Free Me (bxb)

Part 33

His dad and Helen and Jonas are called after Griffin gives Mr. Lewis a bullshit excuse for the fight. He'd told him that Keith had been talking shit about Chad and Rose, and Keith never broke in to defend himself, so he just kept going along with it.

He and Keith are sent home early as a suspension, but are expected to return tomorrow morning as per usual. When his dad picks him up, he isn't nearly as angry as Griffin expects him to be. He's mad, yeah, and he lectures Griffin a bit on the way home about how fights aren't the way to solve problems and that he's disappointed in Griffin (surprise, surprise, what else is new?) for having an argument escalate in the way it did, but it isn't the anger that Griffin expected from him.

"He was talking crap about Rose!"

"I understand, Griffin," Tim says as calmly as possible. "But that's no reason to start throwing punches. You're not grounded, but you will come with me to talk to your principal tomorrow morning, and if this happens again you won't be off the hook so easy. I'm very disappointed in you Griffin."

Griffin turns his face away to look outside the window of his dad's truck, looking at his bike that's tied up in the bed, and fighting back the words, what else is new?

"Do you understand me, Griffin?"

"Yeah Dad. Crystal."

It's a little sarcastic, but maybe his dad is just too worn out to deal with him now, so they spend the rest of the ride home in silence. When they get back, Griffin gets his bike out of the back of the truck, parks it back inside the barn shed then goes to shut himself up in his bedroom. He doesn't even feel like riding.

His phone buzzes in his hand a few minutes after Griffin is settled down watching some motocross videos on YouTube, and he checks it to see it's Chad that sent the message. He's almost a little disappointed to read Chad's name instead of Keith's, but he tells himself he's ridiculous for thinking that way, and that he just punched Keith in the face and got him in trouble, so he probably wants nothing to do with him now. It's probably for the best, no, not probably, it is for the best. He needs Keith out of his life so maybe it will stop starting to spin out of control like it has been.

'What the hell happened with you and the new kid?'

'He started talking shit about Rose.' Griffin is an experienced liar, he knows to keep his story nothing but consistent and always believable.

'What would he have against Rose? She hasn't even talked to him.'

'Fuck if I know. He's weird, man.'

'Maybe he's just mad she's getting your dick and he isn't :p'

Griffin's face flames at the words in Chad's text. Chad knows that he and Rose still haven't had sex yet, so why he would put it like that is beyond him, but he did and now this realization that Keith was closer to having sex with him than Rose has ever been leaves Griffin's mind spinning. He was more eager to get Keith in bed than he ever has been with Rose or any other girl, and that- that's petrifying.

'Sorry dude. Too real?'

Griffin blinks back into reality when he reads Chad's follow up text, and when he looks at the time stamp, he's aware that he'd been silently freaking out for three minutes and never gave his friend a response.

A little is what Griffin types carefully back because, out of context, it was a little too real. It wasn't for the reasons that Chad expects, but he doesn't need to know the real reason of why Griffin is getting somewhat hysterical in his own head.

When his phone vibrates again, it isn't Chad.

'You know punching me in the face doesn't change anything right?'

Griffingrits his teeth and tightens his hold on the phone. So Keith's pissed, butapparently he's also really stubborn. He doesn't reply, and sets his phone onthe nightstand to roll over and sleep. With the sun out sleeping doesn't seemlike such a dangerous thing, and when he closes his eyes dead bodies don't burnbehind his eyelids, so he sleeps and for a few hours, he forgets all about themurders and Keith's mouth on his.