I was just about to throw a glass of water in this one dude’s face when I heard a gruff voice say from behind me.
“Leave her alone guys.”
Matthew pulled up a seat next to me as the assholes piped down. For some reason I felt like crying, he was the closest I’d come to Joshua in almost two weeks.
“What’s going on lil C?”
“So you can actually speak to me, that’s allowed?”
I was feeling bitchy, so sue me.
“Something you missed about our family, we’re clannish, if one breaks away we all break away, we might not all agree but that’s just the way we are, family sticks together. That doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t all try to get the other person to see the error of their ways if it’s warranted but, I’m sorry
lil C, I think you really fucked up, he’s not playing, and when he gets like this only God knows what he’ll do next, I’ll try to reason with him but I can’t promise anything, when lil bro gets like this not even mom and dad would fuck with him so......”
I took a deep breath as my brow furrowed in confusion, could he really be this pissed off at what I’d done, would he give up on me that easily on us, the us that he swore he wanted?
“Where is he Matt, why hasn’t he been to school?”
“He went away for a few days to clear his head but he’ll be back at school tomorrow. He really loves you, I know this, there’s no doubt in any of our minds so I’m thinking he’ll come around eventually, but please for the love of God don’t do anything else to piss him off, at least not any time soon.”
He loved me still, hearing those words from someone else, someone that would know, was like balm to my soul, it eased the pain just a little. Until.....
“Oh shit.......”
Matthew jumped out of his chair his attention focused in the doorway; I turned my head to see what was going on and looked into the ice cold eyes of a very pissed off Joshua Steele.
Chapter 23
Carrie
I waited with bated breath to see what he would do, like Bambi caught in the headlights. He took one step towards us before turning on his heel and walking back the way he came.
“Fuck, I’ll see you later B keep your chin up.” Matthew turned to the table closest to mine.
“Any of you fucks mess with her and I’ll fuck your shit up.”
I didn’t hang around too much longer after that, paying my bill and heading home.
There was a car behind me the whole way but I couldn’t make out who it was because they kept a distance between us. When I pulled onto my street the car stayed at the end until I went inside. Strange.
Michael was there on the couch with beer in hand watching some game on TV.
“Out with Joshua tonight?” “Uh, no, Uhm.....” I wanted him to stop asking me about Joshua but I didn’t want to get into a big discussion with him about what had happened.
“Joshua and I are cooling things off for a little bit dad.”
I looked at the TV so he wouldn’t see the sadness in my eyes.
From the side of my eye I could see that he was studying me...enough of this shit.
“I have some reading to catch up on so I’ll see you in the morning.” I rushed up the stairs and got ready for bed. All of a sudden I had no energy.
I counted back to the last time I ate and I think it had been more than two weeks since I’d eaten a full meal, but the thought of putting food in my mouth made me sick to my stomach.
The next morning I tried to get excited about dressing for school but my heart just wasn’t in it, of course I still had my full armor on, but I wasn’t feeling it the way I was supposed to.
In the halls I found myself wishing people would just ignore me as opposed to my usual wanting to confront them head on.
This went on for a week, a week in which I never saw Joshua Steele, oh he was there, I heard the whispers, but by some miracle I never ran into him, not even in the cafeteria where the rest of his family still ate lunch. Where was he?
“Carrie are you ill?”
“What...no, why?”
“You’ve lost a lotta weight, you sure you’re okay, you need a doctor?”
“No dad I’ve just not been very hungry lately, I’m feeling kinda tired I think I’ll go to bed early.”
I went up the stairs and flopped onto the bed in my clothes, this was so not me, the real me was inside jumping up and down screaming at me to snap out of it, I just didn’t have the strength.