Losing His Fix

15

Roland's POV

I hummed along to the radio as I looked over the engine of the car in front of me. Despite the fact that it should be running perfectly fine, the car only sputtered when I turned the key over and I didn't understand. I tried to hide my frustration from Andrew but with a few quick glances in his direction, I could tell it wasn't working.

"How are you feeling," he asked after a while of me just staring at the broken engine.

"You aren't supposed to talk unless I'm taking a break," I said, trying to force my voice to be calm.

"I feel like this is a valid enough question to break that rule," he said with a small smile that only annoyed me more. "We haven't had our productive session for this car," he noted. "Per our rules, you aren't even supposed to be out here so why don't we do both? You work, I ask questions. How does that sound?"

"Horrible."

"Would you rather us go into my office?" I huffed.

"No."

"How are you feeling," he asked again and I shrugged.

"About the car or about life in general?"

"Both."

"Mad," I sighed. "About the car. It should be working and it's not."

"And life in general?" I paused, hoping he would drop it but after a a minute of him not moving on I sighed.

"Fine, I guess," I sighed and without looking I knew he raised an eyebrow at me to keep going. "I don't know," I shrugged. "I don't want to be here anymore because Kit was the only reason I stayed and he's not here anymore. The cars are nice but even this isn't fun without him anymore. Mary is mad at me, you are worried about me, Kit is having issues and I'm stuck here instead of helping him. I feel like I'm just wasting time here."

"How long have you been thinking about this?"

"How long has Kit been gone," I asked with a light chuckle, hoping to pass this off with humor but Andrew only slightly glared. "A few weeks maybe? I don't know, not long."

"Are you thinking of running away?"

"No," I said a bit too fast as I messed with the timing belt just for the sake of keeping my hands busy.

"Roland," Andrew said, his voice firm but kind but his glare didn't fade.

"Yes," I sighed, hating that I couldn't hide anything from him. "I won't do it though! I promised Kit that I wouldn't leave and I don't want to make him worry so I won't leave. I just think about it sometimes."

"Have you found another escape route," he asked, worry clear in his eyes.

"No. I haven't looked but from what I remember from last time, the gap in the fence was the only way out and now that it's fixed I don't have any idea how to get out."

"That's good," he said sadly. "I thought you were going to tell us when you started thinking about leaving again. And we talked about Kit being the only reason you didn't try running. I told you to come to me and I would work with you to make it better. Why are we just now talking about this?"

"I didn't want you to be disappointed," I sighed. "And I didn't want you to tell Kit and make him worry and it really only started getting bad when Mary yelled at me. I just don't want to make things worse."

"Things will only get worse if you don't tell me when things start getting bad. I won't be able to help if you don't tell me what's going on."

"I don't know how to fix it," I sighed.

"You might not be able to," he said gently. I looked at him to find him already staring at me, his eyes were soft with a bit of guilt hiding in the background. "But I might be able to do things that you can't."

"Unless you can bring Kit here to visit then I don't think anything would help."

"I'll talk to Mary."

"And how likely is it that she lets that happen?"

"I don't know," he said with a shake of his head. "But I will try my best. I won't make any promises but I will talk to her." I hummed as I turned back to the car.

I knew it wouldn't happen. He might talk to Mary but I knew better than to hope for something like that. I refused to get my hopes up for something that would likely never happen.