Chapter 14- The Bad Boy's Past ~

Chapter 14- The Bad Boy's Past

-Emma-

Aiden gazed out to the lake in front of us. The moon gleamed brightly causing the lake to have a shimmering effect. Aiden sighed deeply and ran a hand through his dark brown hair. "Guess I should start from the being." I stayed silent and waited for him to continue. "As you know my parents are owners of multi-million dollar advertisement company, Red Falls Advertisement, and being owners of such a big company means that they’re not always home or don't have time for anything. Since I can remember I have always been left with a nanny or a maid to help raise me. My parent's never had time to spend with me or take a day to get to know who exactly their son has been raising to be. Growing up parentless and without love and care caused me to act out. Ever since the first day in kindergarten, I've been getting trouble hoping that my parents would care enough to see why I was acting that way, but sadly they never came to see what was going on but that never stopped me from trying." I saw the sadness weighing heavy in Aiden's eyes, I saw a lonely, lost kid wanting love and someone to care for him. He looked so broken, but I remained silent letting him continue.

"One day in the first grade I was pulling a usual prank that any little seven year old kid with guts would do, I put super glue on the teacher's chair. When she sat down to take attendance and try to get back up the chair was glued to her butt." Aiden said with a faint smile on his lips. "She tried prying it off but it wouldn't work all her attempts were failing. The whole class was in fits of giggles and me being the little bad ass I was just sat with a smirk on my face. She looked around the class and saw that I was the only one who wasn't laughing and automatically knew it was me and started yelling. After she was done she sent me to the principal's office, a place I was already familiar with, I walked in and I saw her. A little girl sitting on a chair in the corner swinging her legs back and forth, I knew she was a new student because I never saw her before. She had on flower dress with her blonde hair in pigtails, her blue eyes glanced over to me and instead of being shy and looking away, and she waved at me with a wide grin on her face. To say I was shock would have been an understatement. I stood frozen and I bet my jaw was on the floor, she came up to me and said hi and told me that she was new to town and me being an idiot stood there saying nothing. She introduced herself telling me her name was Mia, I told her my name of course, but that was the only thing I said to her. I was called into the principal's office when a woman who I was guessing was her mom went up to her. I went in and got my punishment and when I went back to class I saw the same little girl with other little kids around her. She came up to me and said hi again and grabbed my hand lead me to the seat next to her. She was an outgoing girl and always had a smile on her face, she loved to laugh and talk to anyone she can and ever since that day we were best friends. We were total opposite though. I was the bad ass who got in trouble everyday and the guy everyone was afraid of while Mia was the sweet good girl who everyone loved." He said reminiscing the past.

"What happened to her?" I blurted out. Aiden's face morphed into anger and hatred was raiding off of him. Shit, I shouldn't have asked that.

"Mark, is what happened."Aiden said menacingly. "Mia and I had just entered our first year of high school with Derek and Matt. We were pumped, you know, finally getting into high school and thinking being there would make you a bad ass. With that mentality, I would get in trouble in almost every class and you would think Mia being the good girl and my best friend would keep me calm and keep me out of trouble but she always told me that she's my friend and not a person who is gonna try and changed me. One day after getting caught vandalizing the side of the school for the third time, the principal was so fed up that he suspended me for the rest of the day. I had walked out to the school parking lot pissed off when I saw a group of seniors near a sleek black car, I was about to look away when a guy with icy blue eyes caught me looking at them. He had a wide smirk on his face and started to walk over to me. I had stood frozen, I didn't know what to do, if I ran they would have caught up to me so I stayed where I was hiding my fear the best I could. He came up and introduced himself as Mark and asked if I wanted to hang out with him and his friends. As a freshman hanging out with seniors automatically made you cool so of course I said yes. Mark took me to his group and we all hung out and at the time Mark and his friends were the bad boys of the school, but I didn't know why he was considered it yet. After that day, I would skip classes and ignore my friends and go hang out with Mark and his friends, they were cool and I wanted to be cool too, but what I didn't know was Mark and his friends had a huge secret that they hid from everyone else." A secret? What kind of secret? I was curious but I didn't interrupt him.

"One day during winter, Mark asked me to meet up with him at night he said that he wanted to show me something important so I agreed. That night I met up with Mark and the group in the downtown part of the city. When I got to the place that he told me to meet him it was dark alley with a street light shining in from the street. One of his friends led me into the side door of a warehouse, he took me to were Mark was and what I saw that was in front of him I would never forget in my life. Drugs, all kinds, weed, cocaine, heroin any and every drug you can think of. I was shocked and couldn't believe what I had just seen in front of me. Mark came up to me and explained everything. He said that he was a drug lord and his friends were dealers. He said that he wanted me to be a part of the crew and help deal. I was afraid to say no, Mark is very powerful and a very dangerous person and I was afraid if I said no he would come after my friends, so instead of standing up and saying no, like an idiot I said yes." Aiden, a drug dealer? No Freaking Way.

Aiden continued glancing out of the corner of his eye, I was listening intently. "I did what he asked. I deal for him at night and went to school during the day. Some days I would miss school, other days I would be so tired I would sleep in class. Mia, Derek, and Matt were becoming worried and asked me what was going on but I just brushed it off and told them it was nothing, but Mia being Mia didn't buy it she decided that she was going to take matters into her own hands and figure out what was up with me. One night when I gone out to deal, Mia followed me to the downtown part of the city. She hid in the shadows, but I found her. She confronted me, asking me what was going on. I couldn't tell her or else Mark could and would hurt her. I went to put my hands in my pocket a crunching sound was made Mia had pulled my hand out the pocket and the little packets of drugs fell out. When she saw it she automatically knew that I wasn't buying, but that I was selling. She put the pieces and figured out that Mark was the one that was making me do this. I begged her not to say anything, I couldn't put her at risk, I cared about her too much to ever do that to her. She said she wasn't gonna say anything and I believed her. Like an idiot I believed my best friend wouldn't do anything, but she did. She did do something. "Aiden said putting his head in his hands.

"The next day in school I was with Derek and Matt when Mia and Mark walked in together. Mark had his arm around Mia's waist, I went to confront them, but when I did Mia looked away not making eye contact and Mark told me that he didn't need me anymore because he had Mia. He had Mia, Emma. She went to him that night and told him to let me go and take her instead. She said she had to do it, that she couldn't take it anymore and told Mark to take her instead of me. Mark accepted her and let me go. He took her into the dangerous world of his and I'm the one to blame. I did this to her, I shouldn't have believed her so easily. I knew Mia would have done something, its Mia after all she will do anything she can to help a person out and to help me out she sold herself to Mark. After that day, Mia completely ignored me and stayed by Mark's side till he graduated and she transferred out to a different school. I tried everything to get her out of that deal, I begged and pleaded but Mark wouldn't let her go. I will never forgive myself for what I did to her. Never." Aiden said picking his head up and looking ahead to the lake.

Aiden looked so broken, the guilt weighed heavy onto his shoulders and his eyes held sadness that I would never be able to understand, but that didn't mean I couldn't comfort him. So I did something that I never thought I would get the chance to do, I threw my arms around Aiden and pulled him into a hug. A hug filled with comfort and care, Aiden must have been shocked because he didn't hug me back till a few seconds later pulling me into his chest. "That's why I don't want to get to close to you Emma, I don't want to pull you in to my messed up world. The fact that every time I see you and talk to you makes me want to get closer to you and I can't have that. But I can't help it, every time I tried to distance myself from you; you always seem to pull me back for some reason. "Aiden said tightening his arms around me. It felt good to be in his arms, to feel his embrace, to at least comfort him when he can't handle the guilt.

"Aiden, I'm not gonna judge you by your past, because to me you didn't do anything wrong. To me, you shouldn't feel guilty, because you didn't ask her to do what she did, she did it because she wanted to. I don't care about your past, I care about the present and Aiden Black your past does not define you. So don't be afraid of losing me to your past because I promise you that you will never have to go through that again." I said looking into his eyes. A flash of an unknown emotion crossed his eyes and he did something that I never thought her would do.

Aiden leaned down and kissed my cheek softly. "Thank you, Emma." He said softly. "Thank you for not judging me." I just gave him a small smile while we sat there in comfortable silence that is until I felt a finger poke my side. I ignored it at first but the poking continued, I looked up and saw Aiden with an innocent look on his face, but I knew too well it was him. I send a glare his way but he smiled cheekily at me, I looked back to the lake when I felt a hand wrapped around my torso and picked me up.

"What the hell?!" I shouted as I was thrown over Aiden shoulder. "Aiden put me down!" I said pounding my fists into his back.

He just chuckled and patted my butt which causes me to blush. "Put you down, eh? Okay, I’ll put you down." I sighed in relief but that was short lived when I was thrown into the lake, I popped my head up from the water flinging my arms around. He's so freaking lucky I can swim!

"Aiden Freaking Black! What the hell dude?!" I yelled at him.

"I had to lighten up the mood somehow." He shrugged his shoulders with an innocent look plastered onto his face. Jerk.

Then an idea came to my mind, I got out of the lake and walk closer to Aiden with a smirk onto my lips. He backed away slowly. "W-what are you doing?" He stammered out.

"Oh, you know, just lightening the mood." I said as I launched myself at him catching Aiden off guard. Aiden fell to the ground with a thud. I grabbed his leg and dragged him towards the lake.

"Emma! Let go!" Aiden shouted clawing at the ground.

"Oh but Aiden I was just lightening mood!" I said innocently as I pulled him into the lake with me by his leg. Ha I got you now Mr. Bad Ass.

Aiden popped up from the water with his hair and clothes soaking wet. Droplets of water dripped from his hair. He glared at me playfully. "Swim swim as fast as you can, little nerd." A with that Aiden launch himself at me splashing water in the process, for the rest of the Aiden and I swam and laughed and had fun. Forgetting everything he told me about his past and helping Aiden forget about his guilt and just being normal teenagers for once. Well as close as normal as we can get. But there was a thought in the back of my mind.

Is there more to Aiden's past then what he was letting on?

~~~

Then next day I woke up with a stuffy nose and a high fever and the same goes for Aiden. We looked like Rudolph the red nose reindeer, but our friends being the awesome people we are made fun of us at first but took care of us later. We all sat in the living room and watched movies and ate junk food like pigs.

We watched the Notebook much to the boys complains, but I swear I saw a three of them tear up toward the end of the movie. Bad boys? More like cry babies.

Aiden seemed more relax and opened up like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders and I was elated that he was finally being himself and I swear if I didn't know any better I would say I was starting to like Aiden even more than before. His smiles were genuine, his hazel eyes sparkle and he just seemed happy.

Sunday, Aiden and I were feeling better so Matt decided to take all of us onto a hike in the forest before we left to go home and Matt being Matt got us lost. Yeah lost, we were lost for two whole hours Aiden and Derek tried to get us out of the forest, but got us to go deeper into it. I swear these guys have no sense of direction. So Amy took over and actually got us out of the forest in less than ten minutes and at that time it was dark out. That's my girl. The guys pouted on the drive home because a girl out showed them. Men I tell you.

Matt dropped Amy home first and she promised to call me later. The Matt dropped me home next, Aiden said that he would walk me to the door so I said bye to the guys and walked with Aiden.

"So I had fun this weekend." I said breaking the silence.

"I did too." Aiden said smiling at me.

"I'm glad I went."

"I'm glad you went too." Aiden said stepping onto the porch and rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "Uh, thanks again for actually listening to me and running away from me because of my past. It means a lot."

I gave him a small smile. "Actually, I would have ran but I would have gotten lost in the forest and probably get attack by a rabid squirrel and die." I teased and he just glared at me playfully. "But seriously, I'm glad you actually trust me enough to tell me your past. So thanks for opening up to me and remember to not let your past define you."

Aiden smiled. "You are one wise nerd."

"Eh, I try." I said nonchalantly.

"There's no need to try, you’re already perfect the way you are." He said moving a strand of my hair behind my ear, which caused me to blush furiously. "Good night, Emma." He said kissing my cheek softly and giving me a small smile before leaving to Matt's truck.

I touched my cheek right before they drove off. "Night Aiden." I said softly.

Is the bad boy becoming soft now?