Destroy Me Gently:Ex-Enemy Becomes My Lover!
Chapter 8: Savior or not?

Chapter 8: Savior or not?

**Oliver West**

My eyes flickered open slowly. Everything was so blurry. I blinked twice, but it didn’t help, everything was still hazy.

I was lying on a bed?

The memories flooded in. Kieran had broken my glasses... trapped me in that little space... I must have passed out.

"You’re finally awake! Oh god, you left me so worried!" A familiar voice sounded from above me. It was so sharp, making me wince aloud.

A gasp escaped my mouth when he choked me in a tight embrace. It was so hard to breathe, I might as well just pass out again.

"William?" I croaked as he supported me to a sitting position. It seemed he had brought me to the nurse’s office.

I couldn’t see his face clearly, but he looked extremely concerned. The worry in his voice was unmistakable.

It made my heart melt. He was the only person who wasn’t my family member that could be so concerned about me.

Sure, he could be a lot crazy at times, but he was all I got.

Gosh, I really need those glasses.

"After what happened at the gym, I couldn’t leave you alone with him, knowing that... anyway, I searched for you all over but couldn’t find you, then I found out you were here. Are you alright? What exactly happened? Did that monster do to you? I’ll make him pay, I swear!" I almost didn’t catch all his quick, breathless rant. But I caught one thing.

"You didn’t bring me here?"

He gave me a confused look.

"No, I didn’t. When I arrived here, the nurse was already attending to you, but you just weren’t waking up so I had to call your mom and..." His last words jolted me upright, thoughts of whoever my savior was temporarily forgotten.

"You did what! You shouldn’t have called mom!" I half yelled, knowing mom she would be here any minute. Sure, she was busy, but she never took matters regarding our health issues lightly.

Not only that, she could take everything to a whole new level if she ever found out the truth about what had happened between Kieran and me.

"Are you seriously blaming me? What was I supposed to do!"

Before I could come up with a response, the door flung open and I stared into the gaze of my mother.

"Sweetheart! Are you alright? I heard you fainted!" she rushed out, hurrying over to my bedside.

"Mom, I’m fine."

"You don’t look fine. You look quite pale. Did you also lose some weight?"

I rolled my eyes at her words. I had barely been unconscious for twenty minutes. What the heck was this talk about weight?

But if she doesn’t overreact about things, then she wouldn’t be my mother.

"Hi, Mrs. West," William smiled as he greeted with a small wave of his hands.

"Hello, dear. How are you?"

"I’m fine, thank you..." he began when his cellphone rang aloud. He excused himself to the far end of the room to take the call, leaving mom and me alone.

Soon after, mom supported me off the bed like I was an invalid. I stumbled a few times. I think that drew her attention to my face.

"What happened to your glasses, Oliver? Good thing William told me, so I came with a spare," she spoke, fetching it from her bag.

Yay... I have the best mother in the entire world.

I slipped them on and I could see everything clearly once again, but apparently she had not forgotten her earlier question.

"Did you lose your glasses? You haven’t even told me how you fainted."

I exhaled quietly, unwilling to remember the hurtful event that had transpired less than an hour ago.

She was still staring at me expectantly for an answer, so I took a pause to rack my brain for excuses. I knew she wouldn’t scold me even if I told her I misplaced them. It was one of the perks of being sick, so many advantages came along with it... but how do I explain the reason I passed out and what had triggered it?

"Forget it, let’s go home first, okay?" she muttered before I had even thought of the lie.

I said a quick goodbye to William. He was still busy on the phone, so he managed a tiny wave with his free hand.

We made our way towards the parking lot where her car waited. There were barely few students around. My thoughts slowly drifted to Kieran. How could he do that to me?

He was so mean.

I wasn’t sure he knew about my being claustrophobic.

No, he wouldn’t know about it, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that he had locked me up.

I only became claustrophobic after that incident that drifted us apart. But it hurt enough to know he hated me enough to wish I was dead.

"You’ll survive, you always do," he had said these exact words like it pained him to see me live.

My gaze caught onto something from the street opposite the parking lot.

Or rather someone.

Kieran.

My heart gave a resounding thud, my breath constricting tight in my throat. It felt as though he had appeared straight out of my thoughts.

He was staring straight back at me, with a look I was too far away to decipher.

None of us looked away. His gaze pulled me in like a sort of trance.

A thought suddenly struck me. It hadn’t been William who had rescued me.

Then...

Had he returned back and saved me?

My heart pounded at a furious pace at the thought. A betraying wave of hope swept through a part of me.

Had it really been him?

But why would he save me after what he’d done? It didn’t make sense. Kieran Morrison didn’t do compassion anymore. Not for me.

Yet someone had carried me out of that closet. Someone had brought me to the nurse’s office. Someone had cared enough to make sure I was safe.

The contradiction made my chest ache with confusion.

"Get in, sweetie," Mom’s voice snapped me back to reality.

I tore my gaze away from his magnetic one and made my way to the back seat of the car.

Mom inserted the ignition and the car engine roared to life.

I took another glance at the spot across the street where I had seen him.

The spot was now empty.

He was gone.

As we drove away from Riverside High, I pressed my face against the cool window. Questions swirled in my mind like a tornado I couldn’t escape.

Was it really Kieran who saved me? And if it was, what did that mean?

Did some part of my old best friend still exist beneath all that hatred and cruelty?

Or was I just desperately clinging to hope that would only hurt me more?

The car turned the corner, and the school disappeared from view. But the image of Kieran standing there, watching me leave, burned itself into my memory.

Some part of me wanted to believe that the boy who once promised to protect me was still in there somewhere.