Fly Away | Spruceworth 6.2

Chapter 11: The Walkway

Chapter 11: The Walkway

~Ollie~

       I could tell Grant was really mad at me, no matter how many times he told me he wasn't.

       I didn't help his case whenever he said, "I'm not mad at you," with a scowl, clenched teeth, and arms crossed tightly over his chest. Not to mention while he was helping me with the bruises around my ribs, he was applying way too much pressure.

       Eventually, I winced at the pressure and gently pushed his hand away. "Are you trying to get me to break up with you?" I asked. "Because I will if you keep applying pressure to my bruises. Can you please stop being mad at me?"

       Grant gave me the same excuse he had been giving me every time. "I'm not mad at you."

       "Right, and my name isn't Oliver Asher," I said as Grant pressed the ice pack back on my bruise, gently this time. "Look, I'm sorry I got myself involved but it was going to happen anyway. There was no way you were going to get the money in time to pay them. You weren't thinking straight."

       "Kind of hard to think straight when I'm pansexual and I have an extremely attractive boyfriend who I'm very mad at," Grant said.

       "So... You are mad at me," I said.

       Grant sighed heavily as he removed the ice pack from my bruise before he sat down on my lap. "I promised I would be able to get the money in time. I would have done anything to make sure you don't get hurt but... You go involved anyway."

       "You're not listening, are you?" I asked. "You couldn't get the money in time. You were putting too much stress on yourself. You passed out at work because of the stress. Nothing you would have done would have been enough to get the money. I don't get why you're mad at me about it. You don't see me being mad at you for not telling me about your relapse."

       Grant furrowed his eyebrows. "I did tell you."

       "Four days after it happened," I said. "I was waiting for you to tell me..."

       Grant was silent for a bit before saying, "You knew."

       "I'm your boyfriend, Grant," I said. "Of course I knew. I know you well enough to tell when you're high."

       "But... I didn't take cocaine here," Grant said. "I took it somewhere else and I didn't come back home until I was off the high."

       "I know," I said. "But it didn't help that you were texting me a lot."

       "You could tell I was high through texts?" Grant asked.

       "Yeah," I said. "You basically sent me a poem describing my eyes and my lips and my hair. It was the most poetic thing I had ever read. Even more poetic than anything we had to read in English class."

       "I don't get it," Grant said. "I flirt with you and compliment you all the time. How would me sending you a poem cause you to know I was high?"

       "Because you're version of flirting over text is saying 'You're hot, let's bang'," I said. "You don't get poetic. You get right to the point. Between that very beautiful poem and you leaving the house for a while, I had my suspicion. I just... Didn't get why you couldn't tell me about it."

       Grant sighed. "I don't know. I want to say because I didn't want you to feel disappointed in me but you're probably sick of hearing that excuse."

       "I'm not," I said. "And I told you, I'll never be disappointed in you for relapsing. You really have to remember that. And you have to know that it's going to be difficult for you to get clean if you keep hiding your relapses from the people who want to help you."