Chapter 13

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Chapter 13

Jonah

Hopefully Liam remembered his dentist appointment today. He was pretty groggy this morning when Brett took him to school, plus, he hated the dentist, so the likelihood of him being ready when I picked him up, was probably not too good. I told Brett I'd take Li so he wouldn't have to take off from work. I only had one morning class, my regular afternoon class was cancelled last week by the professor. He was having some mysterious procedure he wouldn't elaborate on which only left the door open for us to speculate.

He would probably still be at lunch when I got to the High School, so at least I didn't have to interrupt a class. After parking Brett's car, I headed straight to the office to sign him out, I told the secretary she didn't have to page him, he was probably outside and then went out back to look for him. I knew he wouldn't be in the cafeteria since he hated it in there so I wandered outside to the places we used to hang out at lunch together last year.

I spotted a senior I knew, one of the kids we asked to keep an eye on Liam. "Dude, have you seen Liam?" I asked as I approached the big football player. He lived in our old neighbourhood and before he had his growth spurt, we had gotten him out of trouble enough times that he'd become pretty loyal.

"Hey Jonah, he usually hangs out with Max and his friends out by the big oak tree. I checked him out and Max is okay. Kind of a metal head type, but he and his friends are nice to Liam."

"Great, thanks man," I said as I gave him a hearty pat on the back. "Good job!"

"No problem. Tell Brett I said hey." Poor guy, I was pretty sure he had the hots for Brett, but Brett never noticed or cared.

The oak tree was on the other side of the building, when I walked around the corner I could see a bunch of kids sitting around under it. Half of them were smoking, which I wasn't too pleased about, but as long as Liam wasn't, there was nothing I could do. I could see the Max kid I'd seen Liam talking to that time, with a butt in his mouth. When I got closer I could see Liam sitting right up next to a tall kid, it looked like they were sharing ear buds. It was nothing, but I couldn't help but feel...something inside. Jealousy? I mean, he's never really had any friends before, he always just hung out with us. I pushed down the feeling, it was stupid after all.

"Li," I called out just before I got there. "Liam," I repeated, touching his shoulder. He practically jumped a foot as he turned back. His startled face turned to a smile as soon as he saw me.

"Hey Jonah. What are you doing here?" he asked as he popped out the earbud.

"Dentist?"

"Oh yeah. D'uh," he laughed.

I looked over at the guy next to him, who was watching the two of us closely. "I'm Jonah."

"Zak," he replied before looking back at Liam. I watched him closely, not too happy about the way he was looking at Liam. My Liam.

"Zak was playing the new Sleeping With Sirens for me," Liam said. "It's great, you'd like it."

"Yeah. You'll have to play it for me tonight on You-Tube or something. We should get going though Li, so we're not late."

"Okay," Liam stood up, "See you guys tomorrow." 

All of them looked up and said goodbye to him. 

"Bye Zak."

"Bye Liam, hey, we can listen to the rest of the album tomorrow at lunch." Zak flashed him a bright smile and I found myself gritting my teeth. I know I'm being stupid, he's allowed to have friends...but it still rubbed me the wrong way seeing the way this guy looked at him.

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⏰ Last updated: Nov 20, 2016 ⏰

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