Peaked in High School

Uneasy

"I'm gonna head to my room. Sorry I got snot on you." Everett finally lifts his head from his friends—now wet—shoulder. Beau's eyebrows are drawn together in concern as he looks at him. "Are you okay to be alone? I can make us something to eat or order a pizza."

Standing up from the couch, Everett wipes his eyes and gives him a watery smile as he replies, "I'll be fine. Thanks for the offer, but I think I just need some sleep."

"Alright.... let me know if you need anything," Beau says and Everett simply gives him a halfhearted thumbs up as he walks away.

He doesn't emerge from his room for the rest of the day. A large plate of spaghetti is wrapped in the fridge waiting for Everett to eat whenever he is ready to face the the world again. Well—maybe not the world, but Beau and the rest of the house at the very least.

Luckily for Everett, Beau works the next day, so he gets the house to himself for pretty much all of Sunday.

At work, Mrs. T has Beau organizing the new shipment of books by genre that they received this morning. He is trying to read a summary on the back of a romance novel, but finds himself having to reread lines due to his mind continuously drifting back to Everett. The guy is going through a lot and Beau is at a loss on how to help him out. This makes him feel an immense amount of guilt considering how much Everett has done for him.

"What do you have against romance novels?" Mrs. T's friendly voice pulls him out of his rumination.

Looking down at the frail woman, Beau lets out a confused, "Huh?"

She smiles warmly at him and gestures towards the book in his hands. "You're staring holes through that book like it personally offended you. What's the matter?"

"Oh—uh, nothing," he sputters. Beau would love to get advice from the wise woman on everything that is happening at the moment, but he doesn't want to spill Everett's secrets.

"Is that so? Well, if there is nothing troubling you, then maybe you can make up some sort of hypothetical situation for me to solve. It'll be like a game," she suggests with a twinkle in her eye.

A vague hypothetical description of what's happening might just be the loophole Beau needs to gain Mrs. T's insights on the current circumstances. He interlocks his fingers and stretches his arms out in front of him—a nervous habit that he's had since he was young—while thinking up an explanation for her.

"Say, hypothetically, I have a friend who has been going through some shi—stuff," he stops himself from cursing before continuing. "I want to help them out, but they just want to be left alone and not talk about it. Yesterday, something life-changing happened to them and they're not handling it well. Like, I think they knew that it was gonna happen, but now it's become really real to them. Is that enough information for your hypothetical game?"

Mrs. T's hand scratches at her pointy chin as she looks at him thoughtfully. "I'm going to throw out some hypothetical topics that can involve significant changes to people's livelihoods and we will go from there. Okay?"

Beau gives here a short nod of acknowledgement.

"From my experience, life-changing situations can involve a variety of factors such as a career change, moving, family, friends.... relationships," she trails off for a second. Beau has a feeling that she has already pieced together what is happening.

"I can personally say that my most life-changing moment—aside from the birth of my wonderful daughter—was the divorce that I went through with my ex-husband. Unfortunately, he decided to cheat on me with his high school sweetheart. I was absolutely heartbroken and distraught when I found out about the affair. We were married for fourteen years and had been raising our beautiful twelve year old girl at the time, but neither of those things seemed to hold much importance to him."