Savior [Completed]

Savior: [Five] [II/II]

Five - Part II

You’re just being paranoid. It didn’t mean anything. You’re just frazzled up because of what he said.

But did the two things really have anything to do with each other? The ‘History doesn’t always repeat itself – that’s just sometimes. Here’s a heads up – a ‘sometimes’ event is heading your way. xX J’ had no connection to Nick’s ‘Words can really hurt. But sometimes it helps to think that they’re just words’, did it?

It was fully explicable: I’d just filled Nick in on the Rodney/Ryan argument thing, and that was just his comment on what had happened – after all, it had just been Ryan’s words that had caused the whole thing – yet I couldn’t shake off the notion that that hadn’t been directed at them. Or that he’d said it with a second, masked meaning.

But…that would mean he had to know, right?

Which would have meant that he’d have told someone about it already, and since Mum and Dad hadn’t said anything, it was safe to assume they didn’t know, which meant that Nick didn’t know…unless, of course, they were  secretly dealing with it somehow, or something…

But he’d still texted me, so that couldn’t be it.

The more I thought about it, the more I felt that my argument for ‘Nick doesn’t know’ wasn’t as weak as it had seemed- I had trouble digesting it, but my brain could at least accept that my chain of thoughts was reasonable.

It was probably just the message that was doing this to me… and ‘probably’ is an understatement. I knew that his message was having an effect on me and I’d do well to just let it slide, but not for the first time, it was easier said than done. He was a lot of bark and no bite, I told myself, so I had nothing to worry about. History was about to repeat itself? He’d said that earlier too, but nothing had happened.

“Is everything alright there, Max?”

It took me a fleeting moment to process that I was at the dining table with a book before me, and that Mum was calling out to me from the den.

“Yeah, I’m fine…how was your day?”

“You were making funny faces…are you one hundred percent sure? And it was great, thanks for asking.”

“Absolutely,” I assured her, a not-so-bright-that-you-can-tell-it’s-fake smile lighting up my face.

I’d learned a lesson when they’d returned home the weekend before. I hadn’t made it obvious, at least not by the words I said, but after the eight or so momentary flash on my face, Mum had put a hand on my shoulder, looked me straight in the eye and asked what I was hiding. She’d even gone on to warn me not to lie, because breaking into a smile at the end of each sentence as I outline what I’d done over the weekend was a surefire sign that everything wasn’t normal.

I had told them I’d spent the weekend at Nick’s already, but I’d put that down as due to him finding out I was alone and insisting, and me agreeing because I’d felt lonely, but upon the confrontation, I’d ‘fessed up and admitted I hadn’t liked being at home alone, and that it had made me uneasy.

 “I’m so sorry!” she’d said, “I should have known better than to-”

“It’s alright, Mum,” I’d told her soothingly, “and I was the one who talked you into it anyway. It’s not your fault.”

“I should have known though. You’re my son, after all, and even if you didn’t know, I should have…”

“Mum.” I’d tried to sound stern. “No, and anyway, I was with Nick so everything was alright.”