Losing His Fix

21

Roland's POV

It was call day. A day that I normally looked forward to but today I dreaded it. Today would be the last day that Kit and I were allowed to call every week. After my big show in the cafeteria people started paying more attention to me and started recognizing the fact that I was getting more calls than everyone else and complained. Mary said I could always call Kit if I really needed him but when I told her I always needed him, she had frowned and said it was only for emergencies.

So now today's call I dreaded, knowing it would be another 30 days before I could call my boyfriend again. I still sat on the front office porch waiting for the call even if I was happy about it. Andrew didn't sit with me today and I watched the kids play in the grass alone but I think I preferred it that way.

They had barely made it to the second inning of their game before Mary tapped me on the shoulder and handed me the phone. I didn't bother looking at the name as I stood up and began walking to the cabin, knowing this was one thing Mary would never take away.

"Hi," I told him with a small sigh.

"I heard you got in a fight," he said the second I opened the door to the cabin. That was the other reason I was not happy about today's call day.

"It wasn't really a fight," I defended as I sat down on the bed. This was about to be my third lecture on something I didn't mean to happen.

"Then what was it? I heard you punched a kid and shoved him on the ground." He sounded mad and I guess I couldn't blame him but it still made me sad that he would believe I would just go around starting fights for no reason.

"I didn't punch him," I scoffed. "I just pushed my hand against his face. My knuckles never touched him."

"But you did hit him?"

"Well yeah," I started but he cut me off.

"And you shoved him into a wall."

"No, I pushed him away from me and he happened to hit the wall. That was not my fault. How did you even find out about that? Did Andrew tell you?"

"Mary told me that you and another kid got in a fight. She didn't want to give me the details but I made her. How did the whole thing even start?"

"This is the last time we're going to speak to each other for 30 days and you're more concerned about a fight that happened 5 days ago?"

"Yes, when my boyfriend starts acting unusual, I do tend to question it," Kit scoffed and I could tell that he was just as frustrated as I was.

"I was trying to make friends," I defended even though it came out more like a shout. "You know, that amazing idea that you and Andrew tried so hard to get me to do? I fucking tried it and I did it by myself and we went to lunch and I found my friend but his friends were being dicks! They were asking me for money and I told them no and tried to leave and then they shoved my trey into my lap, bet Mary conveniently left that part out. And then the next thing I know, I'm being told to get on the dirty ground that's covered in man blood and drool! Do you think I ever wanted that? Do you think that if there was any way I could have avoided that, I wouldn't have done it? Because if you seriously think that for a single second then you don't know me and I don't even know why we're bothering to try and make this work."

"Hey," Kit soothed. His voice had lost all frustration and was back to sounding sad. It was the voice he used when he would pull me into his arms after I told him about a nightmare or about one of my foster homes. As much as I hated him right now, I wanted nothing more than for him to be in front of me, pulling me into his arms as we lay in the bed and talked about the most random things that no one else would care about. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed you started it. I was just worried. I got a call late one night saying that you were in a fight and Mary would barely tell me anything other than you were okay and I didn't know if you were getting bullied again or it was just a one-time thing. I was scared and I took it out on you and I'm sorry for that. Are you okay at least? I know lying on a dirty floor probably wasn't very nice but you're physically okay?"

My finger pulled away to rub at the bruise on my cheek. There were others but this was only one people could see.

You shouldn't lie to your boyfriend. Kit deserves to know the truth. You're mad at him right now and that's understandable but you shouldn't-.

"I'm fine. The guards broke everything up before it got too bad," I said, working to keep my sentence even.

Kit sighed in relief and I could picture him rubbing a hand through his longer hair as he closed his eyes, letting the relief wash over him. I know you shouldn't lie to your boyfriend but maybe this once it was for the best.

"Good," he said after a minute. "That's good. I'm glad you aren't hurt. You scared the shit out of me Roland."

"I'm sorry."

"I know you are. And I hope you know that I'm sorry too. I wanted to call sooner but Mary wouldn't allow it. She also said that you weren't really in a talk mood here lately so it would have probably not even been productive."

I hummed because he was right. Ever since that night, I had barely spoken to anyone other than Andrew during our mandatory session after the fight.

"Is it safe to assume you've given up on friends?"

"I'm not going to keep trying to chase after something that only I seem to want," I sighed. "I don't like people, people clearly don't like me. It's just not worth it. It's the same thing I've been telling both of you for the past however many months. People don't have people like me as actual friends." Kit took in a breath like he was about to argue before he let it out and came up with something else to say.

"That's up to you then. I'm proud of you for trying though! That took a lot of effort and I'm glad you felt confident enough to try it when no one else was there." I hummed because I didn't know what to say to that and Kit sighed again.

"Other than the fight, what happened this week?"

"One of the guys was on his last strike so he had to leave. That was a pretty big thing. Apparently, a lot of kids are mad about it. He seemed to be really good friends with a lot of people other than me. I feel bad that I got him kicked out."

"You didn't get him kicked out, he got himself kicked out. He knew the rules, same as you, and went against them anyway, knowing he only had one strike left. That is completely on him." I shrugged out of habit even though I knew he couldn't see me. We sat in silence for a long time, just listening to the way each other breathed.

I think he was still mad at me and I understood it. A lot of my fosters would get mad at me when I made them worry and I figured Kit would act the same way. I hadn't meant to make him worry though. I was trying to make him feel better. He always wanted me to try making friends again and now that I finally tried, all I did was make it worse.

I sighed into the phone, mostly because I forgot he was there.

"What's got you sighing so hard over there," he teased and it sounded much better than the angry voice he had used only minutes ago.

"This is going to suck."

"I know," he said, without me having to explain what. "But we'll get used to it. And it's only for a few months. Like literally only 9 of them. We can do 9 months."

"That's pretty much a year," I sighed.

"Call it 6 months. I'm rounding down to make it feel like it's not that much time."

"But it's not 6 months, it's 9, and 9 is pretty much a year."

"We can do this. And if we need each other, we can always bribe Mary or Andrew. If it gets bad enough, I'm sure they won't mind."

"I want to talk about something else now," I said because this was making me sad.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"I don't know. I'm not usually the one to come up with pointless conversation." He hummed like he was thinking about something before chuckling under his breath.

"You'll never guess what Cody did yesterday."

"Well, I don't know who Cody is so probably not," I teased and he laughed again before going into a long story that I was barely paying attention to but I soaked up the sound of his voice. The way he laughed, the smile I could hear in his words, the way he paused for dramatic effect, I studied all of it.

I was going to miss this when we moved to only once a month but I would have the memories and if I committed everything to memory, I could never fully lose him. So I sat there and listened as he talked about a life that I wasn't a part of. 

Sorry for the lack of updates. I recently moved into my first ever home that I actually bought and it is sadly disgusting and really dirty and needs a lot of love before it looks presentable and I don't have wifi yet (currently typing this in a Dunkin parking lot) but I should have wifi by Wednesday so hopefully streams and updates will start happening regularly again after that. Thank all of you for your patience and I hope you liked the chapter.