Letting Him In

Chapter-4

"Don't cut me down, throw me out, leave me here to waste
I once was a man with dignity and grace
Now I'm slippin' through the cracks of your cold embrace
So please, please
Could you find a way to let me down slowly?"

-Alec Benjamin, Let Me Down Slowly
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Kaeden

It was lunch break now and Kaeden was running out of patience. Him and Elijah had slept at nearly three in the morning, and then he'd woken up at around five. This recently diagnosed insomnia was killing him. To top it off, Elijah was being even more temperamental than usual. All because he didn't get on the swim team. Kaeden had been trying to warn him, but Elijah had insisted that he could do it.

Ever since checking the list that morning, Elijah had avoided pretty much everyone all day. Only at lunch had he acknowledged their friends, and even after that, he'd gone right back to ignoring everything going on around him, settling for staring blankly at his food. Well, here they were now.

"Stop it, Lijah," Kaeden groaned. "It isn't the end of the world." Usually, he would be kinder, but right now his head was killing him, and he just wanted to sleep, though he knew that he wouldn't be able to, even if he tried.

Elijah looked up from his food, which he had barely eaten. "Stop what? I haven't even said anything," he muttered.

Kaeden sighed, trying to calm himself. "This, Elijah. The brooding and the I'm-done-with-everything attitude. Just because you didn't get on the team doesn't mean your life is over!"

Elijah glared at him. "Really, Kaeden? You're the one saying this? Football is literally your life," he scoffed. "You can't go one day without playing."

Kaeden was done with this. By now, their table had quietened down a bit, and their friends were shooting them concerned looks. They'd been doing that all day, but they weren't even trying to hide it anymore. Elijah and Kaeden never argued, especially in front of others. All their fights and issues were kept between them. Kaeden knew he should stop talking; he was going to regret saying something irrational later. But right now, he didn't care.

With a glare of his own, he said, "Seriously, dude? We both know why I'm so hell bent on playing football. And you also know that our paranoid principal is so keen on keeping our teams at the top of the states' list that he has a policy of not allowing people with a medical history to be on the sports teams." On any other day, the look on his best friend's face would've stopped him. But now, with his anger and irritation taking over, he continued, "And you also know that this is why your parents picked this school while readmitting you! So that they wouldn't have to constantly worry about their son who fucking battled cancer; who, I might add, does everything in his power to do what he wants no matter how much it concerns others! It doesn't matter if its relevant or not, but you can't just ignore all of that!" By now, his voice had risen enough that several people from other tables were starting to look over.

Elijah's expression just went blank. He got up and gathered his stuff, putting it all in his backpack. "Yeah? Well, I'd like to inform you that my medical history from almost ten years ago doesn't have anything to do with sports. If anything, I'm supposed to be keeping active! It doesn't mean that I can't live like a normal person or do the stuff I want to do. Or atleast, it shouldn't. And about being concerned for me, I never asked anyone to do that. There isn't even anything to be concerned about. I'm not seven anymore," he said in a low voice. "Should I just stay at home all day; stop going out, stop swimming, stop even eating what I want to just because it concerns others?" His dark green eyes were almost black now, but they held more hurt than anger.