Stress Relief

5: Irony

Clara scolded him lightly for getting home late, but once he explained he had officially 100% made friends with someone she gave him a big hug. Saying how proud she was of him for coming out of his shell. Clara was always really nice to him, even when he was little. After his dad divorced his mom for substance abuse to "cure" her depression, it was a long time before Elijah was comfortable around any adult woman.

He'd never admit it out of pure embarrassment, but he looked up to his step-mom a lot. She was kind, selfless, and supportive, and she was even the one who got him to pitch the idea of an at-home gym to his dad since she had a punching bag hanging in the garage she used to practice boxing. She told him once she was a professional boxer in her late 20s and early 30s to get her anger out, but eventually, there wasn't anything left to burn and soon enough she met his dad. She taught Elijah self-defense when he had free time after finishing his online classes, and he found it helped him let out his pent-up anger.

Besides that, he fell like a rag doll onto his bed that night, checking his phone for missed messages. To his surprise, the first thing he saw when he opened his phone that night was a picture of Alex, Sam and Carson posing with paint cans in the school parking lot. After several prying questions and a few scoldings, Elijah had learned that Chase had, at some point outside the group chat, told the others that he hadn't gotten a senior parking space, and they thought it would be a good idea to paint one for him by theirs. Which he actually had no idea how they ended up getting spaces by each other, but regardless they did a pretty good paint job. After Chase has practically interrogated him on his different interests, Sam had supposedly taken the liberty of designing a depiction of Zion National Park with their school colors. Here's to hoping the faculty doesn't notice.

His phone vibrated in his hand and he got out of the car in his newly gifted spot. Grabbing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder, he noticed the black birds hopping underneath the faculty cars. They didn't look like crows or ravens though, they had smaller beaks than that.

Bzz bzz

Elijah blinked and closed the door. The car locked with a beep as he slipped his keys away and pulled out his phone. Chase's name popped up on screen notifying two new messages.

[Hey, I'm @ the field]
[You think your dad will let me come over and learn from the oh-so-wise master of school?]

He smiled and slowly typed a response. If he had the energy to laugh he would have, but it was 6 in the god-forsaken morning and he thanked the man upstairs for personally getting him to school every day. How he didn't fall asleep on the road was a mystery to him.

[I wouldn't call myself a "master of school" but whatever floats your boat ig]
[also just so you know it'll take more than coming earlier in the morning to win my dad over]

He walked to the field and saw Chase, not dressed in his full gear like he was used to. He was wearing a navy, unbuttoned button-up, a white shirt with some design on it over dusty blue jeans. His honey blonde curls were styled neatly rather than being sweat-drenched and he could see his natural silhouette un-warped by the chunky shoulder pads that he had on. He looked good.

[Guess I'll have to try harder then, you here yet by the way?]

Quickly he looked away, now was not the time to check him out. Looking down at his phone he quickly sent an answer before pocketing it. After a moment, Chase looked behind him and waved with a bright smile. "Hey! You always come this early?" He slid his phone in his pocket, and now that they were standing side by side Elijah realized they didn't have too big of a height difference. Only reaching somewhere between his brow and his nose.

Unfortunately, he did still need to tilt his head a little to make direct eye contact. "Hell no, not since I met you guys." He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, "I'm not a morning person."