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Dylan’s pretty sure he has Faith figured out.
It took a while, but after spending so much time with someone, it’s difficult to not know everything about them. When he had finally gotten the courage to ask her out, he could hardly believe she said yes. To dating him. Faith. Wonderful, beautiful, talented Faith.
For the first month it was perfect. Dylan hadn’t really dated before Faith, and the way his friends dated was gross and he didn’t like to think about it for too long. With Faith, he’d be different than them. And he is.
After the first month, though, things got difficult. Faith started being mean. Not to him, never to him, but she was nasty. She insulted people and called them names and Dylan was taught to never be mean to anyone. When he brought this up to her she snapped and told him that if he was so fed up with how she was, then maybe they should break up. But Dylan didn’t want to break up. He liked her. He still does.
So he started to split Faith into two separate people in his mind. It’d be easier to deal that way.
There’s School Faith and Home Faith. School Faith rambles and is snotty and bites her lip and has enough confidence to bottle some of it up and sell it. Home Faith hardly talks and plays with her hair and thinks and thinks and thinks.
Every Faith is mean and thinks horrible things, but sometimes he can make her laugh and she smiles and then maybe listening to horrible things is worth it.
She doesn't need an outside conscience. She needs someone to talk at. She needs someone who listens. She needs someone who’s family isn’t horrible. She needs safety.
She needs him.
It’s nice to be needed.
Dylan’s standing in the hallway by Faith’s locker while she rambles about whatever happened the period before. Before Faith, he really had no clue that so many things could happen in a 45 minute time frame, but now he’s well versed in the intricacies of the cheer captain and all the moving parts that goes with it.
Dylan can name all of School Faith’s friends and their boyfriends and what their most recent transgression against her was. And though Pride is a sin, he allows himself to feel a bit proud about it.
“And apparently Abby’s all friendly with Bailey now even though she knows our history.”
Dylan doesn’t know when the whole Bailey drama started, but it’s Faith’s favorite subject to talk about. He personally doesn’t have any issues with Bailey. She seems polite enough and hasn’t done anything wrong to him (or to Faith that Faith didn’t provoke out of her) so he doesn’t mind. But for the purposes of this conversation with Faith, he has to agree.
“Why would she even do that?”
“Right? It’s like she’s braindead or something I swear…”
And Dylan doesn’t mean to tune School Faith out, but it happens because he spots Chad talking to none other than Nina Thompson.
She’s wearing a skirt, and Dylan doesn’t think he’s seen her wear one before. It looks nice. It completes her ‘prep whore’ look, as School Faith described it once.
“...and are you even listening?” Faith snips, shifting her weight from side to side.
“Sort of. Did you see Nina’s skirt?” he asks, attempting to shift attention from the fact that he was not listening.
Faith makes an offended noise, “you’re looking at Nina right now?” She looks around until she spots Nina and Chad further down the hallway. “Oh, God.” Dylan guesses that Faith watching means that he’s allowed to watch too. It must be a confrontation, especially going by the way the pair is standing.
“She’s gotta be wearing a push up bra because her boobs did not look that good yesterday.”
“Wh- Faith-” Dylan sputters.
“I didn’t know she hangs out with Chad?” she asks before he has time to really think about her other statement.
Dylan leans back on the lockers as the pair down the hall continue to argue, “I think she does his homework.”
“Oh of course. Bitch,” Faith adds the ‘bitch’ after a moment, like she forgot to make her sentence mean and just couldn’t deal with it.
“Are you fucking threatening me?” Chad shouts, jabbing his finger to push at Nina. Nina stands perfectly still. Something shifts in Dylan’s chest and he feels like he has to do something. He should help. Faith is saying something but he can’t hear it but it’s probably something mean and why is she always mean doesn’t she see something happening.
“…is a fucking idiot?”
“You bitch-”
Before he can stop himself, Dylan is moving to go break them up. He needs to diffuse the situation before someone gets hurt. A cold hand grips at his wrist and he turns around to see Faith looking at the pair while holding him back.
“Down, boy. She’s already got a hero, it looks like.”
Dylan watches as Jackson struts up from behind Nina to take control of the situation. He feels relief and guilt flood him simultaneously. Nina’s okay but he should’ve stepped in sooner before Jackson had to. Jackson helped. Jackson. Not him.
Faith and Dylan watch the rest of the encounter, neither of them pretending not to. They watch Chad give Nina money and then Nina and Jackson walk off together.
“I didn’t know Jackson was such a knight in shining armor,” Faith says, the couple turning to face each other again now that there’s no spectacle to watch.
“He’s a jackass,” Dylan says before he has time to think about it. The moment the words pass his lips he feels guilty. He’s not mean. Jackson isn’t a jackass, not really. But then Faith smiles at him, really smiles at him and then he doesn’t know what to do.