Chapter 21

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"If you think the most courageous and difficult thing you can do is stubbornly stand your ground, try graciously giving in."
― Richelle E. Goodrich

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"Not About Angels" By Birdy

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I missed him.

I missed James.

Never in my life had I been this desperate to see another person's face again. I wanted him to come back. Boy did I want him to come back.

But he didn't.

The whole week passed, and there were no signs of James. Even Joshua behaved differently. He wasn't the happy go lucky kind of guy as he usually was. He spoke less and he wasn't in a good mood. On Friday, I'd asked him if everything was alright. He'd just nodded his head.

I'd wanted to ask him where the fuck James where. How the hell he could have just left me like this, after what we'd done last Saturday. But mostly I just wanted to ask him if he knew when James would be back.

Where are you?

I'd had a hard time focusing on anything, but when I messed up on the football practice Friday morning and coach warned me to get my shit together or I would be out of the game, I'd decided to do just that. To get my shit together.

And to forget about James.

Clearly the guy didn't care about me. Otherwise he would have tried to contact me somehow. He hadn't. He must've regretted everything that'd happened. Either that, or he didn't care enough about it.

Not like I had.

"You okay, man?" Luke asked, as we were changing into our football gear in the locker room.

I pulled the shirt over my gear and forced a smile onto my lips. "Of course, man."

"Good, good," Luke mumbled.

I sent him another smile and sat down to put on my shoes.

"Just, ehum, you know I'm here, right? In case... In case everything isn't fine," Luke scratched his eyebrow, looking slightly uncomfortable. I sent him a questioning look. He cleared his throat. "Well, you have been kind of... blue lately. Just thought you should know I'm here..."

Jeez, I knew I'd been bummed out, feeling all kinds of things this week, but I'd thought I'd hid them just well enough for my friends not to notice. Clearly, I'd been wrong.

Still, for Luke to say that...

I stood up and walked over to Luke. "Thanks man." My lips formed a smile. A genuine one.

"Any time, man."

I patted his shoulder, chuckling slightly. "Did you just use the word blue?"

His cheeks darkened. "Yeah. So what?"

"Dude, that word is like, so last century... archaic even. No one says that anymore."

"Hey, I came up with that sentence!"

"Bet you got it from your mom."

"Come on!" Luke exclaimed, making me laugh out loud.

If there was one thing I knew for certain, you could always count on Luke to cheer you up.

I draped an arm over his shoulder. "Come on man, lets kick some poor tiger's ass!"

He lifted his hand in the air, making a fist pump. "Hells yeah!"

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