The Evergreen Lion

☀️Juniper: 6

"I swear if coach puts in that freshman ever again, I'm quitting the team! Can't he tell that he sucks!" James hollers across the dinner table. Most of the guys mumble in agreement, but Adam has to disagree.

"I thought he was pretty good with a bit of work, he could be up to my caliber." I wanted to gag.

James glares at him. "Which isn't pretty high." He snickers.

Adam clenches his fist, but takes his hand, and tries to put it in mine so I could calm him down. Now I'm really going to vomit.

Adam took me out to eat dinner with some of his friends and their girlfriends. I don't really know or like these people, no matter how much Adam tries to make me interact with them. These dinners are often terrible, because half of them don't even like each other, and the girls just gossip all night.

The worst part is James and Adam used to be best friends, but they've just grown apart in the worst way possible. They just hate each other, and I don't even know why.

"Don't you love it when guys fight? It's so hot." Amber whispers in my ear, and I fight so hard not to say something slick to her. I watch her as she stares at Adam and James longingly. Absolutely disgusting.

If there's one thing about Adam that I can't lie about, it's his ability to play soccer. He is amazing at it, and everybody here wants to drag him down. I don't know if he sees that, but I do. In the past I've tried to tell him, but he never listened, and he made sure that I would never bring it up again. He didn't want to believe that his so called friends were against him. Now I could give a rats ass about who's against him or not.

Everyone else seems to be having a fun time and James goes back to interacting with everyone else, but Adam.

"You know what babe, let's go." He whispers in my ear and begins to get up. He's never left early like this before, he's always stuck it out. But I nod, watch him throw two twenties on the table, and I exit the restaurant with him.

It's kind of hard to walk next to him, because he made me wear these high heels that I'm so not used to wearing. This new outfit, pink dress, loads of jewelry, and heels, are all apart of the new look Adam wants me to try. I just want to go back to my dark clothes, and oversized sweaters.

"You know I'm sick of those assholes! I don't even know why I hang out with them!" He yells.

I don't know what to do. Comfort him? Stay silent? Either way could end up badly for me.

"Um, uh then why are you still friends with them?" I ask nervously.

Adam rushes up to me with his arms flailing. "Are you an idiot? Who else would I hang out with? Everyone else in our school are losers, you want me to be a loser?"

I shake my head no.

He sighs, and suddenly becomes sincere. Adam's emotions change up so quick, and I never know when he'll snap. "Juniper, you're the only person I have in this crazy world. I don't know what I would do if I never had met you."

I know what I would be doing if I never had met him. I would not be in heels right now, I would be in my pajamas, with Leo, eating ice cream out of the bin, watching him play some instrument.

Adam tries to grab me by the waist for a hug. I want prepared for this so I flinched instead of holding in my instinct to do so like I usual do.

He glares at me. "What the hell Juniper? What the f-"

"Hey!"

Both Adam and I both turn to the right. It's James. I'm kind of surprised to see him, but at the same time I'm not. Adam and I were still standing outside of the restaurant, I just wasn't expecting anyone from inside to come out.

James comes rushing up to me. "Are you okay Juniper?"

"She's fine." Adam answers for me.

James glares at him. "I wasn't talking to you, asshole."

Adam roughly pushes him away from me. "What did you call me?"

"Asshole, asshole." James spits at Adams shoes.

Adam is red hot now. "Oh that's it! I'm gonna-"

"Adam no!" I regretfully speak up.

Adam faces me. "Shut up bitch!" He takes my arm and twist it behind my back. "You'll talk when you are addressed."

All of a sudden Adam is tackled off of me, and is on the floor. My arm is no longer pinned against my back and I take a deep breath.

I turn to thank James, but he's on top of Adam punching him repeatedly in the face.

"James stop!" I scream at him, but he completely ignores me.

"I knew it you piece of shit! You know about my mom! You know how she died! How she was murdered!" He spits out at Adam. "How could you do this to her?! To me?!"

I wasn't able to stop James and honestly, I don't know if I wanted to. But then again I couldn't let James kill a person on the street. I grabbed one of James arms and tried to pull him away from Adam.

"James, he's had enough!"

James gives Adam one last punch, and then looks at me. "How can you defend this piece of shit? He's abusing you!"

I glance at Adam,and there is blood coming out of his mouth. His arms and face are all bruised up, and he's trying so hard to breathe, that he's wheezing.

"I-I, how do you-, but he's my-" I couldn't find the words to answer his question. Then James starts laughing manically.

"Do you know why Adam and I aren't friends anymore?"

I shake my head no.

"It's because I confronted him about abusing you, and he lied right to my face." He spits on Adam once more. "Do you know the story of my parents?"

"N-no." I answer shakily.

"Ever since I was born my dad has always abused my mother. Every other day, her face would be bruised, her bones broken, and organs punctured. When I turned eight, is when he decided to abuse me too, but my mother" I closes his eyes in pain. "My mother had had enough she tried to defend me one night, but my dad just ended up shooting her-" he takes his fingers and puts them in the shape of a gun.

He comes close to me and points his make believe gun right on my temple. "right through the head. I watched as her blood splattered across my room. I watched as that bastard dragged her body to the basement and put it in a cooler. He made me clean up her blood from the floor and the walls." Then he points to Adam.

"And this son of a bitch is going to end up just like my old man, if he doesn't stop."

The whole time James was talking, Adam was pushing himself off the floor and he finally got up. He wipes the blood that was coming out of his mouth off of his face. "Stop crying over your mothers death. She was weak and stupid, no wonder your dad hit her so much." Now it was Adam's turn to spit in James face.

Adam was barely even able to stand without wobbling when James came at him again. "That's it!" James yells and starts attacking Adam.

Now I definitely couldn't break up this fight. I would only get in the middle and end up hurt. The only thing left to do was call the police.