Just A Little Different

Chapter 5

"Well, I'm have to go to bed now. I'm just so tired." Ben yawned. We were in a Skype call. We had just logged off of Minecraft. We had been playing Super Smash Mobs on Mineplex. Boy, was it intense. Today was Sunday, which meant we had school in the morning, the incident from yesterday out of our minds for the moment.

"Wait..." I couldn't stop myself before the single word passed through my lips.

Ben took a sip from his drink and then turned back to the screen. "Yes?"

I bit my lip. "Nevermind."

"You sure, dude?" His green eyes were glowing with concern.

"Um, yeah," I reluctantly replied. "Go to bed."

"Alright man, see you tomorrow morning!"

I turned off my computer as he hung up. Why did I try to stop him? I wondered. It was surprising, even for me, and I was the most unpredictable person i knew. I sighed. A knock on my bedroom door startled me from my thoughts. "What?" I called through, sounding more irritated than I'd intended.

"Ian, open up." The deep voice on the other side of the door startled me, as I had expected my mom's voice. "Ian!" he called to me again, knocking on the door once more.

I jumped out of my computer chair and opened the door just enough for my whole face to show through. I looked up into bright blue eyes, my eyes, but not belonging to me. My gaze fell to the floor. "Y-yeah, dad?"

"It's almost midnight. Why the hell aren't you in bed yet?" I flinched at his harsh, but quiet tone. Mom must've been sleeping.

"I was on the computer," I admitted. "I...I just turned it off." My dad reached out his hand and pushed the door open further so he could confirm my claim.

"What were you doing that kept you up this late?"

"I-I was...I was playing Minecraft and talking to Ben." I looked up at him. He didn't particularly like my friends. Suddenly a thought came to mind, and I accidentally blurted out, "Why are we even still talking?"

"Excuse me?" He sounded slightly taken aback.

I averted my gaze once more. "N-nothing, sir..." I flinched as he turned away, expecting him to hit me. I relaxed slightly as he started walking away.

I tensed again as he turned back around. "Get to bed now, or you'll have me to deal with tomorrow."

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I watched as Ben stood up and handed our paper to the teacher, who smiled at him. "Thank you, Benjamin." He turned and walked back over to me. Since we had nothing to do, he decided to start a conversation.

"Hey, Ian."

"Hmm." My mind was somewhere else as I answered him.

"Why did you try to stop me from getting off skype last night?"

My mind raced, searching for an answer, but I didn't have one. "I don't know, to be honest. Maybe I just didn't want to be alone."

"You were technically alone anyway, dude. I was at my house." He tried to lighten up the conversation with his humor. It worked. We started having random conversations about whatever popped into our heads while we were waiting for class to end. The door opened and closed and someone walked into the room and over to the teacher. There was still five minutes left of class. He handed the teacher a note and looked at me. I swallowed as I saw it was another one of Adam's friends, Mitch.

"Ian," the teacher called. I looked at Ben and then looked back to the teacher and Mitch.

"What do I do?" I asked, panicking. He was usually pretty nice to me, but when he was around, Adam wasn't too far away.