In the shadows, under the bleachers

Chapter 14

The next couple of days went by way to quick for my liking. Like in the blink of an eye and poof it's Tuesday. I swear Spring break needs to get here faster.

"Reckless artist," Will whispered, "You have to get up." He shook my gently.

"Don't wanna." I mumbled, still half asleep.

"You have to though." He replied, still whispering.

"No I don't. just let me sleep here."

"Mark needs to know that you're still alive and that I didn't do anything to his poor baby bro." I gave him a look, he put his hands up, "His words not mine."

"He can always just stop by." I suggested.

"Stop trying to get out of going." He said.

"Never." I whispered lazily grinning.

"Don't make me drag you to school."

I suddenly shot up, "You wouldn't," He's bluffing, he must be. I'm calling it, I'm calling his bluff.

"You seriously want to test me?" He asked, a small smirk tugged at his lips.

I let out a loud groan before rolling out of bed, "Fine, I guess that I can go."

"If you get ready right now I'll take you to breakfast."

"So you're bribing me with breakfast now?"

He shrugged, "Sure I'm bribing you, lets go." He encouraged.

"It's to early for your cheery attitude sunshine." I rubbed my eyes. How does he have energy in the morning?

"Is it?" He wondered.

"Yes, yes it is." I confirmed before kicking him out of the room.

—

The two of us stopped at this new breakfast spot that a 5 minute drive from school. Itwas surprisingly not busy for a brand new restaurant. I was currently looking at the menu when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Yes?" I asked, coming face to face with a blonde woman.

"What are you doing?" She asked, in an annoyed tone. I know it's wrong to make assumptions about people, especially if you just met them not even thirty seconds ago but this women was definitely a Karen.

"Looking at the menu." I replied pointing up at it. I noticed the worker looking at the two of us, the poor woman's eyes were sad. She shook her head and gripped my arm, hard.

"What are you doing?" Will asked from beside me. I glanced at him and he look murderous.

"I need him to move out of the way, he's blocking me from getting my order." The woman motioned over to her order.

Will placed his hand on her shoulder before tilting his head and smiled, "How about you ask him to give you room."

I saw the woman winced slightly before turning to me, "Would you mind moving out of the way?" She asked, Will still hadn't removed his hand.

I took a step back giving her the space to grab her order.

The worker turned yo us, "What would you like to order?" Once we placed our orders she said that they would be out quickly. We still had about forty-five minutes before we had to be at school.

"Did you hurt her?" I asked, fidgeting with the straw of my drink.

"No of course not reckless artist." He was busy looking down at his phone when I perked up.

"Here are your hotcakes." A different worker said placing them in front of Will.

He nodded and smiled, "Thank you."

The worker, Angie nodded and turned to me, "And here is your breakfast sandwich." She placed the plate in front of me.

I smiled, "Thank you."

She nodded to me and turned to walk away.

I couldn't help but moan as I took a bite of my breakfast sandwich.

"Calm down there reckless, the food isn't going anywhere." Will grinned, I paused and slowly chewed feeling slightly embarrassed.

"I know." I took a sip of my drink before my phone started ringing. "Hey Mark." I continued sipping my drink.

"Where are you?" I was taken aback from his tone, he didn't sound happy. Will reached over and took my phone from me.

"What are you doing?" I whispered, looking at him confused.

"Hold on." He whispered, the phone wasn't on speaker but I could hear Mark shouting on the other line. Will didn't flinch, didn't even react just quietly listened. After a few minutes of this Will finally spoke, "Are you done?" His voice was so calm. "Good," He smiled and glanced at me, "He's with me, we'll be there soon. Okay bye." He hung up and handed it back to me.

"So do you do that often?" I asked, finishing my sandwich.

"Do I do what often?" He was busy drowning his pancakes in maple syrup,

"Do you often take peoples phones from them?"

He shook his head, "No."

"So then why did you take mine?"

Suddenly we heard someone say, "There you guys are." It was my mom, Mark was close behind. After the initial shock of seeing them a sudden feeling of dread washed over me. I suddenly wanted to get out of this situation. "Can we sit with you guys?" Mom asked. Mark glanced at me but quickly looked away.

"Sure." Will said looking at Mom, she smiled. I felt nauseous. Why? I had no idea, "We were just leaving anyway. Lets go Aiden." I nodded and followed him I looked over my shoulder and saw my Mon looking furious.

"Are you okay?" Will asked once we got in the car.

No, definitely not. My brother who is supposed to tell me things decided to not tell me that he is meeting up with our Mom, who keeps popping up in my life when I don't want her to. He hasn't even told me why he's gotten back in contact with her. So here I am alone completely in the dark about things that I should probably be made aware of.

But I wasn't going to tell him that, "Yeah I'm fine it's just a lot." I stopped myself before going on a rant. I started fidgeting with my ring.

"Liar."

"Really I am."

"No you're not."

I grinned for some odd reason. Probably because I was so out of it, "Oh yeah? How would you know?"

"You're fidgeting."

"My my are you observant."

"I've known you long enough to know the small things. Like you fidgeting when you're lying." He pulled into the schools parking lot. "Also you're not alone, you have me and you always will."

"You a secret mind reader or something?" I asked, following him into the building.

"Sure, something like that."