We Are an Example of Why Not to Fall in Love

Oli's point of view:

"Oli, you alright? You've been in there for a while, I called you down for dinner a while ago," Mom asks as she knocks on my door.

"Yeah, just a headache," I lie as I press a cloth to my arm to stop the bleeding.

Just fucking stop already...

"Oh, well, come on out when you're okay enough. I'll have medicine for you."

Then I hear footsteps walk away. When I feel I stopped the bleeding enough, I head down into the kitchen and sit across from my mom, who gives me a glass of water and a few pills. I drop the unneeded pills into my water and drink it.

“Salad again or?” she asks me what I want for dinner.

“No thanks,” I tell her as I get up from the table to put my glass in the sink. Of course I’m a bit hungry, but I really want Josh back, well, in case the offer is up again. Mom laughs a bit.

“Good, ‘cause I really don’t feel like making anything right now,” she tells me, waving me off. I head back up to my room and decide to go to bed early.

<><><>

>>>time skip all the way to Saturday<<<

“Hey, Oli! Where’s Tom?” Jack greets me with his usual smile as he opens the front door.

“At a friend’s, he didn’t tell you?” I reply with a slight scowl. It’s fucking rude to tell someone that you’re going to their get together and end up hanging with someone else instead without even telling them.

“No, but that’s alright!” he cheers as he opens the door wider. “Alex is already here, so we’re just waiting for Josh and my guest.”

I can’t help but wince a little at Josh’s name. This week’s been hell trying to get over him, and I don’t see the end of it at all. I try to mask it with a smile as I step in, feeling anxious when I see a middle-aged woman staring at me from the couch.

“Mom, this is Oli, one of my friends,” Jack introduces briefly before grabbing my arm and dragging me upstairs.

“Uh…”

“She’ll talk forever and ever if I let her speak,” Jack whispers the answer to the unasked question as we stop at a door. Jack leads me into the room where Alex is chillin’ on the bed, frowning at his phone. He looks up when he hears the door open, smiling sympathetically when he sees me.

“Hey, Sykes,” Alex greets me.

“Hey,” I wave, standing by the door awkwardly as Jack sits at the edge of the bed next to Alex when he sits up.

“So, I heard from Rachelle that Josh broke up with you to be with her… I like, just found out,” he says, showing the phone in his hand to emphasize his point.

“Uh, yeah.” I avoid eye contact. I really don’t wanna have this talk right now.

“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! YOU HURT MY BROTHER!” I flinch when I hear a too familiar voice scream from outside, Jack and Alex jumping up to go check it out, leaving me in the room alone. I’m only alone for a few seconds because someone then runs in, and I see them flinch slightly when they see me. I look up at the person to see a boy I’ve never seen before.

“Oh, hey,” he greets me when he’s recovered. “You’re Tom’s older brother, aren’t you? I’m Tom’s friend, and Jack’s too. Jack invited me over and I decided to bring Tom over too since he’s supposed to be hanging with me for a week, but turns out he was invited here too in the first place. Tom’s outside beating some kid’s ass, apparently he hurt you,” and suddenly, his excited look turns to an angered one. “What did he do to you so I can kick his ass too?”

“Uh…”

“Huh?”

“I… don’t know what to say…”

“Oh, wait! Rude! My name’s Xavier!”

“Uh… hi, I’m Oli.”

“I know, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Heh, you’re cute. How could someone hurt someone like you? Now what did he do? No, you look sad, you need a hug. C’mere,” he holds his arms out for me, and I hesitantly walk into the strange strangers arms, which immediately wrap around me.

“Don’t be sad, hug Dad!” he cheers.

What the fuck?

I look up at the boy (who fucking towers over Josh, like what the fuck) with a look that asks ’what-the-fuck’. He smiles sheepishly at me.

“Something me and one of my other friends came up with. I’m Dad, and he’s Mom. I might make you one of our sons since I like you!”

“You like me already?”

“Yeah, Tom always talks about you, and I like you! I’m gonna ask my friend if we can adopt you! Am I creeping you out? Tell the truth.”

I nod, and he laughs a bit before pulling away.

“Sorry, I’m just in an insanely good mood today! I’m usually like this on days like this,” Xavier tells me before turning and flopping down onto the bed, landing on his belly. “My back hurts like a bitch. I should ask Tanner if we can adopt you.”

I stand there awkwardly and watch him as he pulls his phone out of his phone and types ferociously for a few seconds. He just stares at it until his phone makes a noise.

“Who’s Oli,” he reads out loud before typing again just as Josh, Tom, Jack, and Alex come back in. They’ve seemed to cool down, but they try to stay as far away from each other as possible. Tom stands by me to make sure Josh isn’t near me.

“Okay, but if I don’t like him, we’re putting him up for adoption,” Xavier reads out loud again.

“What?” a confused Jack asks as we all get comfortable, well, except me, who continues to stand awkwardly by the door.

“Me and Tanner adopted Oli so he’s one of our sons now,” Xavier cheers happily.

“Today’s one of your good days then?” Jack asks happily, said boy nodding. Jack turns to us all and points to Xavier. “So Oli and Tom apparently know Xavier.”

Everyone else breaks into a conversation as Tom leans towards my ear.

“‘m not one of their ‘sons’ so you should feel special,” Tom tells me with a small laugh.

I don’t. At all.

“What’s up with this whole ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ and ‘sons’ thing anyway?” I whisper back, extremely confused and creeped out by this whole thing. It’s so fucking weird and I thought I had enough going on in my mind.

“Me, Tanner, Xavier, and our friends started this weird thing when Xavier and Tanner were talking about God knows what. Xavier’s like ‘oh, Tanner, marry me’ and Tanner was like ‘sure, okay’ so they pretend that they’re married and they pick people to be their ‘sons’ and ‘daughters’. They’re not together, if you were wondering that.”

It makes sense now, I guess. It’s dumb though, but I’ll play along for their sake.

“Son! What’s your number?” Xavier asks me as he’s suddenly standing in front of me. He drops to the floor with his legs crossed over each other before handing me his phone so I can put a contact in. I add a new contact, adding my number and saving it as ‘Grand Master Syko’, like always. I hand it back to him and he looks at it.

“Grand Master Syko. I like it! Pretty cool! I’ll text you later or something, alright, son?”

He gets up and wanders back over to the others.

God, I feel so fucking awkward right now...