"Don't mind him, Grace," Bella said, trying to keep her lunch tray from tumbling over in her hands as she glanced over at Grace. A very angry-looking Grace.

Grace's knuckles had gone white as she gripped her tray, voices murmuring and whispering behind her in the busy cafeteria of Hayward Middle School.

Everyone was busy piling food on their lunch trays, grateful to be out of their classrooms, all except for Fraser Nash--the thirteen-year-old boy who loved being the biggest bully.

"How am I not supposed to mind him?" Asked twelve-year-old Grace, the anger obvious with the way she was clenching her jaw.

Bella placed her tray on their table--a small wooden table along one corner of the cafeteria--and pushed back a loose strand of her long brown hair behind her ear. Almost everyone here in the town of Hayward had dark hair, especially her classmates.

"Look, Fraser always says anything and everything to annoy anyone. Just ignore him." Bella knew it'd have to be her right now to keep Grace calm and collected. She felt like it was her job. If she didn't, things would get out of hand.

Like they mostly did when Grace got angry.

"Just ignore him?" A loud voice interrupted them both. It was Fraser, looking at them with a mean twist of his lips. Fraser always had this evil air to him, like a bully usually would. He was one of those kids who loved annoying the teachers and the students (sometimes even the Principal).

"Fraser, go mind your own business." It was Bella this time, her eyes anxiously darting from Fraser to Grace.

"Why?" He asked, jerking his chin upwards in an arrogant manner, his dishevelled black hair falling over his forehead. And wasn't it just unfortunate that he was taller than Grace? Another reason for Grace to hate him even more so than she normally did. "I like making Gracie angry."

Grace placed her tray on the table and stepped towards him, glaring at him at the same time. Grace had a short temper. Grace always had a short temper. But it wasn't her fault that people like Fraser just kept pissing her off.

"Don't call me that." She hissed at him. She hated when people like Fraser called her Gracie.

Fraser, on the other hand, just stuffed his hands in his pockets and barked out a short laugh. People in the cafeteria were now stopping by to look at the little scene.

"What else should I call you? Collins?" He asked. Grace just glared at him, her dark brown eyes looking a lot angrier than before.

"I should call Mrs Davis," Bella murmured nervously, looking around the cafeteria. Mrs Davis was their art teacher and she knew how to keep Grace from punching people--especially Fraser.

Grace scoffed and a strand of her unruly blonde hair fell over her right eye. She tried calming herself down, levelling her breathing rate. After all, Fraser wasn't worth it, right? And her mum would be so angry if she punched Fraser (once again) and got dragged to the Principal's office.

Which happened quite often.

"Where's that stupid kid Lucius?" Fraser asked, looking around. Grace couldn't help but notice, probably for the thousandth time, how Fraser acted as if he was the superior one with his dark and brooding personality. He wasn't actually. Nobody liked Fraser.

He probably had bad parents and bad siblings and bad relatives--at least that's what Grace thought.

"Don't call him stupid, Fraser." Grace gritted out, clenching her fists this time. How much she wished she could just go invisible and punch Fraser a hundred times.

At least no trouble that way.

"Well, isn't he?" He asked her with a taunting grin. "I don't even know what is it with you and him. You both are so pathetic--"

"Fraser. Grace. What's going on?" It was their PE teacher that interrupted their banter. He eyed them both from the cafeteria hallway with a disapproving frown.

"Nothing, sir." Fraser eyed Grace with a mean look this time. "I was just telling Gracie how much of a good friend Lucius is."

Grace looked at him in utter disbelief.

And it took her by surprise when she saw Fraser leaning towards her as he whispered, "More like an asshole--"

Grace didn't wait for him to finish. She didn't even know what else Fraser would've said. Something bad, obviously. And under no circumstances was anyone allowed to call her best friend by such names.

She curled her fingers into a tight fist and socked Fraser right in the face. So hard that she almost winced at the impact, a familiar tingling sensation blooming near her knuckles.

Fraser stumbled back before falling, a small groan escaping his lips while everyone stared at the scene in front of them with wide eyes. Bella inhaled a sharp breath, knowing what was coming.

Everyone knew what was coming.

A trip to the Principal's office.

•••••

"I'm not even going to say it this time." Grace's mom, Jordyn, said as she drove the car. Hands on the steering wheel and a stern look plastered on her face, she did not look happy.

Grace was sitting beside her on the passenger seat, not saying anything. When her mother was called to the school, the Principal had once again warned Jordyn of Grace's oversensitive temperamental issues. He had even threatened to expel Grace if this happened one more time.

The same was said to Fraser's parents.

"I'm sorry, Mum," Grace mumbled. "You know how much Fraser gets on my nerves."

"The principal could've expelled you, Grace." Jordyn had a frown on her face. She was a beautiful woman, with delicate features just like Grace. Both had the same blonde hair too, though Jordyn's was a little less unruly than Grace's.

"I'm sorry," Grace repeated. "Is Papa back?"

Jordyn kept frowning. She wasn't letting Grace change the topic so easily. How could she have? This was probably the fifth time in this very month that she was called to her daughter's school. All over again.

"You should learn to keep your temper in check. Fraser's parents are not to be messed with, Gracie. They could just..." She went silent.

"He called Luca an asshole." Grace's mother flinched slightly at that word.

"And where was Luc?"

"He wasn't there at school today," Grace told her everything that Lucius had told her last night. "He had a soccer match this morning."

"Ah, yes," Jordyn murmured, a small furrow forming between her brows. "Marleen told me." Marleen was Lucius's mother. And since they were neighbours, both mothers knew each other like close friends.

"So..." Grace trailed. "Is Papa back from his trip?"

This time, Jordyn just blew out a long, heavy sigh. "He'd be back home tomorrow. I'm glad he didn't come home today, though." Grace's father was a biologist. More specifically, a marine biologist. He spent most of his time overseas. "He'd have been disappointed, Grace."

Grace felt a small lump forming in her throat. She hated making her parents upset, and everything that had happened back in school today made her want to cry a little.

It wasn't her fault. Why did they all think it was her fault?

Jordyn stopped the car in the driveway in front of their small, cottage-like house. Not big enough and not small either. As Grace got out of the car, she shouldered her backpack and looked over at the house beside hers.

The Jacksons' house. Luca's house.

"I'd be relieved if you just try a little, Gracie." Jordyn got out too, picking up her bag and the keys. "Don't make me get a shrink for you. Your Principal is begging me to do that."

Grace looked at her with wide eyes. "It's not always my fault, Mum. Fraser is a jerk. You know that!"

Her mother passed her a frown from over the car hood. "I'm not supposed to blame him. I'm supposed to correct my daughter. My daughter who just can't keep a hold on her anger."

Grace's voice gave away as she opened her mouth to say something, anything.

Her fault. It wasn't her fault.

"Hey, what's the fuss about?" It was Marleen, holding out a plate of freshly baked homemade cookies towards Jordyn as she walked over to them.

"Nothing. I just didn't get enough sleep." Jordyn met her halfway there. "Jack was having his usual nightmares last night."

Jack was Grace's little brother. She loved him more than anything, even more than her parents sometimes. But lately, Jack had been having weird nightmares. He woke up in the middle of the night, either crawling in bed with Grace or their mom.

And that might've been Grace's fault--at least that's what she believed. Grace had managed to--not so accidentally--traumatize her little brother by telling him that his beloved teddy bear was real. With real blood and organs. After getting a little help from Lucius and gruesomely stabbing Jack's teddy in the heart, there had been lots and lots of red blood.

Which had just been some ketchup but Jack hadn't known that. He'd cried all day even if Grace had told him it was all fake. And when Grace had tried to lick her fingers to show him that it was just ketchup, he'd cried even harder.

Her mum had been furious.

But well, it had been fun.

Grace would've gone inside her house to go see Jack, but she stopped.

"Is Luca home?" She asked Marleen.

Marleen looked over at her with her usual, warm smile. "Yeah, he just came back."

Grace didn't wait another second before crossing over the wooden fence separating their houses. Then she ran towards her neighbour's front door and went inside. Not like it would've been locked when Marleen had just gotten out.

She heard her mother's and Marleen's voices growing faint as she closed the front door and placed her backpack on the familiar white couch. She knew this house like the back of her hand.

Grace moved along, going upstairs until she was right in front of a familiar brown door. She knocked twice and looked out from the big glass window just beside the room. She could see her mother going inside their house along with Marleen.

If only her mother hadn't been so disappointed.

"Come in." Came a muffled voice. When Grace opened the door, she realized that Lucius had just changed back into his usual clothes from his soccer ones.

"Gracie, you're back already?" He ran a hand through his soft brown curls, looking up at the wall clock.

Grace just went ahead and flopped down on his unmade bed, letting out a long, miserable sigh.

"Did Principal Winston close off school earlier today because I won the soccer match?" Grace could hear the grin in his voice. It was just so Lucius to make jokes at every given time.

"Congrats, Luca." Her voice got muffled in the soft pillow. It smelled like him. The whole room smelled like Lucius.

"Never mind, I don't need your congrats when you sound so grumpy."

Grace just groaned in response. She didn't want him to get cross at her too. Not like he was cross at her; Lucius never got angry with her.

"I got kicked out," Grace spoke up, still lying face-down on Lucius's bed.

"I aspire to be you someday, Gracie," Lucius replied. But everyone knew how he couldn't ever be like her. Lucius was gentle and so much sweeter than Grace could ever be. They sometimes seemed the exact opposites of each other.

When Grace went silent at that, Lucius looked over at her with a small frown. He threw his clothes in the laundry basket before sitting down beside her.

"What's wrong?" He asked her, already knowing something was.

"I got kicked out."

"Of school," Lucius added, urging her to elaborate further.

"Not really. I mean, Winston was pretty angry with me." She answered. "I punched Fraser in the face."

"Again." Lucius completed. On that, Grace sat up and faced Lucius. He was wearing a blue hoodie; a shade Grace loved so much.

"I wouldn't have punched him if you were there." She looked into his honey-coloured eyes a little miserably. "He was being so mean, Luca."

Lucius's eyes widened when he saw tears gleaming in hers. He hated when she cried. It twisted something inside of him and it felt awful. He didn't know why. It just did.

"Gracie, you punched him." He took hold of her wrists in each of his hands, a thing they both had been doing for a while now, ever since they became friends. "And I'm glad you did that."

Grace felt something expanding in her chest. She knew that she shouldn't have felt relieved, but someone was fine with all of this. If not her mum or her classmates or her papa, at least Luca was happy.

"Really?"

He gave her a cheeky grin at that. "Yeah. We both know how much he deserves it sometimes."

Grace gave out a small laugh and threw her arms around him. This, this right here was her safe place. Since she was six, this was the only place where she felt truly happy. Where she felt understood.

With Lucius.