Walking Away

Goldfish Don't Blush

Raven

"So you're telling me that you hate monkeys." Kenny stated.

"What? No! I don't hate monkeys. I love monkeys." I disagreed. "But that doesn't mean I want to dress up like a monkey."

"What about a donkey?" Mark asked. "You could walk on all fours and everything."

"No. That actually sounds worse than being a monkey." I answered.

"So now you think the monkey idea could work." Kenny tried.

"No, now I think you need a reality check." I threw my pencil at him. "Why are we even talking about this? Halloween isn't coming anytime soon."

"Ow! Jonah, control your howler monkey! She's abusing me!" Kenny covered his face with his arms.

"You - you little- ugh!" I took Mark's pencil, throwing that one, too.

"Hey!" Mark protested. "I was copying with that!"

"Yeah, stop stealing, Raven." Kenny stuck his tongue out while I glared. He laughed. "I think we've been a bad influence. What do you think, Mark?"

Mark nodded emphatically. "Something wicked this way lives." I turned my glare to him.

"Ah! It burns!" He covered his eyes, turning away. "Please, Jonah, make it stop!"

"What?" Johnathan asked. He sounded lost.

Kenny frowned. "Dude, where have you been for the past ten minutes? The lights are on, but the doorbell's broken."

Johnathan blinked a couple times. "I'm here. Just focused on the reading for this weekend."

Mark leaned over the table for a second, trying to see Johnathan's textbook. "Don't you read at like, a million miles per hour?"

Kenny and I both turned to look at him.

"What did you say?" I asked, laughing.

Kenny shook his head. "It's words per minute, and yeah, he does. I thought you'd be done by now."

Johnathan shrugged. "There's a lot to go over."

I glanced over, noting that his book was still open to the chapter introduction. Something's up.

Johnathan looked down and seemed to realize the same thing, closing it. "I've got to go." He stood up, sliding the textbook in his bag before addressing us again. "See you later?"

I nodded, and Kenny and Mark gave a short chorus of 'yeah's. I waited until he was out of earshot before turning to Kenny expectantly.

"I don't know." Kenny brought his hands up. "He's been off for days. All I know is that he and my aunt have been talking when she comes home from work. She won't tell us what's going on and Jonah's in his head. It's big, but he hasn't even told Ali, so I've got no clue."

"Huh." I tried to imagine what it could be, but fell short. "I guess we'll find out sooner or later."

"Yeah...speaking of." Kenny leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. "I thought you were going to tell him."

The stupid blush was back. "It got complicated." I looked at the table.

I heard him laugh. "I bet."

"What's so funny? It did." I felt defensive. I don't see him spilling his guts to his crush.

"Raven, you don't even see it. You didn't know him before." Mark tried to help. He just confused me more.

"What does that mean? Before what?"