The Guidebook To Sobriety

Chapter 7

I watched the muscular boy's approach, his sinister grin nearing the closer he got to me.

I was no Superman, but that meant he wasn't either. Thanks to my boxing training experience, I'd developed a decent left jab that I had no qualms over unleashing without warning. Some called it an honorable sucker punch, I called it punching a sucker. 

Either way, as he stepped into punching distance I prepared myself as inconspicuously as I could. This steroid bound meathead was going down.

"What's happening down there?" a concerned voice yelled from on top of the staircase. A man with an embarrassingly receding hairline and a counselor shirt was the source of the interruption and little Buzz-Cut's savior.

Buzz-cut paused his approach and tried to adopt a sheepishly innocent look as he awkwardly closed the distance between us and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. "Nothing too serious, just a small disagreement between buds." He told the lie with his best attempt at a reassuring smile.

As the son of an Oscar nominated actor, I had to say it was quite an unimpressive display of rigid unnatural acting. I'd give it a three out of ten if I was being generous, and judging by the man's unconvinced look, we were in agreement. 

I knocked his hand off my shoulder and briefly considered sucker-punching him anyway. I decided against it only because I figured hurting my hand on his face wouldn't grant me pain meds.

"Doesn't look too friendly, Wyatt," the man declared, folding his arms with a disapproving click of his tongue. "Who initiated this?" he asked with a glance in my direction.

Of course, the bastard was named Wyatt.

"Doesn't matter, I was just leaving," I said, starting up the stairs with Atlas following me close behind. As much as I would've loved to get 'Wyatt' in trouble, I was no snitch. I found that if you acted like you had a no-snitching principle, others didn't do the deed when the roles were reversed.

Which came in handy for my plans to take over the universe, of course.

The man stopped me as I reached him at the top of the stairs. "You sure?" His voice was a low whisper. He seemed to be under the impression I wasn't ratting because I was scared of a guy named Wyatt or something. "I'm the supervisor of Wyatt's group so I would like to be aware of any discomfort he may have caused so I can make him take responsibility. I'll make sure he can't come a-"

"I said it's fine," I snapped, interrupting the man. I hated hardly anything more than being treated like I couldn't take care of my own problems and needed babysitting, especially from adults.

Scratch that and add on while sober to that sentence and you got my current state: unadulterated annoyance.

"Very well," The man said, stepping aside so I could pass. "Sorry for the trouble."

Atlas and I traveled the rest of the way to our rooms in silence. I didn't know what he was thinking about but I enjoyed the quiet, reflecting on the interest Mia seemed to have with me and the effect it had on Wyatt. Clearly, there was something there I could use to my advantage against Wyatt, who was shaping up to be an unruly pest.

We reached my door and as I took my card out of my pocket to swipe it, I saw Atlas open his mouth out of the corner of my eye. I prepared myself for some type of annoying pity angle, probably something like "Can you believe that guy?" or "Are you ok?", basically the last questions I felt like hearing right now.

However, Atlas was far beyond a normal boy.

"Who the hell names their kid Wyatt?"

I almost dropped the keycard in shock and turned to look at the grinning boy. "That's what I said!"