A Future To Die For || Nano 13

13

The day after, I felt like I made the worst mistake of my life. Cole went out of his way to ignore me, Erin avoided me like i'm the plauge and Nate couldn't look me dead in the eye. Like he was scared I would pounce on him and slit his throat if he did something wrong. It hurt, knowing he couldn't feel comfortable around me after I attacked Erin.

At the same time, I wanted to scream at them for overreacting. I had the right to be mad and they should just trust me. Erin did something wrong! She should be banished or something along that line.

It was a little past supper time and everyone had scattered from the kicthen, leaving me behind to clean up. I was doing the dishes when I heard footsteps behind me.

"Can I have a word with you?" I swished my hands around in the mild water before pulling out the dish towel and squeegeeing it dry. I nodded slowly and heard the footsteps walk off in the direction of the living room. I squeeze my eyes shut. Come on Drew, just get this over with. Surely Gavin won't kick you out after one little fight? I dried my hands on a dry tea towel.

"Anytime now, Drew," Gavin called into the kitchen, his voice low and rough like gravel. I walked into the conjoined living room, sending him a forced smile. Gavin didn't return it.

Gavin spoke a couple seconds after I sat down in a plush arm chair, "I want an explanation on why you attacked Erin," I gritted my teeth and blew through the tiny space between my front two teeth. What do I say? She deserves it after what she did to Sam? No, she deserves worse.

"I've seen her do some bad stuff to people, then just pretend that nothing happened and act like those people deserve it," I explained slowly and carefully treading the waters on how much I can tell him.

"Did anything specifc happen that made you dislike her so much?" he asked, leaning towards a large brick fireplace and studying the smoking embers of a fire sizzling to it's end.

"Nothing happened, Gavin." I grumbled.

"Nothing hap--you're definition of nothing, I--If you were a mathmetician, you'd be a disgrace." The older man grumbled, stabbing the fire with an iron poker. I was sitting on my seat bones, almost ready to jump to my feet and bolt away if Gavin decided to take his anger out on me and not the fire.

"Okay Gavin," I started, staring hard at the embers. "Something did happen. But what happened really was none of your fucking buisness," I told him harshly. I wrung my fingers together nerviously. Gavin's shoulders shook, as if he was silently laughing or angry. I couldn't tell which.

"Son, as long as you are living underneath my roof it is my buisness. Trust me," he chuckled again, swiping his hair out of his eyes with the handle of the iron poker.

"What if I just... Refused to tell you?" I asked.

"What if I just... Refused to let you stay in my house?" he countered, his eyes locking with mine. I almost cowered in fright. "I won't tell anyone other then Sam, if that's what you're afraid of," I cringed, pushing my weight deeper into the chair at the mention of Sam. He was talking about Samantha, obviously, but it still hurt the same.

"Please, don't call her Sam around me. Around any of us," I whispered. Gavin furrowed his eyebrows and opened his mouth to respond but I held up a hand, silencing him. "That was his name."

"Who's name?"

"Nate's brother," I sighed. "He..., passed away," I explained. "Well, Erin killed him."

"That's what you were talking about in the barn wasn't it? About how he didn't deserve to be killed?" I nodded slowly. "He was infected, that's what Erin said," Gavin spoke slowly. "So she killed him before he could infect anyone else. She did it because she was looking out for the group?" Gavin asked. I dug my teeth into my lip, absentmindedly fiddling with my lip ring nervousily.