Sometimes the line between trainer and best friend is blurred, and today, he crossed it. After all, he’s the fucker who helped my knee shit the bed. Mitchell is many things, and he seems to be the only one who can tell when I’m about to lose it.
I need an outlet, some kind of remedy. Hockey isn’t cutting it, and murder isn’t a choice yet. There’s only one other option I have that will absorb all of my time and energy. I’ve held myself back from it for weeks, paced myself, took little bite-sized pieces just enough for a taste.
The plunge is my only choice. I fear I won’t recognize myself once I take it.
I grunt, easing up. My attempt at hiding my wince is clearly unsuccessful. “I’m fine?—”
“Don’t bullshit me that it isn’t hurting. I don’t want your sister to drop laxatives into my coffee again for letting you get injured on my watch. Plus, you said you’d help us with the move. Pull yourself together, or I’ll ask Jack and Simon to lend a hand.”
He wouldn’t dare. “I’m calling your bluff.”
I’d rather have Sabrina spike both of our drinks than let Dumb and Dumber anywhere near my sister.
“I heard my name,” Dumb’s voice echoes through the hall.
I glare at Mitchell and quickly grab my shit before I can get dragged into a conversation with Jack Norton. “This is your fault.”
Because Mitchell isn’t stupid, he sets his bottle down and moves closer to me.
“Hey, Leo.” Other than Mitchell, Jack is the only person on the team who refers to me by my first name. We’re not friends. I made that mistake once.
No matter how much shit I throw his way, he never leaves me alone. The more I try to get rid of him, the closer he gets. He sticks like bad fucking breath.
I keep my head down and risk it all by shoulder-checking him. His arm snaps out to grip mine, and the thin string tethering me to this side of a prison cell frays. I shove him back.
Mitchell is right there before I can feed the beast howling for blood. “Break it up,” he hisses in my ear as my teammates swivel around to watch the scene unfold. I’m too pissed to care that if a pileup happens, the only one who will have my back is Mitchell.
Simon stations himself in the center as a makeshift barrier.
“You keep your fucking hands off me,” I snarl, pointing a finger at Jack’s face.
His face is drawn in confusion—hurt, and every single person under this roof falls for it. It’s the same pathetic look he’s given me ever since I realized he’s a parasite. Why he still wants to be friends after all these years is something I’ll never figure out.
Beside that sick fuck, I look normal.
Ever since middle school, he’s been right there. He transferred midway through the year, and I made the mistake of offering him my good pencil when his broke during a quiz. My second mistake came from letting him borrow my gym shorts a couple weeks later when another kid from our class poured their drink all over his gear.
The third? Letting him sit at our lunch table when he asked, after weeks of being alone.
From there, we became attached at the hip. We were an unstoppable trio: me, Mitchell, and Jack. We knew how to read each other on the ice, stirred the same shit, and had the same interests.
Even when his dad transferred to coach another team a state away, he stuck around and boarded at the same high school.
Then I stopped being a stupid sixteen-year-old and had a more developed frontal lobe to recognize what he was doing. All the times he only invited me to do things and left Mitchell out, the lies he’d tell about Mitchell and girls showing any hint of interest in me, scaring them off, trying to twist my head about how Sabrina has it out for me, and convincing Mitchell to hate me for a few months.
It took me a while to see it and realize he was suffocating me. Jack was everywhere I looked. Except I didn’t realize until it was too late, and I lost my parents because of him.
Mitchell and I started getting into a certain band, and so would Jack. I signed up for advanced chem, next thing I know, he went from barely passing the subject to attending the same class. I dated one of the cheerleaders, then he was dating a girl from the same friend group. I started frequenting a lunch spot on the other side of town, and suddenly I couldn’t stop bumping into him there.
He wouldn’t fuck off no matter how many times I told him to.
I thought I could shake him off when I went to college and cut ties with my parents after what he did, but the rat walked into my first class. The two blissful years I managed to be free of him playing in LA were far too short-lived because, fast-forward to the start of this year, his dad offered me a spot too good to refuse. I’d have been an idiot to say no.
The only downside is Jack.
I’m ashamed that I was stupid enough to believe he might have grown out of his obsession with me because he kept his distance for a couple years. Turns out I was wrong, and I’m a fucking idiot for falling for his antics all over again.
Jack has the audacity to scoff as if he’s a clueless, innocent little gem. “How long are you going to keep being shitty about this, man? I was just looking out for you.”
