Cause for Concern ✓

two

FRIDAY. 24. SEPTEMBER.

"YOU want me to come in with you?"

It was courtesy more than anything. Didn't take a genius to realise that there was a snowball's chance in hell that Cole actually wanted to come inside the house and bear witness to the disaster that was about to play out on the stage of Max's kitchen. Any argument at his mom's place always seemed to take place in the kitchen, like there was no other suitable room for a screaming match and occasionally empty threats.

They were standing at the bottom of the porch, lit in the faint glow of the porch lights. Max's back was to the house and his eyes were on Cole whose eyes were on the light coming from the kitchen, his hands shoved his pockets. "Not a good idea," Max said, flexing his fingers out and then tightening them into fists, only to flex them out and tighten all over again.

A moment of silence passed between them, an unspoken understanding more than anything. They hadn't known each other long, but they shared the appreciation that, through knowing glances and suggestive smiles and a lack of explanations, confirmed to them that something significant about them was the same; that their souls were conceived from the same matter, that they were born of the same star, that the pictures hung and framed in their houses told similar stories. Knowing someone is like you is an instinct, a feeling in your gut that tells you they have seen what you have seen and felt what you have felt, a voice in the back of your head telling you that you have found a like-minded person who has found their home in your heart and who will never leave.

"How bad do you think it'll be?" He asked. He knew how bad it was going to be. Max knew he was asking so that they wouldn't have to part quite yet so that he wouldn't have to go inside for at least a few seconds longer.

Cole had never met Max's parents but he didn't need to. He had heard fragments, loose bits and pieces that he had probably threaded together into a formative story. A sort of tapestry telling the tale of why Max had ended up getting kicked out of his dad's and getting kicked out of his old school. Max didn't know the specifics of the story in Cole's head but he found it hard to believe that any of it was entirely inaccurate.

Besides, there was nothing discreet about smashing your dad's window in with a rock. There was not a more transparent way to say: 'hey! My dad and I have a rough and/or very complicated relationship!' There was no way to make it more apparent than he was filled with resentment so bitter that it kept him up at night, eradicated his attempts to focus on his studies, devoured any glimmer of forgiveness, extinguished any flame telling him to move on and fuelled any flame that told him to hold on. It had been weeks now and he couldn't shake it off. His chest still burned with indignation for his dad whenever he was mentioned and tonight was the first he would see of him since he'd officially moved back in with his mom.

"Bad," was all he could bring himself to say.

He wasn't completely sure what he was walking into and he also wasn't sure if it made any difference because, no matter what, it was going to be bad. He disguised his nervousness with a cool gaze and a gentle smile, with easy shrugs and a distinctly relaxed tone but a part of him was insisting with great paranoia that Cole could see right through it. Maybe if it were anyone else in front of him, then they might miss it, but the like-minded always know what to look for.

Oddly enough, some of the feelings he had during his spree of excitement returned; bundled knots in his stomachs, his heart pulsating through his ribs and in his ears, his body flushed, but now the magic had died on his fingertips and his blood ran cold through his body. As much as it was killing him, making him want to squirm where he stood, he knew that none of this really mattered. All he had to do was find his anger and hold onto it. He would be okay; that's what he was best at.