Gambit

First Week Unwind (chapter 4)

(Jack's Pov)

I woke up on the floor of Oliver's bedroom, Oliver was not in the room when I woke up, so I opened his bedroom door and walked to the bathroom. After doing a crappy version of my morning routine (Since I dont usually go to other friend's houses to hangout since it is always my house.) I opened the bathroom door, but before I walked out I stopped and listened. I could hear arguing down the hall, and in the living room. It was Oliver and his mom, I couldn't hear much but I could pick up some words, such as "drinking" and "needles". Oliver seemed really upset, it was probably the angriest I had ever heard him. I quietly walked back into Oliver's room and went to lay back down and pretend to be asleep. I closed my eyes, however what had happened, was I actually fell asleep.

I woke up to Oliver slamming his door and then he looked down at me. "I know your awake, I seen you run back into my room earlier." "Shit, uh I wasn't tryna eavesdrop or anything, but you good?" I asked trying to avoid the awkwardness. I dont usually ever feel uncomfortable but this time I really wanted to just curl up into a ball and die. "I'm fine" Oliver said as he just sat down on his bed and hung his head. I looked over at the clock, it read 7:53. "What time we meeting up with Olivia?" I asked Oliver as an attempt to get rid of all of the tension. "I dont know." He said in a mumbling tone. "I can ask her if you want me too, and where do yall wanna go?" "I dont really care." Oliver was just keeping his head down, I could tell what was wrong was pretty serious, I even thought about just canceling, but I remember that Oliver doesn't ever hangout with people. I figured that this would cheer him up and get his mind off things. I texted Olivia and told her the place we are going and the time. She responded with an "Okay." "Where are we going?" She texted me. "Down on Neon avenue, by the one cafe, there is an arcade. That isn't too far from you is it? Its around walking distance from us though." "yeah, thats fine I live in the penthouse a block over." "Hype! see ya there?"

I just kind of sat on the floor and scrolled through social media, until Oliver started to get ready so I figured that was the que to get up. After we got ready Oliver opened the window and motioned me over. "We are going out the window?" I questioned, but I remembered the argument he had with his mom, so I just went with it and jumped out the window. The window was only about 5 feet in the air so it wasn't a problem. Once I was on the ground I could hear Oliver going through his drawers, I wondered what he was grabbing and why he waited for me to leave the room for him to get it, not that I really cared but I was just curious. After a second Oliver jumped out the window and we walked through the tree line toward the city. Oliver's house wasn't far from the city, but it was on the other side of a tiny park with a lot of trees so we had to cross the park and then we would be at the meet up spot. While we walked Oliver wasn't saying much, just nodding to my random gibberish. I wanted to ask him what happened but I didn't want to invade in his personal life or anything like that, so I just shut up and stopped trying to be funny. I knew I was not helping and I could easily tell that he wanted me to stop talking, because he kept looking down every time I opened my mouth, and Oliver always looks people in the eye when they talk to him.

Once we were near the arcade, I seen Olivia standing by the entrance on her phone. She was wearing a bright pink jacket, a white T-shirt with a cartoonish bear on it, and jean shorts. When she saw us she smiled at us and waved. "Hey Olivia!" I yelled excited to talk to someone who wasn't on verge of attempting to kill me. Oliver didn't say anything he just did a half assed wave toward her direction. We caught up with her and went inside the arcade. Oliver didn't say anything he just kind of walked in a different direction then us, I noticed it but Olivia didn't. I kind of just wanted to leave him be right now. We walked over to the less busy side of the arcade and sat down and started talking. I noticed while she was talking that she was eyeing this one stuffed panda in the claw machine. I knew what I had to do... I walked over to the machine and pulled out 10 bucks worth of 1$ bills. 10 minutes later... I didn't win anything. So I walked over to the atm and took our 20 more dollars. "uhm, Jack you dont have to do that, its fine, really." I could tell she felt bad, but I was not doing this for her. It was for my pride, I must win that panda.

30 minutes later... After I had spent 200$ on the claw machine, I did it. I was the happiest man alive, I had finally done it, after 15 years of my life, I had finally won at a claw machine. I walked past the crowd of spectators that had come to cheer me on, they were all celebrating and I handed the panda to Olivia. Mainly because I didn't want the panda, I just wanted the feeling of winning. I smirked at her and said. "Aren't i just awesome?" "No, not really. Your kind of an idiot." She said not amused one bit, which kind of offended me, It hurt my feelings the fact that she couldn't understand how cool I am. After I celebrated some more, I walked over to the actual games, and I played a couple. Once I was done playing games I started walking around on my own a little, since Olivia went to the bathroom. I noticed across the Arcade Oliver was confronted by these 2 big dudes in leather jackets and Jeans. Both of the men had sunglasses on and one had a big duffle bag strapped to his back. The big feature I noticed was that they both had blacked out Ace playing cards on their shoulders, I noticed Oliver looked a little spooked because they surrounded him and had him blocked in a corner. I was going to walk over and help him out, but after getting closer, I realized one had a big pistol in his jacket, the other didn't but he had something in his hand. I knew what this was, I was scared, I was frozen in place. They had a gun to my best friend's stomach.

The men walked away after handing him a piece of paper, Oliver looked even more spooked then before. Oliver walked over to me and just said. "You didn't see anything, Okay?" I just nodded and followed him to find Olivia. Once we found Olivia, we decided it would be best to go to the cafe and get something to eat. So, we turned in our tickets and left the arcade, It was a little walk away but Oliver insisted on going through the alleys. I dont know why after almost getting assassinated in public, you would want to go through the isolated areas in a city a few minutes after. Well, I found out why he wanted to, because once we were out of sight he pulled out a blunt. I dont smoke a lot but my family does, and I knew an expensive blunt when I see one, and let me tell you the blunt that Oliver was holding was the real shit, Oliver lit it when Olivia was looking away, he took a hit and began coughing his ass off. Olivia looked over but I took the blunt from him and hid it behind my back before she seen it. "Are you okay?" She said putting her hand on his back while he continued to cough. I waited behind them as they walked forward and asked myself "what was the worst that could happen?"

I too was now coughing hysterically, that was indeed some strong weed. I walked back over to them trying to hold my coughs in, I handed the blunt back to Oliver and we kept doing this back and forth until we got to the cafe. "What the hell?" Oliver had said looking at the cars going by. "What?" Olivia asked but I just started giggling. Olivia was starting to get mad because me and Oliver were just laughing looking at each other for what felt like hours. It had only been a minute or so of waiting for the light to turn red. Once it did we just followed Olivia because if one of were in lead we would have surely wondered into oncoming traffic. Oliver offered to pay for our food but me and Olivia just declined him, we both knew Oliver was not nearly as wealthy as us. Which made wonder where he got that blunt. It probably cost more then his entire house, I just shrugged it off though since I couldn't tell the difference between my food and the fork. By the time we left I couldn't even remember what I ate or even what happened, because next thing I knew I was outside and we had been kicked out. Olivia was pretty mad at me, but I didn't know what I did, nor did I care because it was pretty funny.

We parted ways and me and Oliver started walking towards his house again. He told me I could stay another night since it was only Saturday. On our walk home I asked him if he was okay and he looked at me as if he was about to start crying, I wasn't the smartest person but I could tell something irreversible had happened to him. I knew his life had changed, just by that look in his eyes, he was hurting and had no way to cope. I now knew the reason for everything that happened before and after this walk home. When we got to his house, we snuck through his window again. Oliver and I made a spot on the floor and got some chips. Oliver had turned on a movie, I dont remember what it was but It had me dying of laughter. I had fallen asleep a little after the movie got boring, all I remember that night was after I was starting to fall asleep, Oliver had gotten up and left the room. The next morning it was like he was an entirely different person, he didn't have those innocent, nervous young teenage boy's eyes anymore. It was like Oliver had seen a ghost, he was pale, and almost looked determined about something. I had gotten into my Limo and Oliver didn't even come outside to see me off, he just waved and said see ya, as he played some poker game on his phone in his room. That weekend I noticed Oliver begin to change, wether it was for the better or for worse I did not know yet.