Earned It

Chapter Twenty-Three: James

~A couple hours earlier~

"You always do what you want. Ya know what. I'm not going to fight with you anymore. Go have fun with Pat and Jack. I hope you OD." Shannon snaps at me.

She always does this to me. I don't want to be with her anymore. She is so controlling and manipulative. I just want to end things.

"This is why I fucking hate you. I wanna break up with you. You can go fuck yourself." I say as I get up and head to the football team.

"Ooooo. James is in trouble with his girlfriend again." Pat says after watching me leave the table. Tyler and Ben laugh as I sit with them.

"You don't know the half of it. I just need to be at Jack's later. Get my mind off of things." I reply.

"What's good with that tonight?" Tyler chimes in.

"Jack has some good shit for us. He has everything so we can do whatever we feel." Pat replies with a smug look on his face.

"The most I've ever done is smoked so I dont think I'm going to do much more than that." I say.

"What are you a pussy? You'll do whatever the rest of us do...That or you can hang with your gf."

"I'm not a pussy, Pat. I'll do what you guys do."

"I can pick you guys up later." Ben says. He gets up. "I'll see you guys tonight." He heads out of the cafeteria. I get up and follow him out.

The bell rings and Ben and I walk to class together.

"Lowkey nervous for tonight." I tell him.

"Ya, same. I haven't done anything but drink but I don't want Pat calling me a pussy."

"Maybe when we get there we can just chill and just smoke or something."

"Yeah, that's all I wanna do. Maybe we can smoke before or something so I dont bug out in front of the guys." He says.

"Yeah. I'll come by early and we can chill." We fist bump and head in opposite directions to our classes.

I go through the rest of my day. Shannon has been texting me a bunch but I've just been ignoring it all. I feel like it's not healthy for a couple to fight this much.

I feel bad that Y/N had to see us fight again. She always watches us fight and I feel like me and Shannon's relationship is affecting how much I get to see one of my best friends.

I head home and get my bong. I text Ben when he wants me to come over. He says in a little so I do some homework and think about everything with Shannon.

Pat randomly texts me "Pussy!" but I just ignore him.

I eat dinner and head over to Ben's house. He greets me at the door and I say hi to his family who is sitting in the living room for family prayer time.

They all sit together for 15 minutes once a day to pray as a family. Ben always says how he's not religious and just sits in silence during it. His mom, Dad and sister love going to church and go two times a week. They also all help out at local food pantries on the weekends which Ben usually goes to. His parents only let him out of the house one day a week to hang with friends. He must be using his 'friend pass' today.

"We are going to go upstairs." Ben says signalling up the stairs but doesn't get a response from his silent family.

"You guys are still doing family prayer time?"

"Yeah, it gets worse everyday. I did mine early cause you were gonna be here."

I set up Ben's fan facing the window.