This Could Get Ugly / Conrad Fisher

Lackadaisical Lunching

Michael slammed his tray down in the crowded cafeteria lunchroom amidst the cacophony of teenagers doing what they do best: procrastinating during their well earned lazy lunch/study hall hour. 

Think about it: placing the children from the top of working class CEO's, businesspeople, the likes, together with children of other well known people in a high class school and, well, not much is going to get done. Even I was feeling the laziness today.

It had been a few days since I had been back at school. I told my mom I was sick and she believed it all the while ignoring the fact that Jilly had said I looked fine. Truth be told, I just needed to be alone. Memories were resurfacing from the past that were painful and it felt like a leash was being tied around my neck with cold, calculating surety. 

I jumped about two feet from my book to glare at him.

"Wowie, what's with the bad mood, malady?" He plopped down in front of me.

"No bad mood, just trying to read. Before I was so rudely interrupted," I stated halfheartedly from my book.

"Must be a good book." He focuses on the cover trying to read what wasn't getting covered up by my hands.

"Colleen Hoover," I said as if that was enough explanation. It was. She was the latest author parading across social media and I liked to keep up with the masses. 

"Enough said, enjoy your book." Mike relinquished. He knew when to speak and when I needed the quiet. He was the perfect person that you could be simultaneously together and along with. One of his many redeeming qualities. 

We stayed quiet until Jeremiah showed up. Sometimes, you've known a person for so long and you hang around them so often that there is nothing to say. When I was younger, I craved this type of intimacy with someone. Now, I regularly share it with Michael, who is the greatest and most genuine person ever. 

After a few minutes, I felt a hand on the cover of my book and looked at the perpetrator who deserves a glare. It was only Michael. I recognized immediately the look he pointed at me with. It was a face he was giving me more frequently these days, a mix of sympathy and worry.

"What's going on? I haven't seen or heard of you in days and in a place like this, that's a crime." He tried and failed to keep it light.

I was never one to divulge all of my heaviest secrets at the first insistence of truth. When you are told from a young age and literally trained to look the part of calm and controlled, it teaches you to always appear that way because there's more hurt to follow if you actually show your emotions. Michael recognizes this all the time and knows that I don't speak up and that I'd rather not talk about it. He respects my wants. This is one of the few instances the jokes have left the table and previous friendship rules be damned.

I hope I hide the shock on my face well. "Nothing, I think I was just feeling a little sick but I've got it under control not." I shoot him a smile. A lump in my throat forms.

He doesn't smile back. "You hardly have talked to me recently. Listen, I know something is up if it's about-"

"-If what's about?" We turn to see the newest addition to the table, Jeremiah.

Michael snaps his mouth shut and gives a reproachful look to me. "I'm coming over tonight, okay?"

"Sure, I don't think anything is going on." I concede, clearly confused as to why he wouldn't just finish his sentence. 

"Uhh, you forget about my mom's dinner? I'm also leaving in the morning." Jeremiah looked to me and spoke in a voice that told me to not be silly. He never got mad at me but I could tell under the surface he was bothered I would forget.