𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭𝐬 ¹

|𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓕𝓲𝓯𝓽𝔂 𝓞𝓷𝓮 | 𝓨𝓸𝓾 𝓒𝓪𝓷'𝓽 𝓢𝓪𝓿𝓮 𝓜𝓮 𝓝𝓸𝔀|

Chapter Fifty-One - You Can't Save Me Now,

Take me to the rooftop, I wanna see the world when I stop breathing, turning blue,

Tell me love is endless, don't be so pretentious,

Leave me like you do,

If you need me, wanna see me, better hurry cause I'm leaving soon,

Taste me, the salty tears on my cheek,

That's what a year long headache does to you,

I'm not okay, I feel so scattered,

Don't say I'm all that matters,

Leave me, Deja Vu

-Billie Eilish, "Listen Before I Go,"

•••

Mike

"Are you insane?" I hear Archie yell from across the yard, his loud screaming makes my pounding headache worse,

"What?" I groan as he comes to a halt before me,

"Are you out of your fucking mind? Why would you get into a fucking first fight with Brown?" he asks,

"Because he was stealing from you, and I knew for a fact you weren't going to beat his ass yourself, that's how shit works in here, Archie, you have to stand up for yourself, or else you look weak, so congratulations, everyone thinks you're my bitch now, you're welcome," I say,

"If I didn't need you for protection I'd beat your ass myself," he huffs dropping onto the bench before me,

"I'm fine," I shrug,

"Well you look like shit, and you could've been sent to solitary," he reminds,

"You worry too damn much, not one person here has the balls to step up to me, and the ones who did, were taken care of," I say,

"Good thing you're not letting it get to your head," he rolls his eyes,

"Stop being pissy, will you? Because no one messes with me, they don't mess with you," I say,

"At least you don't rub it in," he smiles sarcastically,

"What crawled up your ass and died? Why are you so mad?" I question, tossing the bag of melted ice into the bucket sitting next to me retrieving another one filled with ice which I place on my busted knuckles,

"Look I know the only reason you're even protecting me is because you feel like shit for dragging me into this, and because if anything happened to me, Ronnie would never forgive you, so don't fucking act like you're doing this out of the kindness of your heart, we aren't friends, we never fucking were," he says,

"First of all, I don't feel like shit for dragging you into this, because I specifically told you this would happen I warned you multiple times and you still agreed so you're in here because of you, and maybe I am doing this for Veronica, but I don't fucking understand what your problem with me is, I get it, Veronica has been your best friend since you two were little kids, and you're really overprotective because you care about her so much, but you have to understand that I fucking love her, and maybe I've fucked up things between her and I up in the past more times than I'd like to admit but I love her more than I've ever loved anyone else in this fucking world, and if you love her as much as you say you do, then you'd be happy she's found something like that," I say,