30 Days Together

Chapter 2

Kyle Thornton was not the type of guy to zone out when someone was talking to him. But this

time around, his mind and body were at two separate locations. His mind was set on finding the

strange girl he had undoubtedly offended, while his body was with his friends.

“Dude what do you think?” Wyatt asked nudging his shoulder.

“Umm... what did you say?” Kyle asked and then admitted sheepishly, “I didn't quite get you.”

 His friends looked at him with concern laced on their faces. “I asked what you thought about going to watch the football match this weekend?” Wyatt said repeating his previous question.

“Oh that's cool. We can go watch it,” Kyle said with a sigh and a half shrug. He didn’t understand why he was still thinking about that girl. She was not his type, period.

Jackson paused the game that he and Vincent had been playing and turned to face his best friend. “Ky what's been bothering you? You seem pretty out of it today,” Jackson asked.

Kyle ran a hand through his hair tousling it, “It’s nothing, I guess I just have a lot going on in my head.” 

“Is it about a girl?” Jackson continued with a coy smile that made his blue eyes glimmer with mischief, “because you know you can tell us anything.” 

Kyle shot him a look telling him to let it go but Jackson just laughed.

 "C’mon man you can tell us these things,” Vincent egged on. “Is it about Mariah? Did she turn you down…… again?”

The other guys burst out laughing at that while Kyle glared at Jackson. He hadn’t told the others that Mariah had turned him down. The only person that knew was Jackson and it seemed that he had told them without his permission. 

Jackson raised his hands up in mock surrender. “I didn’t tell them exactly. But I may have let it slip when I was drunk, it’s no big deal dude,” he shrugged. 

“Aw, is poor Kyle feeling deprived of some s*x?” Wyatt mocked. “Don’t worry man, you’ll get laid soon. Just keep hanging in there, okay?”

Jackson and Vincent both burst into laughter at the murderous look that Kyle was giving Wyatt.

“You’re all arseholes, you know that right?” Kyle shot. “I don’t know why I still hang out with you when all you do is act like complete arses and jerks.” 

His friends continued laughing. “Aw don’t be like that Ky, we are just messing around,” Jackson spoke still laughing.”

“Yeah man, stop being so sensitive and s**t,” Vincent added.

“We are only joking around with you,” Wyatt said. “It’s all right if you are deprived of s*x, you can always hook up with a random chick while you wait for Mariah to accept your arse.”

At that, the other two guys erupted into fits of uncontrollable laughter.

“I can ask Jessica if she can set you up with someone from her cheer team,” Wyatt continued. 

“f**k you man, f**k you all,” Kyle spat as he stood up. “You can all just screw yourselves.”

“Aw, I’m not into that kind of stuff dude,” Wyatt shot back with a s**t-eating grin.

Jackson stopped laughing when he noticed the look on Kyle’s face. “What crawled up your arse and died eh? We are just teasing, there’s no need to get upset.” 

Vincent continued laughing, “I think the lack of s*x has really affected his sense of humour,” he said. “Learn to chill out man and take a joke like an actual man for once.”

Kyle flipped them the middle finger and stormed out of the room. He needed some space for him to clear his mind and he needed to do it quick. He felt as though his friends were suffocating him, so when he was outside alone, he took in a huge breath to ease himself. If only his friends knew what he felt, then they'd understand him and not act like complete jerks.

It wasn’t Mariah he was worried about, but it was another girl. A girl he may have undoubtedly insulted. Kyle ran a frustrated hand over his face. It wasn’t like there was anything special about her, but then he couldn’t explain what had compelled him to approach her in the first place. 

“Kyle are you okay?” Jackson asked as he placed a hand on his shoulder. 

Kyle was startled out of his thoughts as he turned to glare at his supposed best friend. “What do you want? Do you want to finish what you started? Because trust me when I say I’m in no mood for whatever it is you have to say.” 

Jackson looked stunned for a few seconds before he composed himself. “Look dude, you know we were just teasing you. We didn’t mean anything that we said.”

“Tell that to Vincent and Wyatt,” Kyle rolled his eyes.

“I’m sorry about telling them though. I didn’t mean for it to slip but it did,” Jack apologised looking sincere.

It was still a bit hard for Kyle to wrap his head around what had just happened but he couldn’t exactly go about blaming Jackson or any other person. “It’s cool dude, I know you didn’t mean to tell them but you still did,” Kyle said as he looked anywhere but at him. “Shite happens I guess.”

“Yeah it does, doesn’t it?” Jackson asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“Yep!”

Jackson shook his head and Kyle could tell that there was more he wanted to say but he kept his mouth shut.

“Can we at least go back inside? I’d like to finish my FIFA game if you don’t mind,” Jack spoke as he rocked on the heels of his shoes.

“You can go back,” Kyle responded with a tilt of the head. “I’ll join you later.”

Jackson threw him a sceptical look but nodded his head and left him alone.

Kyle’s thoughts strayed away from him and he saw himself standing in the library in front of the strange girl. She had consumed his mind and the way her eyes had bulged out when she had let her book drop was utterly cute. Wait, what? Cute? He was not meant to find her cute, he had Mariah to worry about and not some random girl who barely talked to him.

Taking a deep breath, Kyle ran a hand through his hair and went back inside his house.

Wyatt and Vincent were sat on the couch playing FIFA while Jackson sat on a beanbag watching them with a semi scowl etched on his face and his hands folded. 

“I thought you were the one who was supposed to be playing,” Kyle said as he took the remaining beanbag. 

“Yeah I was. But Wyatt over there had already taken my place,” Jack replied as he glared in Wyatt’s direction.

“You left,” Wyatt replied with a half shrug not once taking his eyes of the screen.

Vincent laughed while Kyle shook his head with an amused smile.

Jackson turned to glare at Kyle. “What the hell are you smiling at? This is all your fault.”

“How is this my fault exactly?” Kyle asked amused. “Because I didn’t tell Wyatt to take your place.”

“Because if you hadn’t been such a sensitive arse, maybe I wouldn’t have had to go and check up on you.”

Kyle threw his hands in the air exasperatedly, “I didn’t tell you to follow me, now did I?” he shot back.

“Well excuse me for being a good best friend and trying to see if my so called best friend is okay,” Jack snapped. “The lest you could do is just not be a jerk right now, okay?”

Vincent had paused the game as he and Wyatt turned to watch the argument that had now started.

“Umm, guys there’s no need to let this go out of hand,” Vincent said, “Jack you can play on my part if that’s what you want. I’m cool with giving you my place.” 

There was a tense silence as Jackson glared hard at Kyle while Kyle looked irritated. “I don’t need your pity game,” Jackson responded. “I’m out of here.”

Kyle watched as Jackson stood up and made his way out his basement. He wanted to stop him but he didn’t know what the problem was or how Jackson had just snapped at him for no plausible explanation.

“Okay, that was weird as hell,” Wyatt commented after the initial shock and confusion had passed. “I don’t know what you two talked about outside, but it must be huge if Jackson just stormed off like that.”

“I don’t even know what to say,” Kyle replied dazed. “We didn’t even talk about anything that could have gotten him upset.” 

Wyatt looked at the door once more before he shrugged and started the game once more. “Whatever it was, it’s his loss.” 

Kyle and Vincent both shook their heads at Wyatt. 

“Well are we playing or not Vin?”   

“Yeah sure.”

It seemed like today just wasn’t Kyle’s day. For the first time he had gone to the library which was a waste of time because he didn’t come out with what he went there for. Instead, he’s mind was filled with a girl he didn’t even know the name of. And to top it all off, Jackson was upset with him for reasons he didn’t know. Yeah it was a wild and confusing day and all Kyle wanted to do was just sleep and hope it was all just a dream when he woke up the next morning. Otherwise, he didn’t know what he would do.

                                                               *********** 

“Kyle! Wait up,” Vincent shouted from across the hallway. 

Kyle stopped walking and turned to look at his friend. Vincent was panting as he finally reached him in the busy school hallways. Most of the people had stopped what they doing to stare at two of the school’s most popular and hot guys.

“What’s wrong,” Kyle asked as he adjusted the straps of his school bag. “Did something happen?” 

Vincent raised a hand signalling Kyle to give him a few seconds to catch his breath. “Have you heard?” he asked still panting. 

“Heard what?”

Straightening up, Vincent’s brown eyes looked at Kyle as though he had grown a second head. “Seriously?” he threw his hands exasperatedly, “you haven’t heard about Jessica’s party this Friday?” 

Kyle rolled his eyes tiredly. He hadn’t gotten any sleep as he couldn’t get the strange girl out of his head. Of course Jessica would be throwing a party to celebrate them becoming seniors. But he at least expected it to happen two weeks into the school year and not the first week. “Of course Jess would be throwing a party this Friday,” he replied as he resumed walking and Vincent followed suit. “Where is she throwing this one at?”

“I don’t know, but Wyatt said it might be at her dad’s lake house,” Vincent said with a shrug as he ran a hand through his auburn hair. “He also said there will be a lot of kegs because she’s almost 18 and her dad said it was cool.” 

“Uh-huh.”

“Tell me about it. If you did that your dad would blow a fuse before he ever agreed to such a thing,” Vincent said with a sigh. “He’s always trying to get you to be like him, a complete arse and workaholic.” 

Kyle glanced at Vincent before he looked back ahead and turned to enter their class. “It happens to most of us, so don’t fret about it that much,” he said as he and Vincent took their usual seats at the back of the class where Jackson and Wyatt were already sat. “That’s why I figure this Friday is just what we all need. We need to unwind before we drown in school work.”

“My thought exactly,” Wyatt piped in as he leaned in closer. “My girl is just that great, she even got Mariah to agree to come,” he said with a smirk. 

Kyle rolled his eyes but he couldn’t help the smile that made its way onto his face. Maybe she would finally agree to go out with him after he got rejected the whole of summer break. Besides, he needed to get that girl from his head before he turned insomniac thinking about her. 

“Aw he’s almost blushing,” Vincent said smugly. 

“I’m not blushing,” Kyle said rolling his eyes. 

Vincent and Wyatt exchanged looks before Vincent turned back to face him, “sure you aren’t Ky,” he said at the same time Jackson smacked him upside the head. 

“Stop being a jerk,” Jackson said, “give the guy a break. He’s allowed to blush once in a while.” Jackson sent him a subtle wink.

Kyle was surprised and turned to Wyatt but he just shrugged seeming to not have seen anything. 

“What?” he asked. 

Before Kyle could say anything, Wyatt jumped in. “Weren’t you all pissed off with him?” he asked. 

“And?” Jackson c****d his head to the side making his brown curls to cover in his left eye. “We are still friends after all.” 

A smile appeared on Kyle’s face and he wanted to say something but their Music teacher walked in and that was that.