Sweet Romance13 min read
I Mistook the School Bully for My Best Friend’s Brother — and Everything Changed
ButterPicks10 views
I am Journey Spencer.
"I need you to guard my brother," Alaina said the morning of the game, her plastered leg propped like a small flag. "He’s the eleven. Don't get lost."
"Got it," I promised, rolling the wheelchair toward the court like a very committed messenger. "Eleven. Loudest shouter = him."
We shoved through the crowd, the gym a boiling pot of sneakers and cheers. I had one job: hand a sealed water bottle to a tired boy who had practiced with Alaina's brother all week. One bottle. Non-drama.
Except the world arranged itself differently.
"Eleven!" someone shouted. "Number eleven needs water!"
I parted people with the practiced calm of someone carrying a mission. There, on the bench, was a wide-shouldered kid in white, number eleven on his back. He hunched, elbows on knees, every breath a small storm. Sweat darkened his collar. He looked up.
"Here," I said, holding out the bottle like an offering.
His eyes flickered — wet, like the rim of a glass, like someone had blinked back too much. He let me touch his head.
"Good game," I said, and, stupidly, my hand found — and stayed on — the crown of his hair. I thought of crushed osmanthus, of its sweet, almost silly smell.
He let me. He closed his eyes a second, and when he opened them again he looked straight at me, like a question and a declaration folded together.
Someone's phone camera caught the exact second: my hand in his hair, his head tilted, the light catching a wetness at the corner of his eyes. By halftime the gym had another story.
"Is that — ?" Alaina squealed from behind me, plaster and all.
"That's not my brother," I said immediately, because I am very good at the part where I correct people.
"Then who is he?" Alaina grinned. "Go give him the water again. The screen wants the romantic angle."
"I am not a romantic angle," I said.
"Yes, you are," she teased.
But I was busy. I found my phone buzzing like a trapped insect.
"Who is this?" I read aloud, eyes flicking.
"That's Benedict Rivera," a message said.
Benedict Rivera. The name made a different kind of noise in my head. Benedict was the kind of rumor — tall, chain-clad, cigarettes in cheek, the name that came with caution tape. He was "the bully." He was "the guy who broke two ribs last season." He was "Don’t go near him, for your sake."
"Oh no," I said.
"Too late," Alaina waved. "You were catapulted into fame. Someone already posted the photo to the confession wall."
"You're kidding."
"Open the wall."
I opened the post. There was the photo, and under it, the comments stacking like rapid-fire.
"OMG, is that River's look? My heart."
"Who is she? Sister? Girlfriend? Save me."
"It’s the perfect college-romcom."
I slammed the phone on my lap. "This is a disaster."
"Accept his friend request," Alaina said with a grin I wanted to punch. "Or deny it and watch the internet combust."
"Do not decide my life for me," I muttered.
Benedict sent a friend request five minutes later. A simple line: "Sister, are you okay? Send me the photo."
"Send it," Alaina nudged. "Get him to calm down. If he asks for dinner, make him promise not to break anything."
I tapped Accept and then regretted all my life choices. Fifty messages arrived in the next hour, most in the form of memes and speculation. And then a private message from Benedict: "We won. Eat with me?"
"Why would I—"
"He sounds less like a trap," Alaina said. "Go. See what’s what."
I went because my friend had twisted her plastered leg into something dangerously convincing. I went because I had already handed water to a man who had let me touch his hair. I went because I wanted the rumor to be more interesting than the truth.
At the food court Benedict stood like a statue who had learned to soften. He wore the plainest coat for someone everyone whispered about: dark, long, with lines like it had been cut for him. He had a cigarette stub in his fingers. He held no trophies. He ordered pork skewers and dropped a soy sauce stain on the table like an artistic choice.
"You must be the infamous sister," he said, and his voice wasn't loud. "You scared me handing the water to me."
"I—" I looked at him. "I was trying to hand it to someone else."
"You didn't," he said gently, like a teacher repairing a broken pen. "But you did come."
I laughed. "Real life is narrowly different from disaster films."
"Do you like the smoke?" he asked suddenly, coughing like someone surprised by his own cough. "I should quit. For you."
"Don't do things for me," I said.
"I don't do anything without a good reason," he answered. "Except smoke. And then I do that for my teeth."
"Smooth," I said.
"You haven't told me your name," he said.
"Journey."
"Journey." He said it like a map. "That's a pretty name."
"You really have a way of disarming people," I muttered.
"Or maybe I just like hydroponics," he said, and I blinked.
He explained later that "HLW" on jerseys meant nothing to him, that the confusion had been his fault and the crowd's. He told me, slow and simple, about the nights he practiced until his knees felt like broken hymnals. He told me he couldn't shake some of the things he'd done in the smaller years, and that sometimes the only thing that kept him honest was someone who watched. He called me "sister" and I let him because it felt safe until it didn't.
"Why send me money?" I asked the night I posted the joke about my eyesight: "My eyesight's a mess, twenty thousand if you can find me."
"Twenty?" Benedict typed, a little bubble of text with a colon in front.
Then my phone buzzed. "Transfer received: 80,000," read the small green letters. I thought the world had tilted.
"I sent back the eight thousand," Colin's message said. "Return policy applies."
I sat up. "What?"
Two transfers: one from Colin, one from Benedict. My phone hummed like it wanted to be watched.
"I didn't ask for money," I told the ceiling.
"Then you were bait," Alaina said cheerfully. "Welcome to modern romance."
Colin had actually transferred eighty thousand. Benedict, too. How did two men I barely knew think I needed such a thing? Benedict messaged: "Come to my next game. 3 p.m. Friday. I'll see you there, Journey."
"I will try," I wrote, which meant: I might be scared, I might be intrigued, I might be very human.
"Don't be late," Benedict wrote.
At the next game the gym seemed smaller. The other school played like a machine. Colin — Alaina's brother — played with the calm of someone who had chosen silence as a career. Benedict’s team rolled like thunder.
I clapped until my hands burned. He looked up every time someone scored. The way he scanned the crowd made me feel strangely seen, like a page someone checked for commas.
"He's looking again," Alaina hissed. "He always checks after a slam."
"This is getting weird," I muttered.
A stray ball sailed and smacked me in the face. I tumbled, and Benedict caught my wrist. "Careful," he said.
"Thanks."
He stayed after the game. "Can I walk you back?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I can get—"
"Then let me walk you," he said again, like it was obvious.
We walked under a sky the rare soft white of approaching winter. "Do you have a vote?" he asked. "Is this me versus the world in your head?"
"You are violent sometimes," I said.
"You watch too many shows."
"But you broke someone's ribs."
"It was unfair," he said. "And then it was my fault. I know that. I didn't mean it to go that far."
We paused. "Why are you doing this?" I asked.
"Because you showed up at a game," he said. "Because one hand on my head told me someone was on my side."
"That's awfully simple," I said.
"Then I'll be awfully simple," he said, and he smiled like an apology. "I like being that for you."
Weeks spun. He showed up at the lab doors, half-breathless, with a thermos. "For you," he said. "It's chai with cinnamon. For brain health."
"Thank you," I said, and then, unable to help myself, I asked, "Do you always carry a chain?"
"No," he said. "Only when I'm pretending to be an icon."
"You are an icon in a very dangerous museum," I said.
"Good," he said, "I like that museum."
We had the small moments, the safe, ridiculous ones: him covering my shoulders when air conditioning turned into a public disaster; me stealing a bite of his sandwich and being sternly lectured; him getting jealous over nothing — and being slightly embarrassed when confronted. He was not a perfect man. He was not a villain in the pictures everyone painted him to be. He was earnest whenever he was near me, and earnestness is dangerous.
"Why was that girl posting my picture?" I asked one evening, waving my phone.
"Lisa Rodrigues?" Benedict said. He frowned. "She’s one of those people who likes to stir things up."
"She's the one who reposted the picture to the confession wall," I said. "She wrote things."
Benedict's jaw tightened. "She's got followers. Likes. She lures attention. If she wanted you to be the trending topic, she could have paid for a post."
"Paid?" I laughed, but it sounded small.
He put his palm over mine. "Let her."
Let her. Easy words in a soft voice. Except Lisa did not let things be.
It was the week of my birthday when the trouble started. A rumor, engineered and precise, suggested that I had been using Benedict for clout. A video of me handing Benedict a bottle — the same innocent, awkward moment — was edited with commentary. The comment thread thickened like storm clouds.
I tried to ignore it. I tried to keep lab work and deadlines and the kindness of small people around me as protective lanolin. Benedict showed up more: a text when I had a quiz, a coffee on a rainy afternoon, a joke in the middle of my lecture. He anchored.
But rumor is like an oil spill. It spreads, and someone always slips.
"She’s playing the game," Lisa said loudly at lunch the day the post hit a million views. She wasn't supposed to be where she was, but she arrived like a force of nature, a girl who always smelled like glossy pages and the confidence of followers. She pointed her phone at me.
"What—" I began.
"You played him," she announced, loud as a bell. "You got the post, and now he's following you? How perfect." She looked at Benedict like she was appraising a purchase she had never been offered. "Everyone, look at how easy it is."
People laughed. Some cheered the spectacle of someone falling. Benedict's face darkened. His hand tightened on the bottle in front of him.
"People, stop," Benedict said, voice low. "This is stupid."
Lisa grabbed the mic the student council put on the table for announcements. "We have influencers among us," she said. "We should be careful who we follow. Fame needs hygiene."
"That's not—" I started.
"Let her speak," Lisa said. "I have receipts."
She pulled up a thread, a chat history, edited and cropped. She narrated a story: that I had texted and asked for likes, that I had encouraged the post, that Benedict's money had been used to buy my silence. Her voice was metronomic. People around us took out their phones and filmed the spectacle. Laughter rippled.
Benedict's jaw moved. He had the worst kind of anger: the one that stays calm until it can't. He stood.
"Is that true?" he asked me softly, but the microphone made echoes.
"It’s not," I said. "She — she doctored things."
"Proof?" Lisa demanded, arms folded like a judge.
I opened the messaging app. "Those messages are missing context," I said. "People, please."
It didn't matter. The crowd loved a drama with a villain. They loved an accusation with a body count.
But Benedict, for all his public darkness, had a streak that flared differently when wrongs were blatant. He took a breath and then he did something no one expected.
"Benedict, don't make it worse," I whispered.
"I want the truth out," he said. "If she’s chosen to fake this for likes, then do you want to let her keep getting rich on lies?"
He pointed the finger not at me, but at Lisa. "Open your wallet," he said. "Let everyone see who benefits."
A hush hung like a wet blanket. Lisa scoffed. "What is he—"
"Scan me," Benedict said. He pulled out his phone. "I will publicly transfer the money I received as part of this post's deal. If she profited from faking an exchange, the money trace will show it."
"You can't prove anything," Lisa said. "You can't..."
"Watch me," Benedict said.
He clicked, and his screen filled with transaction histories. He did this deliberately, slowly. The room's phones leaned in.
"Here," he said. "My transfers. Nothing was paid for the post in question. In fact, most of the money I was sent was for my injured knee last month."
"That's not—" Lisa stammered.
"Who does your sponsorship go to?" Benedict asked. "Open your wallet."
Lisa realized, too late, that Benedict's plan had a step. He walked close, prying open her social profile and showing the crowd the verified brand deals on her account. He scrolled until the name appeared — a small agency, a chain of content creators, a payment that matched the timings Lisa had boasted of. The crowd swallowed.
"You made money when you sold the narrative," Benedict said, voice quiet and precise. "You edited conversations. You staged the angles. You made me the villain for clicks."
Gasps spread like an accordion being played badly. People shifted. Some pulled out their own receipts; a few had been messaging about Lisa's staged posts and were ready to spill.
Benedict kept going. "If you have proof I've paid anyone to silence you — show it now. If not, you should apologize."
Lisa's face changed. It went through stages: surprise, irritation, denial, and then the first real fear I'd ever seen on her. The followers who liked her posts on purpose began to look like sharks removed from a feeding frenzy.
"You're lying," she said, voice high. "You can't—"
He turned his phone to show the public ledger. "I can. I did not pay her. I did not buy the post. You staged this. You uploaded that edited clip."
"What do you want?" Lisa spat. Her composure cracked. For the first time, I saw the person behind the mask: a girl with callouses on her thumbs from tapping for engagement, hollow eyes. Her bravado deflated like a punctured balloon.
"I want her to tell the truth," Benedict said. "Publicly."
"Publicly? In front of everyone?" Lisa's voice became small.
"Yes," he said. "Because you've been profiting off ruining people. Admit you faked it and return the money you got from this lie. Then apologize to Journey."
Silence pressed on us. Camera lenses pointed like accusing fingers. Someone started recording; someone else called campus security.
Lisa's first reaction was to laugh. "You expect me to do this in front of everyone? You can't possibly—"
"Benedict," I said softly.
He nodded to me. "If she won't admit it, ask her to leave the campus and stop her account. Let the university decide."
"You're—" she sputtered.
And then, as if to complete the public unmasking in old theater style, her PR agent — yes, a PR agent — walked in, hands up, cheeks flushed. He was a student assistant, a boy she'd roped into the charade with promises of "going viral."
"You staged it," he said. "I handled some of the exchanges. She told me to amplify the post."
There was a staggered silence. People looked at him, then at Lisa. The agent's face showed no heroism. He just said: "I didn't want to, but she paid me with the influence. I feel awful."
"That's better," Benedict said. "Now tell everyone what you did."
The agent spoke, the confession mechanical and gradually real. He named platforms, sums, the promotional thread. People around us stepped closer. There were shouts, then whispers, then the metallic clink of phone cameras capturing every syllable.
Lisa went through that horrible arc I had seen before: denial, protest, anger, bargaining. "You don't understand," she cried. "I needed the growth. I need the numbers. I—"
The crowd's mood shifted. The people who had cheered for scandal now cheered for an exposure. Some clapped Benedict on the shoulder; some muttered "Finally." Others recorded Lisa's humiliation like a collectible badge.
She dropped to her knees when the dean herself walked up, having been called by a fuss of people who had seen the commotion. The dean's expression was book-quiet. She asked Lisa questions, simple ones, which required truth.
"Is it true?" the dean asked.
Lisa looked up, face blown and exhausted. She trembled. No more posturing. She whispered, "Yes."
"Why?" the dean asked.
"Because I wanted followers," Lisa said. "Because everyone does it and no one stops it. Because I didn't think how it hurt real people."
The crowd hissed. Her followers' comments turned suddenly cold, then cruel. There was a rustle of people moving away from her, like a tide pulling back.
They escorted her out of the dining hall. Students filmed. Someone shouted, "Shame!" — and then the shame was everywhere. People muttered about "paid lies," "influencer scams," "fake rage." Somewhere near the back, a man who'd been friendly to Lisa earlier stopped mid-cheer and walked away, shaking his head.
Lisa's public unraveling was not a theatrical fall; it was an unraveling thread, thin and honest, and everyone watched the stitches come undone. She went from arrogant to pleading to empty, finally offering a small, trembling apology.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry, Journey."
The apology didn't fix everything. The dean sent a university notice: Lisa Rodrigues' account would be reviewed, disciplinary action applied if necessary, and she would be banned from posting university-affiliated content pending investigation. The dean hoped it would be a deterrent, a boundary that said you could not profit off maliciousness under the college's watch.
When the dust settled, people still talked, but the words turned. They admired — quietly, stubbornly — Benedict for putting up the truth. They admired the agent for speaking up. They admired me for not breaking. And Lisa? She disappeared from the group chats I passed, like a person who had been unfollowed in life.
"It felt like being on stage," Benedict said later, in the quiet after the storm. "But not the fun kind."
"You handled it well," I told him.
"You handled it well, too," he said. "You didn't explode."
"I did inside," I admitted.
"And yet here we are." He reached for my hand. "Do you think you'll be okay?"
"I hope so," I said.
After that, things simplified. Benedict did not become a saint overnight. He could still be rough around the edges, and sometimes people still whispered. But each time a rumor veered toward cruelty, he'd meet it like a shield. He texted me the simplest things — "Are you fed?" "Do you need a ride?" — small ligatures that held truth more than spectacle.
We traveled home together for Mid-Autumn. He bought two train tickets out of some kindness I didn't ask for, saying, "The world is a long line. Let's not pass each other by."
On my birthday he built a snowman no taller than my knee and hid a small box in it. When I took it out, I found a row of little perfumes, one labeled "Morning After" in handwriting I recognized: Benedict’s, neat and awkward and honest.
"Which one will you use?" he asked.
"Morning After seems brave," I said.
He smiled. "Then we begin after."
"Begin what?" I asked.
"Maybe nothing. Maybe everything."
We laughed. People clapped. The snowmen melted. The perfumes lingered like a private theater of scent.
Months later, when I looked back at that confession wall photo, when I could run my fingers over the original pixels and feel nothing but a small, steady warmth, I thought: a single wrong-water moment had become the hinge of a lot of small truths.
"You ever regret handing that bottle?" I asked Benedict once, half-teasing.
He shrugged. "Not for the way the story turned out. For the way I looked before, maybe."
"And for breaking ribs?"
His face closed for a single beat. "I broke things. I learned the cost. If someone gets hurt, you owe them the truth."
We held each other in the quiet, a small truce in a world of noise. The snow had left a circle of cold on the bench where we'd sat. The small perfumes sat inside my drawer, waiting, like a list of tiny futures. I kept one on my desk: "Morning After." Whenever the world felt loud, I'd open it and remember a simple night: a boy with a chain and cigarettes, a girl with plaster on her leg, a mistaken water bottle, a photo that exploded, a girl who got called out for lies, and a warm hand on the crown of a head.
In the end, I learned something that was less about drama and more about the slow work of being seen: small mercies matter. A hand, steady. A voice, clear. A post that can sting, and a person who decides to answer it with proof — not with more lies.
We kept our photos. We kept our promises, as small as they were. Sometimes he would whisper, "You're my lucky star," and I would roll my eyes and accept it.
And when the winter light hit just right, the bottle cap of the water I once held shone like a tiny coin. I kept it in a pocket for a while, then slipped it into a drawer with the "Morning After" perfume, because some objects — like some people — ask to be remembered.
The End
— Thank you for reading —