Joshua Bliss

Chapter 23: Kathryn's Mom

"Are you mad at me?" Sophie asked me as soon as I sat down beside her outside at lunch. This time I didn't come in such a rush, because I didn't see Jackson at all yet, so he couldn't ask me to go anywhere with him. But I think this time I might of turned him down though, I don't know. He does seem kind of nice though, but then the thoughts of what he did to Kaitlin and stuff still comes up. And I really want to believe Carter when he told me that, because I already made the mistake of it once, and I just really don't want anything like that to happen again.

I shook my head, "No, I'm not. Why do you think I'm mad at you?"

"Well, after what happened on Monday night you seemed pretty mad when you hung up the phone. And yesterday you didn't sit with us at lunch," She explained, still looking a bit upset. I don't like her when she's upset, I prefer her when she's all happy and cheery.

"I'm not mad, promise." I told her honestly.

"Well are you mad about anything...?" She wondered.

I shrugged, "Maybe at Josh, but I don't really know."

"What makes you unsure?" She pouted, giving me a confused look.

"As I said, I don't know." I answered. "Where's everybody else though? Why aren't you with Dustin?"

"He said he was looking for Josh, because he wasn't in school yesterday, and he's not here today." She told me. "I think him and Carter are going over to his house to look for him or something."

"Oh," I didn't know what else to say to that, because I don't know anything. I knew he wasn't in class, but I thought he was just skipping - maybe to avoid me or something. I didn't realize he wasn't at school at all. I thought he was here yesterday though, but he wasn't in class and I wasn't there at lunch to see if he was there. He's probably sick or something, so they'll find him at home I guess.

"He's probably just sick, I don't know." Sophie sighed, voicing my thoughts. She looked pretty upset, which I figured was because she thought I was mad at her, but now she knows I'm not, so why does she still look upset?

"Are you okay, Soph?" I asked her, not being able to guess any reason as to why she's upset.

"Not really, I don't know, guess not..." She sighed, bracing back on the bench.

"Well what's wrong?" I really hope whatever's wrong will be something easy to help with. I'm not that great at helping people, as it was obvious when I tried to help Josh, but I don't want to seem like I don't care that there's something wrong with her. Besides, maybe it'll cheer her up to just tell me, and that works.

"It's just that, I feel like I just got you mad at Josh - like it's all my fault you're actually mad at him right now." She told me. I guess that's not that hard to help her with, since it's about me.

"Sophie, I told you, I don't know if I'm mad at him or not. I'm just trying to understand this whole Kaitlin situation, you know?" I replied, trying to make it simple to understand. I was trying to even understand it myself, so I don't even know how I could possibly explain it to someone else if I don't even get it myself. It's just that I don't want to be mad at him, I want to be understanding about this whole thing; but I do feel mad, I'm really mad about this, actually. I know it's confusing - it's really confusing - but that's just how I feel, I guess. I know I'm mad at him, and this is obviously something that I'd get mad over, but I just can't stay mad at Josh...

Sophie covered her eyes and took a deep breath, "How about we just go out to get some pizza?" She suggested, putting on a smile - trying to change the subject from this whole sad, Josh thing.