I Lied When I Said I Didn't Love You

Mike’s P.O.V

“I love you, Mike,” Tre said suddenly, moving towards me. Before I had time to register what he had said, I found myself in a difficult situation. Tre’s lips were pressed up against mine.

Holy shit- he was kissing me!

I pushed him back, staring at him in shock.

“What the hell were you doing?” I squeaked, stepping back. Tre had turned red, staring at his feet. I could see his scalp turning pink.

“I- um- I- um-“ he mumbled, not looking up. He was just as embarrassed as I was. I think he’d forgotten to think before he acted. Tre does that a lot. That is why he gets slapped so often. And arrested.

“Look- can we just-“ I started.

“Forget the whole thing? Sure! Never happened! What are we talking about? Who said that?” Tre gabbled, his eyes darting crazily around the room. I debated whether to hit him and decided not to. Tre needed what precious few brain cells he had left. Otherwise anything could happen. I shuddered inwardly at this thought.

“Yeah… we’ll do that.”

“Do what? This never happened. What never happened? I don’t know because I’m talking about something that never happened-“

“Tre, please stop it. You’re scaring me.”

“Oh, sorry Mike.”

He cleared his throat, quickly walking into another room. I heard the door slam. I knew Tre well enough to know what would happen next. He would start swearing at himself in the mirror, curse himself for being so stupid and gargle a lot of mouthwash. But I didn’t really worry about Tre.

I had other things on my mind. Like the conversation with Mr Marda I’d just had. He hadn’t said much, only listened as I poured out this whole sorry tale. I was kind of worried he might’ve been out off. Maybe I’d said too much. I always worried about saying too much. I was paranoid about other people thinking I was insane.

Wait, wasn’t paranoia a form of insanity?

Get a grip on yourself, I thought firmly. You keep on thinking these things and you will end up crazy.

One of my old friends had this saying whenever someone worried about things way beyond their control. He would say “Stop thinking about it, otherwise you might just blow that light bulb in your head and then where will you be?” Now whenever I thought too much about something I would picture a little light bulb glowing brighter and brighter in my brain until finally it exploded. Not a happy thought, but I guess it helped. It stopped me thinking, anyway. Well, not so much thinking as worrying and obsessing.

Once that phrase was something I had to live by. It was when I got a health report back from my high school. Apparently because of some of the little incidents that had happened at school, they thought I was mentally unstable. I didn’t blame them. If I were them, I would’ve labelled the kid that tried to jump out of the school window crazy at once.

But I alone was in that position, and I knew exactly why I wanted to jump. It was Coach again. He had cornered me after a lesson, his eyes flashing with bloodlust. If I closed my eyes I could still smell his hot breath, hear his hissing voice.

He almost did it to me again. If it wasn’t for a girl suddenly coming out of the empty classroom and seeing me trapped against the wall, pants almost pulled right down. The next part made me ashamed of myself. Coach had hit the girl numerous times, dragging her into the empty classroom by her hair. I just stood by as I heard her screams, not doing anything except turning and running. I should’ve helped. I could’ve got help, saved the poor girl. Because a month later she disappeared and was never seen again.

I just know Coach had something to do with it. Mr Marda had said so himself that Coach wouldn’t think twice about killing me. Why would he even give another thought about making an innocent teenage girl disappear? Especially if the things she saw cost him his job.
I had many regrets, but I think this was the worst.

I shook my head slightly, returning back to normal viewing. I didn’t need to think about this right now.

Mr Marda had asked me to meet him face to face the next day. He needed to talk to me in the flesh. I didn’t know why. All I could hope was that he wasn’t trying to drag me into therapy. I ‘d had enough of Billie and Tre trying to force me into it. And they wondered why I didn’t tell them anything anymore. Was it any surprise? They already tried to commit me once. Now I just didn’t trust them. Isn’t that sad? I can’t even bring myself to trust my own friends.

Maybe it was because they knew so little about what had really happened to me. Maybe that was because I didn’t tell them. It was all so confusing! I expected too much of people sometimes. They usually just do the most obvious thing under the illusion it’s the easiest.

Lord knows I’ve made that mistake enough.

I made myself a cup of coffee, sitting at the kitchen table. I sighed quietly. Sometimes I felt like a complete mess.