Dead Apples

16- Couple Fights

Because everybody was hungover on Saturday, Amber and I meet at the preschool on Sunday to work on the mural instead. I have to show her the new sketch that I decided to go with instead of the underwater scene so that'll be interesting. I think that she'll like it because she seems pretty agreeable.

When I arrive at the preschool, I go through the front doors and down the hallway to where the cafeteria is. Amber is already there, I can hear her voice before I open the door to go into the large room. When I go inside, I can see that she's on the phone with somebody and she's got her face twisted into a scowl so I take it that the conversation isn't going very well.

"All I'm saying is that you're being kind of a jerk right now. And I didn't do anything," Amber says into the phone. She glances up at me and waves me into the room but doesn't say anything to me which is fine. One of the cafeteria tables has been left open so I take a seat there and pull my sketch pad out of my bag.

After a pause while Amber listens to the other person, she responds to them with, "Okay, well then why don't you tell me what you want me to do, Dex. What am I supposed to do?"

I should leave the room to give her some privacy because their conversation doesn't seem to be any of my business but I can't just roam around a preschool and I don't know where I'd go. I just keep my head down and pretend like I'm not even here. Hopefully, she'll be done with this conversation soon so that we can get started.

"I'm so done with you right now, you are being impossible," She huffs into the phone after another short silence. "Fine, whatever you say. I'm sorry for worrying about you, I guess. Asshole."

And then she hangs up the phone, which I appreciate. I'm curious about what they were fighting about but I know that I can't ask her about it. It's really none of my business. I wonder what Dex looks like when he's mad. I bet he grinds his teeth and clenches his jaw. I wonder if he's a violent angry person, somebody who feels the need to throw things or punch the wall. I could also see him as a silent angry person, who just stews in the anger and doesn't let it out at all.

"I'm so sorry about that," Amber breaks my inappropriate train of thought. "Just Dex. He's... being Dex. Anyway, are you ready to get started?"

"Yeah," I confirm with a nod, opening up my sketch pad to the new drawing. "I've changed directions with the sketch. If you don't like it, we can go back to the underwater scene."

"This is really great," She tells me once she's sitting down beside me at the table so that she can see the sketch. The tables are built for preschoolers so they've very low and uncomfortable. My knees are pressed up against the bottom of the surface and my back is hunched, so I'm ready to stand back up now. "I love this."

"Okay, awesome. This is the finished sketch so if you want, I can go ahead and start outlining on the wall. You don't need to stick around, if you need to go talk to Dex or something."

"Oh, no, I definitely don't want to go talk to him right now. He got himself put in the hospital and then he got all mad at me for being worried. He just texted me to tell me that he was in the hospital so I was freaking out and yeah, I called a ton of people to see what was going on," Amber starts explaining the story to me. "Which he didn't appreciate. So now he's pissed at me for freaking out because he wouldn't text me back."

"He's in the hospital?" I question, feeling just a bit alarmed even though I know that there's nothing seriously wrong because if there was, Amber would probably be at the hospital with Dex right now.

"Yeah. Earlier today, he was drag racing with Tyson and them and it ended badly. Everybody's fine and Dex is the only one that got hospitalized but I still don't even know how badly he's hurt because he won't tell me anything. He keeps saying that I'm being overdramatic and annoying," She explains to me. "I swear to god, it better be because of some drugs they have him on and if it's not, he's going to need to be put on those drugs after I'm done with him."