Sweet Romance12 min read
He Called Me "Little Crybaby" — and Kept Me Safe
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I never thought a single exam season could change the map of my small life so completely.
"It’s random seating today," the invigilator announced. "Draw your seats."
I pulled my ticket like the rest of the class and ended up in the middle of the room, surrounded by strangers, except for one empty chair on my left.
"Maybe it's the universe," I muttered.
Someone laughed softly beside me.
"You're looking the wrong way," he said.
I looked up and bumped straight into eyes that had a habit of looking like they were made of stars. Salvador Blanchard smiled so easily that for a second I forgot I was supposed to be nervous.
"Do you want my sheet?" he asked, as if it were the simplest thing in the world to offer the answers of the top student.
"I—" I mouthed thank-you without sound and felt my face heat up.
He slid his paper toward me like it weighed nothing.
"You're welcome," he said, and then returned to his exam like a king who had given away a crown for a laugh.
Halfway through the morning, he got up. "Bathroom," he whispered.
When he came back, he stopped in front of my desk, casting his shadow over me.
"Did you copy everything?" he asked, voice low.
I nodded, too embarrassed to speak.
"Did you get our papers mixed up? We have different versions." His tone was patient. The way he looked at me made me believe he cared about versions of exams and also about the small spike of panic in me.
I blinked. "I think—"
"Let me see."
He leaned over, and I realized then that even with a head full of numbers, his handwriting was methodical, almost neat. He pointed at one answer, then another. "You took A as B. That's why you got those wrong."
My heart sank. I had been sitting on the edge of the class for months, barely holding my place. I had been used to botching tests, to always being "half a step behind." Now I had made a stupid mistake and Salvador had noticed.
After the second exam, a paper ball sailed behind my head like a lazy comet. It split halfway and a teacher in heels snatched it from my hand and held it up like evidence.
"Cheating, Miss Santos. Zero for this exam."
I tried to protest. "It wasn't mine. I didn't—"
The teacher pushed me out before I could finish. "Outside. Now."
I was shoved into the hallway like I had done something dirty. I sat on the steps and cried. The breath came and went in short, shallow bursts. All my plans felt erased: my tiny comforts—the cracked pen in my pencil case, the ways I tried to memorize English, the nights I stayed up with practice problems—suddenly seemed worthless.
"You okay?"
He sat beside me without asking, like he'd always been allowed to sit there. Salvador's presence drew a thin, ridiculous comfort over me.
"I don't deserve this," I sniffed.
He reached for a sleeve and wiped my face with uncommon tenderness. "I can sit with you. I can be your punishment buddy."
"Don't call me that," I said.
"Little crybaby," he corrected, and rubbed my head. "You wear the name well."
"Stop," I said, half-hitting, half-smiling.
He grinned. "Good. Then I win."
The next year, the school shuffled classes according to last term's grades. I expected to be dumped right back at the bottom, in the same safe, shameful place.
When I opened the list for class sixteen, my heart plummeted and then stopped. Salvador Blanchard's name was there too.
"He shouldn't be here," Duncan Emerson said loud enough for me to hear. He leaned over and whispered, "He handed in five blank answer sheets on the math paper."
"I told you," Duncan continued, enjoying the gossip. "He only bothered with one math sheet and left the others blank. What a show."
I stared at Salvador across the classroom as he drifted into our row. He moved with a lazy confidence that annoyed me. He picked a spot next to me, unbothered by the nearby school bully, Ike Avila, who chose to sit near me just to show off.
"Move over," Ike barked when Salvador's foot nudged his desk.
Salvador's voice was flat, like a blade wrapped in silk. "Find your own seat."
The bully flinched. The moment felt like a small miracle—my chest loosened. Salvador sat down beside me, and for reasons I couldn't explain, the room felt warmer.
"Why are you in this class?" I asked later, when we were alone by the lockers.
"I got in trouble," he said simply. "Left some pages blank on purpose."
"Why?"
He looked at me like the question itself was very small. "Because sometimes the world needs to be reminded it's not always fair. But I also don't like seeing unfair things done to people."
"What do you mean?"
He shrugged. "I saw something today. On the field. Shouldn't be happening. Someone shouldn't be taking pictures."
"What? Who?"
He only said, "Not cool. I fixed it."
After class that day, I saw what he'd done.
There she was—Brooke Clemons—still the queen of everything art-related. She always had the perfect posture, the perfect hair, and a circle of followers who magnified her every small move. She was whispering, laughing, and the whole dynamic made my stomach twist.
When I tried to slip by, a rough voice blocked me. "Stay right there."
I looked up at Ike Avila and then at Salvador, who was two steps behind me, arms crossed. Ike and two of his cronies, Abel Reed and Colin Gutierrez, were enjoying a power trip.
"Why do you keep sticking with her?" someone in the group sneered.
"Because she knows how to make things happen," Brooke replied from behind them, silk-sweet as always.
They shoved me into the gym storeroom, locked the door, and for a long time I wondered if anyone would remember I existed. I felt small and silly for being scared, for letting them make me feel worthless. I wanted to vanish.
Then Salvador burst through the door, shoving the lock away like it was a child's toy. He grabbed me and hauled me out, all chompy jokes and flat anger. "You okay, little crybaby?"
I was, and I wasn't. He was everything I had wanted and feared all at once.
When the drama around class sixteen escalated—the missing class fee, the smear of blame that fell on me—Salvador didn't hesitate.
"She didn't do it," he said first, before anyone else had the chance to decide her fate. "She sat at her desk the whole morning. Who saw her move?"
"What? Why should we believe you?" Brooke's friend Estefania Cortez asked, scoffing.
"Because I saw the real story," Salvador said. "And because I'm done watching people get eaten up by rumors."
He called a class meeting. He asked the girls who had accused me to open their bags. Brooke's friend protested, but Salvador didn't back down.
"Either we all prove our innocence," he said, "or we stop ruining someone's life with stories."
Brooke laughed. "That's ridiculous."
"Is it?" Salvador asked. He picked up the bag the accusing girl had clutched. "Open it."
Hands trembled as the zipper split. Out tumbled glossy prints and a small, secret collection—comics with images and themes older than our age, hidden behind schoolbooks.
"Why would you bring this to school?" Salvador said softly, then spoke louder: "If you're accusing someone of theft, you better be ready to clear yourself."
The room suddenly quieted. Some kids whispered that this was a prank. Some began filming on their phones. The girl in the center of it all flung herself on the floor, crying and flustered.
"How dare you—" Brooke started, but her voice faltered.
Salvador wasn't done. He bent and picked up one of the comics, flipped through, and read a scant paragraph aloud—loud enough so the teachers peering in from the doorway could hear.
"Is this what you think is okay to smuggle into class? While accusing someone else of theft?" he demanded.
The watching crowd reacted in a dozen ways: laughter, disgust, a few who whispered approval. Someone clapped; a phone light blinked.
"Now," Salvador said, "apologize. Right now."
Brooke's face leaned pale, a kind of terrible color like a drained bruise. Around her, her followers shifted, some backing away. Estefania's mouth worked. She sputtered, then blurted, "It was just for fun."
"For fun?" Salvador repeated. He drew in a breath. "You made someone’s life a public joke."
Brooke's friend tried to defend her. "It's private. This is bullying."
"Then don't turn your private sins into public weapons," Salvador snapped. "You want to act like you're above everyone else, make sure you can live above the truth."
Teachers arrived. The class monitor, Katelynn Johnston, stood open-mouthed. The principal's hand hovered near the door, phone to his ear.
Brooke's followers began recording. "I didn't expect this," one whispered. "She looked so cool. Now—"
A group of kids started shouting, "Apologize!" Others shouted, "Expel her!" The noise swelled like a tide.
Brooke's eyes darted to the exits. Her composure cracked. "I—" she tried.
"I called the counselor," Salvador said softly. "We'll have a meeting. But first, a front-of-class apology. Tell her you are sorry, for accusing her. Tell the whole class."
Brooke looked at me and then away, tears streaking mascara. She opened her mouth, closed it, then finally said, "I'm...sorry."
The "sorry" sounded like glass that wouldn't fit back into the window. It didn't stop us from seeing what had happened. Cameras kept flashing. The collective reaction shifted from excitement to contempt. Several students walked away from Brooke, who stood small and ashamed.
This was the first punishment.
But the school couldn't stop there. There had been someone worse: Clifford Butler—the boy who rumored and followed, who had once relentlessly pursued me a year earlier and whose mother was my chemistry teacher. He had used his mother's influence to make my life harder before. He had called me names. He had shoved me when he thought no one watched.
I knew we couldn't let him slip away.
The next morning Salvador walked into the assembly with a thin manila envelope and a calm face. "I have something to show," he told the principal. "May I?"
"You may," the principal said, more curious than he intended to be.
Salvador took the microphone and faced the whole school. "There are stories we tell to hurt people," he began. "And there are secrets we hide that do the same. I don't like secrets that are used as weapons."
He placed the envelope on the stage and pulled out a small reel of photos—photos of Clifford smoking behind the school's East gate, the date stamp clear, the cigarette glowing in the dim light. He'd not only captured the photos—he'd printed them, labeled them, and had them ready.
Clifford's mother, my chemistry teacher, was in the first row, cheeks white as paper.
"What is this?" she hissed.
"Evidence," Salvador said. "He was shirking the school's rules, and worse—someone used his connections to punish a classmate unfairly. If we choose justice, we must accept all facts."
The principal's face drained. The assembly grew a low hum, then crescendoed.
"Is this true?" the principal asked Clifford.
Clifford's bravado cracked. "I—it's not—"
"Not, what?" Salvador asked. "Not true that you smoke? Not true that you were behind the school at 7 a.m.?"
Clifford stammered. A teacher rose, stern. "Clifford Butler, this behavior is unacceptable. You will meet with counselor and parents after school. As for the charges against Ms. Santos—we will reopen the investigation."
In front of everyone, the chemistry teacher stood up and could not find a way to cover her face. She had been so ready to make my life smaller that seeing her son on a printed page in assembly made the world tilt.
"How do you plead?" the principal asked her quietly later.
Her face crumpled. "I—" she started, and then said, "I thought—he's a good boy. I didn't expect—"
"You used your position to make accusations," the principal said. "That is not how educators act."
There was a meeting with the parents in the office. Witnesses. Phone recordings. The counselor called it "a lapse of professionalism." The teacher was put on notice, required to write a full apology and to attend retraining. Her name was in every mouth, whispered and astonished. The students' texts pinged all night. The chemistry teacher lost the unquestioned authority she'd used to punish me.
Clifford faced detention and a probationary period. He was refrained from school leadership and from his so-called influence. He had to write a letter of apology in front of his classmates, and he crumpled under the weight of a truth that came back to him.
That public unravelling of both Brooke and Clifford took minutes in time, but it unspooled months of damage. For the first time, people were watching how much power they could wield and how easily they could harm.
"You're innocent," Salvador said quietly to me after the assembly, as the crowd began peeling away. "But more than that, you're stronger than you think."
It felt like someone had pulled me up out of a dark pool and set me on a rock in the sun. My chest felt lighter, not because they punished those who hurt me, but because someone had chosen to stand and say the truth loudly.
After that, things changed in slow, careful ways.
Salvador and I both got shoved into the strange intimacy of being allies. He kept showing up in the most wonderful ways.
"You're crying again," he teased one night as I practiced in an empty auditorium beside the grand piano his family lent to our school.
"I had a teacher who told half the school that my mistakes made me worthless," I said.
"Sounds dramatic," he said, but his hand found mine, and he squeezed like a promise.
He began to sit with me during study periods, folding his notes into shapes that suddenly made sense. If I couldn't parse a physics concept, he would explain it until my stubborn brain agreed to listen. He would reach across a desk and rest a hand on my shoulder, steady and warm.
One afternoon, while we were both backstage before the school celebration, he helped me into that ridiculous green tree costume for the play. He tightened the zipper and then, without asking, slipped a thumb under my chin and made me look at him.
"You look ridiculous," he said seriously. "And beautiful."
"Thanks," I said, embarrassed.
"But also," he added, "I remember you the first time I saw you. You cried then too. You cried in front of the piano and it...didn't suit you."
"You're awful," I replied.
"Maybe," he shrugged, but there was heat behind his smile. "Maybe I'm the kind of awful you can keep."
We rehearsed together for the play and for exams and for life after small survivals. He was honest, which felt dangerous. He said things like, "If you need me to, I'll stay behind with you in the library until midnight."
"And your competitions?" I asked. He had been practicing for physics contests for years; some of them took him away to far cities and long days.
He looked at me with those same star-made eyes. "If you need me, I can be your distraction from the world. If you leave for good universities or you stay, I promise not to make you smaller."
"You talk like you're writing a pledge," I said.
"I talk like someone who has decided you matter."
We had our flares and storms. We had nights where he would play the piano for me in an empty hall and nights where I sat across from him at a dingy stall and he taught me to stop fearing mistakes.
"I'll help you," he said one late study night, handing me a physics sheet with his tiny notes and impatient arrows. "But you can't tell me you won't ever mess up again. You will. You'll be human."
"Deal," I said.
He was like summer lightning—bright, shocking, impossible to ignore. He made small rebellions look like acts of courage.
A year after the assembly, during our senior farewell, he took my hand on the stage and didn't let go when we took that last bow. There were photos and cell phones and the crowd. The curtain came down. The green costume hung on my chair and the piano echoed in the empty hall like a minor chord that somehow finished all the sentences.
We sat on the edge of the stage and watched the sunset paint the auditorium in a soft orange.
"Remember this," he said.
"Remember what?"
"That you were never really small. You were just invisible to some eyes. Not to mine."
"You always make speeches."
"And you always make sure I'm ridiculous enough to keep loving," he said and leaned his forehead against mine.
That night, after the noise faded and the lights went dim, he squeezed my hand and said, "If one day you're drowning in tests and they call you a crybaby, come find me. I'll be in the hallway. I'll always be in the hallway."
"I won't always be lost," I told him.
"No," he said. "You'll be my proof."
There were many small moments that made me feel like my life was stitched together with better threads: him rubbing the tear from under my eye before an exam, him teaching me how to make a small "viewfinder" with my fingers so I could see the board clearly, him tightening the bow on the dumb green costume and whispering, "You make trees look alive."
"You're ridiculous," I told him once.
"Yes," he answered. "But useful."
When the final bell rang and our class scattered like dandelion seeds, I kept a small memory for myself: the rustle of a green costume, the "little crybaby" nickname that had become a claim—my claim—and the faint echo of piano keys that always sounded like him clearing space for me.
We didn't need a grand promise. We had the small gestures: a hand on my shoulder, a note in the margin of my math practice, the way he would stand between me and the crowd when needed. That was enough.
The school changed in small ways too. Brooke learned to own her mistakes. Clifford had to rebuild trust. The chemistry teacher never again used her title as a weapon. I still had nights of doubt, but fewer and easier to manage.
Years later, whenever I saw someone being wrung out by rumors, my hand instinctively went to their shoulder, awkward and clumsy like a child's but true. It felt like paying forward the small mercy Salvador had given me.
"Do you remember the green costume?" I asked him one evening, when we sat on a bridge watching the river swallow the night lights.
He smiled. "You looked like a proper tree."
"Thank you," I said.
He leaned forward and kissed the corner of my mouth, then laughed. "You're welcome, little crybaby."
I laughed too, the sound light as a bell, because whatever else happened, whatever high stakes and messy mistakes, I had a person who would always close the distance when thunder threatened.
And sometimes, the kind of safety you need is a pair of warm, borrowed hands that make the dark edges of the day seem smaller and manageable.
The End
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