Fake

I held onto Joni as he cried. He shouldn’t have to cry over that slut. But he was. And I hated it. I hated the mewling cries he made. I’m sure he didn’t cry like that normally, but it was just because he hadn’t used his voice in, like, forever. I let him stay like that and I tried to calm him down. I didn’t know how much damage I could fix though. After all, they had been going out for awhile. While I wasn’t here.

Maybe if I had stayed I could’ve found out what she was like before they started going out and maybe I could’ve saved him from crying like this. If I had been here, I could’ve protected him from this. If I’ve ever hated myself beforewhich I have then this tops it.

I don’t know how long I sat on the couch with Joni in my lap, his arms around my neck, crying before the sobs stopped and his breathing had evened out. Maybe in sleep he could escape this.

I carefully hoisted us off the couch, which Joni’s feather light figure helped greatly with. I placed him beneath the covers of his bed. Of course, he stirred quite a bit and I told him just to go back to sleep but when I tried to walk away, he grabbed my sleeve and I could see the tears beginning to well in his eyes. “D-Don’t go,” he whispered, his voice raspy from ears of misuse.

“I’ll be back, don’t worry, I just have some things to do. So go back to sleep and I’ll be back in a bit,” I assured him.

“Y-You’re n-not going t-to go drink a-are you…?” He asked, worry in his eyes.

“No, no, nothing like that.”

He looked like he wasn’t sure if that was the truth, but sleep took over and he simply nodded before pulling the covers up and letting his eyes fall shut.

Let’s just say Nicole should be glad that I have no idea where she keeps her knives.

*~*~*~*

I hurried around to house looking for anything and everything that looked like it belonged to Nicole and threw it into a pile in front of the closet near the front door. Just as Ithrew sat her laptop down in the pile at the front door, Nicole walked in.

She looked from the pile to me with angered confusion in her eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Shut up, get your stuff, and leave,” I told her. Though, it sounded more like a warning.

“You can’t tell me to do that, I live here,“ she hissed. “Where’s Joni?”

“He’s asleep. He saw your true colors tonight, he and I both did.”

She looked confusion again for a second before she realized her mistake. “Y-you mean- but that’s not. Scott was a co-worker… he-he’s… always been a-after me and he just-”

“Shut the fuck up. I’m so sick of your lies. All you’re doing is hurting Joni. How could you do that to him? What the hell were you thinking? Hurting someone who could quite possibly be the most innocent person in the entire world.”

“But I-”

“I don’t give a fuck! I hate people like you who use nice people like Joni.”

“But I want to talk to him. Get this mess straightened out.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Nothing you can say will ever fix this mess you’ve made.”

At that I saw that I had won. Her pride had crumbled and she realized that I wasn’t going down unless she physically fought me.

“And you think you can pick up the pieces? Please. I haven’t seen someone as needy as you before in my life.”

“And I haven’t seen a bigger bitch in my life than the one that’s sitting in front of me,” I countered. “You’re not going to make me doubt myself. I actually understand Joni. I don’t need that goddamned tablet to know what he’s saying anymore than Joni needs you.”

“He’s a fucking mute! What do you expect!? For me to be a mind reader? And you! You’re just as much of a freak for actually being able to understand what he means.”

“Get out,” I growled, my anger nearly reaching a peak. God, I was so close to just murdering her. Nobody, and I mean nobody, calls Joni a freak.

“But my stuff-”

“I’ll mail it to you,“ I said. And I’d actually do that because I don’t want anything of hers still around that would hurt Joni if he saw it.

Before I practically shoved her out the door, she muttered something about my alcohol intake, which I rolled my eyes at.

I took a deep, relieved breath before going back to Joni’s room. He needed me and I wasn’t going to deny him that. I needed to fix things.

“I-I heard you g-guys yelling,” he said as I sat on the bed next to him. He was still in the same position as earlier, but awake.

“Sorry,” I apologized. I wasn’t sorry for yelling at her, but I was sorry to disturb Joni’s sleep.

“I-it’s okay,” he said before grabbing my hand. I sighed before getting under the covers too. He wrapped his around my waist and buried his face in my chest. He sniffled a few times before settling back into sleep.