Group Therapy

66 - Worst-Case Scenarios.

About three hours later at 1am we arrive alex's house after dropping off eli at his.

I know my mom will most likely be asleep at this hour and l stupidly forgot to take my keys with me and my mom is too paranoid to leave a spare key somewhere so I'm staying at alex's for the night.

The car parks in his driveway and l get this sinking nauseous feeling in my stomach as l wonder when is the next time going to be, will there even be a next time?

I might seem like I'm being overdramatic but l know for a fact that dating someone my mom doesn't approve of is strictly forbidden in my house and I'm pretty sure ryder being in a gang won't help my mom approve of him.

"Alright we're here, let's go." ryder mumbles before sitting up straight and reaching for the car door's handle.

I follow him out of the car and alex follows after me.

"You're..?" ryder asks

"Oh yeah l forgot to tell you, no need to drive me back I'm staying at alex's for the night." l explain

"Oh.. Alright." he murmurs before pulling the truck open and taking out our bags.

Alex takes his bag and they say their goodbyes and do the bro hug thing.

I know l say this a lot but, never in a million years did l think there would ever come a day where l would see alex and ryder get along.

I take my bag from ryder and place it next to me.

"So.. I'll see you again soon, hopefully?"

"Yeah, of course. Don't celebrate just yet it's not that easy to get rid of me. I forgot to mention, you're not allowed to go anywhere without me or chase being with you the whole time so don't worry I'll be staying on your list of things to worry about for a while." he explains and l chuckle.

He always seems to brighten the mood even if it's not always in a direct way.

"You're an idiot." l chuckle "I'll see you around, okay?"

"Sure."

° ° ° °

The next morning joseph, being the amazing dad and person he is, drove me back to my house.

Let's just say that my greeting was unexpected, my mom cried.

I thought she hated me.

That wasn't the only thing that's unusual, ace, aella and their parents were gone now.

Now that l know who ace really is l don't exactly feel safe knowing that he knows where l live.

Rumors started going around about ryder and l at school the first day we arrived to school togther but everything died down by the end of the day.

Other than that it's been pretty boring, ryder and l didn't hang out that much as I'm busy with school and he's busy with planning his 'escape'.

He told me he booked a flight to go see Raleigh tomorrow and wanted me to go with him but obviously l can't make up another excuse to leave the house without my mom practically murdering me.

He asked if l could talk to her first as I'm a girl and she's a girl so he somehow thought it could help and l told him to call anytime he needed me to do so.

"I brought candy." hunter jumps on my bed with two bags of sour patch kids clutched between his tiny fingers.

"Thanks bud." l take the bags from him and help him settle down next to me.