The Undercover Bad Boy

Chapter Twenty Three - Focus

Chapter Twenty Three - Focus

Welcome to counselling. It's for the stressed, downright depressed and the temperamental.

That's what Zach decided to say at the beginning of every single session. Every. Single. One. It became his own personal catchphrase.

I went to the sessions every lunch for the next four days. To be fairly honest, I didn't see any difference in my personality. I still wasn't regretting punching Sierra. Nevertheless, there was a noticeable improvement in everyone else.

Shelly #2 was still creepily obsessed with boy bands to extreme levels - no drastic change there. Jimmy could actually be friendly when he wasn't trying to annoy Zach, the boy who I had sat next to on the first session, Carl, had kept his bug massacre to a minimum and Paige was becoming less mean.

In reality, if I looked past all of the tattoos, piercings, heavy eyeliner and gothic clothing; they weren't as scary as I originally thought.

The only downside to this counselling business was that I didn't get to see Tara and Parker at lunchtimes anymore and I was beginning to miss our pointless conversations.

Currently, Zach was doing absolutely nothing productive with his life. He was slumped on my couch watching a cooking show. Don't even ask. The programme must have been very engaging because he would occasionally say things like that's now how you ice a cake, what even is that or can you not even cook so vegetables without burning them.

Zach didn't strike me as the chef-at-home type of person.

Moving promptly on, my family were returning tomorrow morning. Thankfully, my aunt's health had greatly improved and she was now able to look after herself.

This meant that Zach would have to go home. I wasn't going to lie; I would miss him not always being here. Then again, I don't think that my parents would appreciate knowing that he had been sleeping and eating here. Plus, I think I needed a little bit of time to myself.

Who was I kidding? Even though Zach had this weird love for cooking shows, I wished that he could stay for longer.

"Zach, my family is coming home tomorrow morning," I began, slightly nervous. I didn't exactly want to throw him out of my house. Knowing him, he would probably end up getting into another fight. One thing I knew for sure was that he wouldn't go back home.

"Two seconds, Brenda is sizzling the sausages," was his reply.

"Sizzle, that's such a weird word. Who is Brenda - wait, you're distracting me."

He glanced up at me. I was unable to ignore the look of apprehension in his eyes.

I cleared my throat and carried on. "I think it's time you went home."

"I can't," he responded flatly, returning his attention to the television. "You know why," he added before I could say anything.

I tilted my head to the side. "You're running out of clothes."
"I'll go around naked."

A blush threatened to appear as my imagination went a little wild. "But-"

"Don't deny it, Alex, you'd love that."

You don't know how right you are, Zachary. "You're parents are probably worried out of their minds," I added, distracted.

His eyebrows narrowed. "No their not," he denied, smirking.

I tried persisting. "Mr Fletcher-"

"Mr Fletcher my ass."

"As much as I do want you to stay, you have to go back to your house. You can't just run away from your problems," I stated firmly. "You can watch Brenda sizzle her sausages at your own house."