Just Wait » Boyf Riends

Rich, Who Emotionally Scarred Me As A Child, Fucks Me Over

tw ; mention of a jewish slur
p.s. this chapter mentions some things that happened in "who knew that discussing death with the popular jock could be so calming" which was chapter 10. if you want, i'd recommend you just quickly skim through the little text conversation that jake and michael had in that chapter to refresh your memory! c: <3 have fun reading babes!!!
p.p.s sorry for ruining your christmas :( </3

When Jeremy came back from the hospital, it was like he'd built up a thousand more walls that were now up to me to break down.

He was incredibly closed off the entire day, every smile he sent me had a bit of edge to it and half of the time didn't meet his eyes. I caught him staring off into space more often than not.

We were both sitting on my bed in my bedroom. I made most of the conversation while Jeremy stayed quiet and nodded throughout. Something about it was very unsettling.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Jeremy decided to talk again: "You know who... You know who Rich is, right?"

"Who?"

  "Uh... Rich. Rich Goranski," Jeremy said.

  I feel a sense of nostalgia wash over me, "Oh, yeah, I know him. We talked in fourth grade once."

  "Yeah! Uh, yeah... he told me that," Jeremy said it with a bit of shakiness in his voice, and immediately my mind blared warning signals, "Uh. He's been my friend since fourth grade. I wanted to tell you about him and stuff, but I guess he never came up. He protected me from like... mean people and stuff. Y'know. Bullies and... anti-semetic people. Y'know the drill."

  "That's nice of him," I sent Jeremy the most genuine smile I could muster, having a gut feeling that this was definitely going to go downhill fast, because this conversation was definitely out of nowhere.

"Yeah! He punched Dustin in the face once for calling me a kike, it was pretty cool," Jeremy had an obviously fake happy facade on.

"Wait, Dustin called you a kike? Who the fuck does he think he—"

"Hey dude, it's fine. It was like a year ago anyway," he laughed, but there was no real joy in the gesture.

There's a quick second of silence.

  "Michael, can we talk about something for a moment?" Jeremy says softly, fiddling with the hem of his cardigan.

"Uh..." I bite my lip and sigh. I can already tell this is going to end horribly, "Yeah. Yeah sure. Uh, everything okay? Did the doctor like y'know... report anything bad?"

"I... no. I wasn't at the hospital. I was at... I visited... I was invited to Jake's. Because, uh... he and... he and Rich wanted to show me something."

"Oh, cool."

"He... just... Uhm. They told me some stuff. And I just wanted to ask you about them? I mean, uh, they're pretty bad, so I know you'd never do them, Rich and Jake are probably just full of shit or something," he laughs dryly, "You'd never never do anything like this, I don't know why I'm even worried."

I calm down a bit and send him a reassuring smile, "Yeah, sure man! Hit me."

"Okay, so uh, Rich told me some things, which I think might be true? But like... uhm, I don't think you had ill intentions. I think you had everyone's best interest at heart, you get me?"

"Oh, jeez. What did I do?" I say jokingly, thinking that this might just be Rich telling Jeremy that I called him a furry in a private conversation with him once.

"I'll talk about that later though, let's start with the, like, hilariously unbelievable stuff," he gives me a watery smile, "Uh, so... Jake showed me a conversation that you two had," he pauses for a minute, his voice a bit shaky, "About me."