Altered

Chapter 4: Him

After service on Sunday morning, Jordan ran up to me with a huge smile on his face. I was cautious as he approached. Usually, when people disappear and reappear, they want something. I pretended not to see him and began walking towards the door to avoid the situation. He caught up.

"Whats up girrrl!?" He smiled widely.

"Uh, not much?" I said without looking at him. I kept walking and hoped he would get the hint. "Just waiting to see where we're going for lunch"

"Oh, nice! We're going to my brother's house, I think," he said, obviously not noticing my attempt at avoiding him.

"Oh, that sounds like fun."

"Nah, my family is pretty boring. I'd rather be taking a nap, honestly."

"Same," I said, still walking towards the door.

"Hey, real talk," he grabbed my arm to stop me.

"What?" I looked at him in confusion. Did I just hear him say he was sorry?

"I'm sorry I straight-up ditched you guys. I started hanging out with Jewels and Makayla but I don't think that's a good idea, at least not for now."

Jewels was another girl at the church, and Makayla was her best friend. The three of us had known each other since we were in elementary school, and we had separated as friends in high school. Makayla was only a year older than me but Jewels was four years older. I had looked up to both of them when we were growing up in church and in school. It had all stopped when I found out that Jewels had been sleeping with my best friend's boyfriend. Shortly after I found that out, I found out she had been selling and buying weed at the Shake Shack five minutes away from our school. When she and Makayla moved in together after high school, I knew I needed to stay away from both of them. They weren't good influences for someone freshly released from jail, and even though Jordan didn't know that when he had started to hang out with them, I was sure he had found out. His apology had sounded sincere.

"Uhh, it's alright. I didn't know you were hanging out with them, I just figured you weren't comfortable hanging with us because we're younger," I lied.

"You're only six years younger than me, that's not much. It wasn't that, they just sucked me in."

"Ahh," I replied, pretending to believe him.

I just wanted to walk away from the whole awkward interaction but I was trapped. It was too easy to trust him.

"Hey, so I'm bringing my friend Greyson tonight to the party! I heard this thing is pretty legit so I figured he would like it."

"That'll be fun! Who is Greyson?" I asked, still pretending to be interested in what he was saying.

"We do community service together. He's a felon just like me." Jordan's mouth pulled up in a goofy, proud smile and I laughed.