Savior [Completed]

Savior: [Six] [I/II]

Six - Nick

I was irritated- he’d agreed on letting things rest for a week, so why couldn’t he just wait for three more days?

“Nick, what’s wrong?”

My little brother had taken the liberty of entering my room and planting himself beside me on my bed.

Forcing a smile, I shook my head. “Nothing. Why do you think there is?”

He was hesitant. “Well, you looked super annoyed when you came, and you didn’t even call me like you said you would to play outside.”

My hand flew to my forehead. In my preoccupied state of yelling at Rodney in my head, I’d completely forgotten about the promise I’d made to Sam. “Aw, man! I’m so sorry! Let’s go right now.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said, “but tell me what’s wrong, please.”

I paused for a moment, thinking about how to phrase my words. I did intend to respond to his query – but there was no need to give him the details, either.“It’s not a big deal,” I sighed, “but I was just angry with one of my friends. He promised to give me a week to do something important, and then he was asking for it to be done today, and that really just frustrated me.”

The concept seemed to confuse him. Sam frowned. “But why?”

“He said seven days, and I have three more left. He should respect that.”

“No, I get that.”The sound of him taking in a breath followed – he wanted to dispute me, somehow, but wasn’t sure if he ought to. He continued eventually. “But, I mean, why did you get so frustrated? If you were going to do it anyway, wouldn’t you have already done it by now? It’s the weekend already.”

“It’s not that simple, bro. It’s not like I had to make something for him, or anything. It’s…complicated.”

“You’re complicated,” my brother retorted, and I felt myself smile.

“Fair enough,” I responded agreeably, “let’s leave it there…now, do you want to go out and throw some ball?”

“Are you sure?”

“What’s that?” I cupped my hand around my ear as though to try and hear better. “Did I hear you’re scared of losing?”

He grinned. “You’re on.”

*

So, although I’d been the one to say that we could leave my irritation as due to my being complicated, I couldn’t help but give second thought to what Sam had said. His questions had been without any knowledge of the context, but the more I thought about it, the more I found myself questioning whether my ire was because of Rodney rushing me, or if it was because of something else altogether.

‘If you were going to do it anyway, wouldn’t you have already done it by now?’

Sam assumed it had been something more tangible that I needed to accomplish, and because he knew my work ethics, he’d asked about it being done already, but obviously, this wasn’t as simple as that. At a level it sounded ridiculous even to myself, that I’d try to force out of Max the truth, but on another, I knew what it felt like to feel trapped and beaten, and how powerless one felt when everything was just resolved for them. I also knew that I couldn’t truly comprehend what went on in his head and that that just meant I had to be careful, but…what if Rodney was right?

What I’d been trying so far had gotten me nowhere, except probably in Max’s list of People To Be Suspicious Of. 

‘It’s never going to work!’