Growing Pains

Chapter 30 - I felt like passing out

I S A A C

I took the bus to Jacob's house. I had been there before but mostly when everyone else in school was too, parties Jacob had thrown over the years that ended with Ethan and I attempting to skate home absolutely drunk out of our minds. In one of these attempts, I had broken my arm and realized only the morning after. In most of them, Ethan would twist an ankle or dislocate a shoulder.

I didn't know what to expect of tonight. Probably nothing good. Still, I rung the bell. After a while, Jacob showed up in sweatpants and a t-shirt, a beer in his hand.

"Welcome," he said, with a smile. Was it even a smile? I didn't know. I didn't think I cared either. I just said thanks and followed him inside.

I hadn't dressed as casually as him because my mom hadn't let me. She had forced me to wear a nice pair of jeans, my nicest, in fact. Of course, in the living room, no one cared about it. Instead, what seemed like the entire football team crowded the couch and spoke all over each other, beer bottles in hand, snacks going from the coffee table to their mouths in fistfuls, again and again.

"We were waiting for you to start the bets," Jacob said, putting a hand around my shoulders. He always did it like he was trying to prove something. I was never sure if it was something good or bad, like, see, we're friends, or see, I could break your arm right here, right now. He probably could. I was pretty sure my arm hadn't healed right.

On the other end of the couch, Edward was also wearing a nice pair of jeans, a bottle of coke instead of a beer in his hand. He was looking at me. So was everyone else.

"You're late," Finn said next to Jack. Finn and Jack were twins who played the same position and failed all the same classes. They wore shorts all the time, regardless of the weather. Occasionally they were hilarious.

"Yeah, sorry about that," I lied.

"Right, let's cut the chase. Who do you think's gonna win and how much money do you put on it?" Jacob asked, letting go of me to get a seat in the armchair by the fireplace. On the big screen over it, the players were already on the field.

"You don't have to put any money on it if you don't want to," Edward said.

"But you should." This was Jacob again, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket and taking out a pile of bills. I didn't think I had more than a few dollars in my own wallet, and that was for the bus ride home, so no betting for me.

"I don't think I will," I said, walking over to Edward's end of the couch and taking a seat next to him. The others started doing their bets, throwing money on the coffee table, and fighting over who they thought was going to win. I turned to Edward, "Is it bad I don't even know who's playing?"

He smiled and shook his head, "No."

"You're not gonna join them?"

Jacob was apparently listening to our conversation, because he said, "Edward doesn't understand the economy of gambling."

"I guess I don't," Edward said next to me.

"What is it that I always say?" Jacob went on, finishing his beer and grabbing another one from the crate by his chair. "The only good reason you have to save money is to –"

"Invest it, bitch!" Jack stopped him, slapping a bunch of bills on top of the pile already gaining shape next to a bowl of funyuns. I doubted any of them had actually earned any of that money. It was probably their allowance they were spending.

Edward leaned closer to me, "They've watched Wolf of Wallstreet one too many times."

"I couldn't even finish it." Ethan and I had switched it for Legally Blonde before half time, which had been far more entertaining and way less depressing.

"I didn't even start watching it," Edward admitted, "but don't tell them that."

"What kind of stuff do you watch?"

"You wouldn't know it," he said, looking at the tv instead of me. The game had started, sure, but there was no way I was going to let him get away with that.

"Come on." I elbowed him. Jacob had turned the sound up and the others had already a lot to say about what was happening in the game, so I had to lean closer for him to hear me, "This is a safe space."

Edward laughed to himself and shook his head, "This is the complete opposite of a safe space."

I laughed too, "Text it to me then."

He shook his head again, "I'm watching the game."

I looked at the tv, "It's gonna go out."

It went out. Edward smiled and took his phone out of his pocket. After some typing, mine buzzed. I took it out. Edward had written: I like historical fiction. I typed back: like lord of the rings? i couldn't get through that either.

Next to me, Edward smiled at his phone and shook his head before looking up at the tv again. I looked too. The players were pushing each other around. Football was mostly just that.

"It's gonna go out again," I told him under my breath.

It went out. This time Edward laughed. I grabbed his phone from his lap, handed it to him again, and he wrote: That's not historical fiction. In mine, I typed: vikings then?

He turned to me, "Did you turn off the capitalization on your phone?"

I smiled, "Does it tickle your brain?"

"It does, yeah," he said.

"Isaac!" someone called then. I looked up. It was Jacob. "Think fast!"

Then he threw a beer bottle at me. I almost didn't catch it. It would be a disaster if I didn't. I doubted his parents would be happy about having shards of glass and beer all over their fancy carpet. Everything in this house seemed fancy.

"You don't have to drink that if you don't want to," Edward told me.

"Shut the fuck up!" Jacob shouted, turning to me afterward. "Drink up, Isaac!"

I opened the bottle with my teeth, and said, "I will, but not because you told me to."

"That's what she said!" Jack and Finn said at the same time. Then laughter. Then, on the tv, almost a touchdown. We had lost their attention. Great.

I turned to Edward again, a third of my beer gone inside me, "Just tell me what it is you like watching."

"Vikings." He smiled.

"You're just saying that shut me up."

"I'm not." He laughed. "I've watched almost half a dozen seasons of Danes and Saxons fighting over England. I've also watched a whole show about the building of a cathedral, so there's that, and you know those shows Luke Martin was talking about in World History? I've watched all of those too."

"That's adorable," I said.

"Fuck you."

"I mean it!" I really did. "That's why you're such a fucking prince."

"Seriously, fuck you."

Then an actual touchdown happened on tv, and mayhem started. I finished my beer while they finished celebrating. Then I turned to Edward, or I tried to. It was hard to move. It was hard to do anything. I felt like passing out. I did.