.

Fuck, I really gotta do this, don't I?

"I'll take you out on a date." I muttered, trying to hide my embarrassment.

At first, Bella stood silent, her brain slowly digesting what I just said.

Then, chaos.

Bella began to grow hysterical as she did that one shrill scream that all teenaged girls do when they find out they won a contest to their favorite pop-star band or when their crush just asked them out.

Hopping in front of me, Bella excitedly grabbed my hands and squeed, "Really?! Are you sure?! Do you promise?! You'll take me out on a date?!"

"Yeah, yeah, sure." I responded unenthusiastically, "I'll make time out of my schedule next week and we can go to whatever place you want us to go."

"OHMYGOD, YES!" Bella harped happily, "I can't believe it! Just you and me, going around, traveling the city, doing everything cute young couples always do on our very first actual date! I love it!"

"But only if you promise to do what I just told you to do!" I strictly reminded her, "That means taking the time to actually live your life the way you normally used to. Talk to your parents, hang out with your friends, and study in school."

"Okay! Deal!" Bella instantly agreed, "I promise!"

Phew... Thank god that's been dealt with. Hopefully, with this now going on, I won't have to deal with anyone putting their noses into my situation and finding out the actual truth behind why Bella's suddenly in love with me.

Before I could even react, Bella pulled me down and forcefully kissed me on the lips. She made a loud 'MWAH' before releasing me and twirling down the hallways like a ballerina, "I'm going out on a date with my boyfriend~ My precious precious boyfriend~ My adorable and amazing boyfrieeeeeend~"

...

Nevermind. If she was only going to end up acting like that the whole time when she was with the others, I was going to be majorly screwed.