Autumn

32: What Winston heard

"You're pissed."

"I'm not pissed."

"Could your nose get any bigger, Pinocchio?"

Theodore's thumbs violently pressed buttons until Winston's player's head blew off. A warning flashed across the screen.

"What the fuck, dude? This is a multiplayer game. We're working together, not against each other."

Theodore threw his console onto the carpet and leaned against the end of his bed. "Wrong target," was all he said.

Winston sighed and placed his console on the floor beside him and sat there, chewing. He had recently started using nicotine gum and there had never been a problem with it. Until now. Theodore was suddenly irritated by the movement of his jaw, the incredibly quiet sounds of his teeth moving.

"So, how's Autumn?"

Theodore picked up a book that was half hidden underneath his bed and pretended to flick through it. "Shouldn't you know?"

Jealousy is such a hideous little concoction of emotion. It starts small, just a little seed of uncertainty. Then comes the poison that makes it grow. A dash of anger and a sprinkle of annoyance, accompanied by a pinch of pettiness and a teaspoon of something bitter.

The thing about jealousy is that it's all-consuming. It branches across your body like vines and wraps around any reminiscence of your being until you're suffocated. Thorns pierce your heart and monstrous thoughts cloud your mind. It makes you act impulsively and say hurtful things.

And the scariest thing about jealousy?

It happens so impossibly fast.

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm not the one dating her. I'm not even attracted to her. You know I'm into guys and last time I checked, Autumn's a girl."

"You still hang out with her a lot."

Winston frowned, unsure what stirred up this type of reaction. Then it suddenly clicked. "You saw us the other night."

Theodore didn't say anything, which confirmed his suspicions.

"We were just hanging out. If I'm being really honest, she was helping me with my geography homework. You know Macintosh is a shitty teacher, I can never learn anything in his class and I really need to up my ranking."

"Why didn't you tell me about it?" Theodore asked, keeping his head down, staring at the words printed on the pages, but not actually reading them.

"I didn't know I needed your permission to hang out with one of my friends."

"Didn't you want me to find out?"

"Fuck. Theodore." Winston groaned, raking his fingers through his hair. "Hanging out with Autumn isn't a secret, but I don't need to report to you before and after every time I see her."

Winston was right, but Theodore couldn't see that. He was still overwhelmed by jealousy, consumed by stubbornness.

"So, I heard something while I was over."

Theodore's heart hammered and all negativity seemed to dissolve into worry. He gently closed the book in his hands and placed it on his lap.

"What did you hear?"

"Her parents. They were whispering upstairs. I heard them as I was passing to go to the bathroom. Autumn seemed really uncomfortable about it when I asked, especially when I mentioned the crying."

"Crying?"

"Yeah, the crying. It was..intense. Not the hysterical type of crying. It was the type of crying where you try really hard to stop but it just comes out in choked, muffled sobs. It was really fucking depressing." Winston cringed, thinking about it.

Theodore remembered finding his mother crying like that. It would be late at night, by herself in the bedroom. He could never forget the quiet, tortured cries of the bravest woman in his life. It made his heart constrict with pain.

Theodore swallowed. "I wonder what her mum was so upset about."

"What?" Winston said, snapping out of his thoughts. When he registered what had just been said, he shook his head. "Oh, no. It wasn't Autumn's mum."

It wasn't Autumn's mum.

"It was her dad."