setting fires

「 21 」

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The next day at school was torture. Everyone wanted to know how my "gay runaway" was with Jake. I didn't see Jake until lunch, where he punched me in my arm. I winced.

Michael didn't want to talk to me. Which didn't surprise me at all. He said I needed to learn from my actions. Which meant no more running away with Jake. I was annoyed at myself.

Why did I think running away would solve anything???

lol. humans are dumb.

For the first time since the reboot, I 100% agreed with my Squip. Jeremy didn't speak. He was silent until I turned to look at him and he open his mouth.

"You think you can just run away because you don't want to face the backlash?" his voice was breaking. "The world?" Michael and I both turned to look at him. My heart grew heavy with hurt. Did Jeremy think I ran away because I was scared? Of backlash? What kind of hate was Jeremy getting while I was away? Wasn't Michael there? Jeremy threw his head in his hands. I glared at Michael who shrugged at me and mouthed "I don't know!"

"Babe-" Michael threw his arm around Jeremy discretely. Jeremy jumped at the sudden movement and gulped. He looked up at me. I never noticed how fragile Jeremy was. How brave was he? Keeping his cool when his two best friends left suddenly. Now I felt like an arsehole. We were standing outside by Michael's car. I looked over to my car, where Jake was occupying the front seat, like usual. He didn't look happy. Michael was trying to get me to feel bad about running away again.

"O-Oh my god," Jeremy blushed, looking up at me. He leaned into Michaels' arms, hiding his face away from me. He was -- as Michael had described him over text thousands of times to me -- "smol". "I just totally made this all about m-me? I'm so sorry-" I grinned, happy the attention was away from me.

I watched Michael comfort, Jeremy, glaring at me. I could hear the "mess this up and I kill you" in his stare. "No, Jer..." I grunted, trying to clear my throat. I looked back into the front of the car seat, looking for Jake.

"Guys, as much as I would never want to break up this tender moment--" I pointed to the empty car seat, "Jakes gone."

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My fingers were tapping on the car wheel like crazy. "Are you alright to drive to wherever we are going?" I heard Jeremy pipe up from the back seat. I nodded, circling around on the interstate. Where did he even go?

i have an idea...

"NO!" I screamed, Michael and Jeremy shared a knowing look. They seemed to think me yelling at myself seemed normal. "I-I mean--"

i know where Jake went, silly.

"What?" I whispered to myself, "where?"

orange you glad you're stuck with me.

wait, no I told the joke wrong...

I ignored acting sane around Michael and Jeremy and screamed -- "ARGH!"

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" Now they're on the run, "

- Jake Dillinger (Upgrade)