Wiccan Act One: Occult

28 | Honesty Gets You Nowhere

Christian

XXVIII

Static played through Christian's head making any attempt to gather a cohesive thought impossible.

For the entire day, his throat stung beyond words, and his eyes remained on the brink of tears. Truth be told, he was never the best at holding his emotions in. He was even worse at dealing with them. Luckily, Rowan was too caught up in his own world to notice.

The two were seated awkwardly in Rowan's living room. Christian remained fixed in position while scratching his nails into the chair cushion and watching Rowan yell at his phone screen. The silence irritated him the most, causing his nails to go deeper and deeper into the cushions awaiting a pop. Scratch after scratch he could feel the heat burn his fingertips and the thread becoming damaged and unkempt. Then, the front door burst open, revealing Rowan's father.

Mr Silva had left about a half-hour ago to run an errand for work even though today was his day off. When he left, Christian and Rowan were in the same positions they were in now.

Had they been here that long?

Another yell from Rowan caught Mr Silva's attention.

"They keep saying all this shit on the school website!" Rowan exclaimed. His hand swung, nearly throwing his phone across the room.

"Rowan, maybe you shouldn't look at those right now," Mr Silva suggested. He peered over his son's shoulder for a closer look at the phone screen but Rowan snatched it away before he could get a look.

"What do you care?" Rowan shot his father a glare. That gave the signal to not engage further, the Sheriff giving Christian a small wave and retreating to another room.

Rowan placed his phone face down on the table between him and Christian. He proceeded to straighten his posture and lock eyes with his friend.

"Okay, what is going on with you?" Rowan asked.

Christian continued to fidget under his watch, unsure of how to respond to that. He gave Rowan a small shrug.

"Dude, you look like someone ran over your puppy," Rowan said.

Perhaps Christian underestimated Rowan's perception. On one hand, he thought the entire situation with Veronica and him was a pointless waste of time. He had to rational reason to be feeling so defeated when he never once spoke a word to Austin but at the same time, he couldn't shake how much it stung. On the other hand, he couldn't trick Rowan into giving up useful information without talking to him.

"What I'm dealing with feels minimal compared to what you are going through," Christian said. Talking about his petty boy drama to someone who was just at their sister's memorial seemed a bit insensitive to the atmosphere.

"It would be a nice change if for once we talked about anyone else's problems." Rowan got up and took a seat in the free space beside Christian. "Your uncle Rowan is here to help." He patted the space between the two of them, gesturing for Christian to scoot closer.

Christian's mouth remained glued shut, his tongue too heavy to lift. The last time he was here, Hazel was alive and well. Now, nearly a month later, everything had gotten out of control in every sense of the word.

He sat there clinging to the chair handles. His friends were all going through so much; literally fighting for their lives, while he was upset over some boy that didn't like him back. That wasn't fair. Christian didn't get to be upset over that.

"Well it's okay if you don't want to talk about it," Rowan said.

He got up once again, this time to go into the kitchen. Rowan rummaged through the cabinets unable to decide whether he was in a cereal or chips mood. Similar to when the other boys saw each other, Rowan looked to be unbothered by the things that had happened in his life.