Enemies with benefits

Chapter 30: Alcoholics Anonymous

It could most certainly be argued that last week had been pretty rough. Ezra had been sleeping in his car, Sophie had admitted to experiencing conversion therapy, Brent had been much more insecure about his body than anyone really realised, and Finley had gone a whole week with blue balls. Despite all this, Colby had a good feeling about this week. With drive and determination he could brighten the lives of those nearest and dearest to him.

First mission of the day: Reunite the three amigos! Finley, Sophie and Colby would be best friends again before the day was up, or at least that was Colby's optimistic thinking getting the best of him.

Colby had managed to wrangle the pair of them to be in the same area without them trying to murder each other. A big step in the right direction!

The three of them were sitting on a wooden picnic table that was situated on the field outside the school. Finely and Sophie sat opposite of each other -clearly not happy about the situation- and Colby sat in the middle of them as an adjudicator of sorts.

"Thanks for coming, guys." Colby began, he smiled at them both. Finley looked pissed and Sophie looked nervous.

"What's going on, man?" Finley sighed with exasperation, "I already know it's something dumb, but I want to see if I can make even a little sense out of this."

Colby kept his smile on, in his mind, he was relieving the tension by smiling but in reality he just looked insane. "Well, I think it's about time that we all sat down together and had a deep discussion about everything. We're all just going to speak honestly to get everything out in the open."

Colby was pretty proud of his plan. Last night, he had been watching a TV show with Ezra and in one of the scenes a character was in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and the person in charge of the meeting spoke calmly and got the character to open up about their problems. He was going for the same vibe with his friends. Ezra had expressed that he didn't have much faith in Colby's plan, but Ezra was definitely wrong.

"Who wants to go first?" Colby asked.

"I will." Finley interjected, still scowling. "I think Sophie is a homophobic bitch and a terrible friend."

"Okay." Said Colby, slightly dejected that they were off to a bad start but it wasn't over yet. "That was definitely honest. Sophie, your thoughts?"

Sophie stared down into her lap and clenched her fists into the white dress she was wearing, her auburn hair falling haphazardly around her face. "I know that I haven't exactly been good to you guys lately-"

"-That's a fucking understatement." Finley mumbled.

Sophie looked up and glared at him. "BUT, I really did think I was helping you two. It's what I've been taught, it's what I've been told. Everything I have done is because I care, I promise."

Finley slammed his hand on the table. "Bullshit! I'm not going to pretend like I know what you've been through or whatever but you've done some inexcusable things that have nothing to do with trying to save our gay souls or whatever. First things first: you tried to blackmail your childhood friend with a picture of him making out with another boy."

"I wasn't trying to blackmail him, I swear!" Sophie rebutdtaled. "I was trying to warn him about what he'd done with Ezra at the party."

"Which leads me into my second point." Finley took over once again. "What the fuck was your obsession with Ezra? Because at the time, none of us really knew him as anything other that the asshole who had slept with Joanna behind Colby's back. You knew as well as I did how hurt he was after that and yet you not only go and crush on him but you became super close with Joanna. How do you explain that?"