JT's Reign (Jay Taylor - Pause)

//4

c h a p t e r  4

      "You could at least smile every once in a while," Kyle says, trying to keep up with my fast strides as I head back up to the volunteer group we'd joined, the group where I coincidentally first met the idiot.

       Too much effort.

I frown, shrugging him off, "Don't tell me what to do. I do what I want."

         "I admire how happy you always are," he jokes, purposely annoying me. 

I keep walking.

           "Why do I feel like I'm being ignored?" he questions, his words falling on deaf ears.

"Because he is ignoring you," I hear Leban confirm the obvious.

          "This displeases me greatly," Kyle states in a serious tone of voice as if I'm supposed to care. He leaves Leban to catch up with me.

I don't bother with a reply.

            He stops me soon after, "What is your problem today?" he eventually asks when seeing the irritation on my face.

"Nothing," I mutter, avoiding the matter that's been on my mind for some time now.

           "I smell something burning," he sniffs the air before turning to me accusingly, "your pants are on fire."

I sigh begrudgingly, "Go away."

           "No," he debates, "you need me," he argues, insisting on tagging along with me. If I were to throw myself off of a cliff, he'd follow right suit.

"I don't need anyone."

            "It's that attitude that proves that you need me," Kyle points out, refusing to just let me be. "You attitude sucks, Jay. It sucks," he shares his opinion, point-blank, with me, completely honest in expressing his perceptive.

"I don't care."

              He stares at me flatly for a second or two before shaking his head in disappointment, "You should."

There's no point.

             "Wait up guys!" Leban calls from behind, making it apparent that we'd been walking so fast that we'd forgotten about him entirely.

"Why does he keep following us around?" I ask Kyle in a grumble, unhappy that there's now two of them I have to put up with. 

             Kyle's already a handful on his own. He challenges me on my weaknesses daily. It's tiring, especially when I have no room to defend myself. He's adamant, downright determined, to make me see things differently.

              "Because he feels like he owes you his life," Kyle explains as if it should have occurred to me long ago.

"But he doesn't," I protest angrily. 

          Leban hangs back, sensing that we're in a conversation that should by no means be interrupted. 

 "Don't make it about him. Don't shift your misery onto him!" Kyle interjects, frustrated that I keep burying it all. "You know as well as I do that this isn't about him, never has been."

        I analyze him, realizing that he's more observant than he makes himself out to be.

  "You don't know anything," I test him, pushing for an answer.

            "I'll ask you again," he pauses as if hesitant in asking, "what is her name?"

I knew the question before it even left his mouth.