Chasing Euphoria

Chapter Four

Landon

My eyes barely opened with my face smashed in my pillow when the sound of my phone ringing almost deafened me.

Ugh.

Checking who it was, I saw Adrian's name spread across the screen. He could wait. I silenced it and put my head down for what only felt like a few seconds before it rang again. What was his problem? It's not like he ever had anything important happening that involved me.

"What do you want man?" I groaned down the line.

"Excuse me?" Instead of him, a female vice echoed through the speaker louder than I anticipated.

Oh no.

I sat up slightly to read the name to instead see that it was my sister. Could've been worse. Could've been Mom.

"Sorry, Hailee. I thought you were someone else." I explained, trying to not get on her bad side.

"Adrian?" She guessed.

Instantly she knew it was him. He and I had been friends since high school. I remembered the day like it was yesterday. It was junior year, I knew of him and he knew of me, but we were from different crowds and just never crossed paths. Perhaps you could say I was a part of the dreaded asshole jock group. Adrian was more of a well-known quiet kid who preferred to blend in rather than stand out. Our only similarity was playing sports, but even then they were different ones.

I was a lacrosse guy, he was a football guy. Even then, he never liked too much attention regardless of how much he would sometimes get. Always trying to keep to himself. That was people wouldn't be getting in his business like they did mine. Not appealing.

One day the guys who I was friends with took their jokes one step too far. Joking about Hailee. Saying how much they wanted to sleep with her regardless of what she wanted. It knocked me fucking sick. At that moment, I grabbed the biggest and cockiest one by his jacket and just carried on hitting him until I couldn't feel my hands. That still didn't stop me. Adrian did. He heard everything going on and dragged me off the guy and set me straight, fully yelling at me.

If it went any further, my parents wouldn't have been able to convince the principal to keep me there and they wouldn't have convinced the guys' family not to press any charges. I didn't regret anything though. Those people could've been the greatest friends in the world, but they should've known to never bring my sister into any of their repulsive topics.

Adrian saved my future and I was forever grateful.

From then on, I started hanging out with him more despite him saying it wasn't necessary. If I was going to stick around, he advised that I dropped lacrosse and join him with football because he didn't want my feuds coming onto him for no reason other than being associated with me. It was a fair deal and I didn't see it at the time, but it was very sensible.

Hailee was even more thankful than I was. I'm her little brother, she couldn't stand to see me ruin myself, especially over something she described as pathetic and unreasonable.

Adrian is her favourite of all my friends. Admittedly the one she got to know the most considering he would always be over our place back then, but even when I talk about the others to her, she was always asking after him. It just goes to show how much gratitude she still has towards him for keeping me right these past years.

Now, he sees her as a sister. She's given him so much relationship advice that I think they've talked about it more than we have. I guess it was always more necessary for him actually having a girlfriend.

"Yeah, and before you ask, he's doing fine." I said, getting that part over and done with before it could come up.

"Well just a quick shout, Mom and Dad are wanting to know if you're coming with me to see them in a couple of weeks, what should I say?" She asked.