Away With Him

14 - Misery Acquaints A Plan

I kept my head tucked down low and stuffed another forkful of my salad into my mouth. My shoulders were hunched over. My elbows were on the lunch table. My body language should have made it extremely clear to anyone in the cafeteria that I was not in the mood for talking. It should have, but it didn't.

"You going to the party at Brandon's place next week?" Finn asked me, his mouth still half full of the sandwich he was eating.

"Nah, probably not," I replied, barely moving at all.

"Oh come on Riley. We haven't hung out at all outside of school since you got back from France. And that was almost two weeks ago!" Finn quipped. The rest of the boys sitting around the table nodded in agreement. "You can't keep using the jetlag excuse."

I was well aware that I was avoiding my friends. It wasn't anything personal. In fact I was avoiding everybody. I thought I would have moved on at this point. That I would have forgotten about Max, or at least accepted what I had done. But I soon found that there was no possibility of me forgetting Max any time soon. Whether that was a good or bad thing was another question.

"Ok ok. I'll go," I conceded.

"That's more like the Riley I know," Finn said, patting me firmly on the back.

Finn was my next closest friend after Ellie. Though I wouldn't say that we were very close. We kind of fell into friendship at the start of high school. Being both relatively rich we both found ourselves in the same social circle. That was the case for everybody at my lunch table. We were the popular kids, but not jocks. An enviable group indeed.

Ellie was busy today. She was at debate club. It was the first day that we hadn't spent lunch together. I insisted that she go. I told her I was fine. I lied. In all honesty I wanted to spend my lunch with her but I couldn't let my problems get in the way of her social life.

"Maybe we can find a girl for you at Brandon's party," Finn continued, "Maybe that will cheer you up." Gavin and Wesley snickered on the other side of the table. I couldn't blame them. That's the type of joke I would have made. Before I went to France. Before I met Max.

Obviously I hadn't told them about Max. Or most of what happened in France. They only knew that I had a disagreement with the parents of the family I was staying with and I had to leave. Understatement of the century! They knew I was upset and the were trying to cheer me up. In the only heterosexual teenage boy way they knew how. Girls.

"Guys, I'm fine. I don't need you to get involved in my love life," I nodded.

"What love life?" Finn laughed.

"Too true," I sighed in defeat, cracking a smile for the first time that day. "But you're hardly one to talk."

"Have you not been listening to anything I said?" Finn wondered in disbelief. "I told you last week that I'm dating Tiffany Payne."

I hadn't been taking in much of anything that anybody had said to me. I thought I had been getting away it, apart from my slipping grades, but I had just shot myself in the foot.

"Sorry man. I'm just a bit-,"

"Tired," the group finished my sentence in unison.

"Oh," I said, my face flushing red in embarrassment.

"We're not buying that crap," Finn smirked. The rest of the boys were shaking their heads at me.

"I've just been distracted with other stuff," I explained, "It's stupid shit but it's just been bothering me. And then on top of that, coming home from France was really unexpected. But you're right, a party would be good for me."