Jealousy
Gordie didn't see Chris until lunchtime. They met just outside the cafeteria and Chris had a strange expression on his face.
"Hey man is Teddy Duchamp wearing your shirt?" Chris asked incredulously.
Gordie looked at Chris in surprise. Who the fuck notices what kind of shirt a person wears? "What do you mean?" He asked carefully.
Chris had meant it just as a fly away comment but there was something about Gordie's tone of voice that made him think. Gordie was a horrible liar and Chris always caught him out.
"Why is Teddy wearing your shirt?"
"Which shirt man?" Gordie tried to feign innocence.
"That blue one man, the one you was wearing when Eyeball threw up on you man remember when you was at my house and that bastard came in drunk." Chris shook his head in memory.
Gordie cursed himself; of course Chris would remember that shirt. He should have chosen just some plain old t-shirt; he should have stopped to think. Oh well Chris knew, so there was no point carrying on the charade.
"Oh he um he borrowed it." Gordie said, then quickly opened the cafeteria door and disappeared inside hoping Chris wouldn't follow with any more questions. Of course since this was really not Gordie's day or week for that matter, Chris did follow with more questions.
"Why did he borrow it?" Chris asked. Then he looked at Gordie more carefully and for the first time noticed that his friend didn't look as put together as usual. "Wait what happened to you?"
The cafeteria was pretty full and Gordie wasn't exactly dying to talk about his problems at home in front of all these people. He hoped that Chris would take the hint and just leave it. For once just let it go Chris he thought to himself.
Out loud he said "Nothing really." Gordie smiled weakly. "You want to go get lunch?"
Chris grabbed Gordie's arm and pulled him back into the corner away from the crowds. "What happened man? C'mon you can tell me."
Gordie pulled away from Chris's grip. "I slept at the tree house last night" he said in a low voice. "I had a huge argument with my dad and I had to get out. Teddy was up there, and this morning I just lent him a shirt." Okay, that was the truth but only the bare minimum details.
"You went to the tree house?" For some reason Chris looked hurt.
Gordie was confused, why was that the part Chris was latching on to? "Yes, why?"
"Why didn't you call on me?" Chris asked.
Gordie shrugged. "I don't know, I thought your dad would be mad."
"He probably would have been" Chris agreed. "But so what? My dad's always mad at something, doesn't mean you can't talk to me."
Gordie tried to smile, for some reason he felt a huge wave of stress. "It's okay though, I kind of talked to Teddy." He found himself stretching his mouth in a big fake smile.
"You talked to Teddy?" Now Chris looked angry. "Fuckin' Teddy? You talked to Teddy over me?"
"No it's really not like that," Gordie protested.
Chris scowled. "What did Teddy have to say?"
"Um…" Gordie tried to think. The thing was they hadn't really discussed his problem, but he couldn't tell Chris what Teddy had told him. For some reason this stupid small situation was getting out of control.
Chris crossed his arms coolly across his chest. "Yeah sounds real helpful Lachance."
Gordie stared at Chris incredulously. "Why are you mad about this?"
Chris didn't answer, he just stared at Gordie tight lipped, his blue eyes narrowed. Gordie felt like screaming, he was exhausted and stressed out of his mind about everything and now Chris was mad at him for some weird reason.
"You know what?" Gordie said finally. "Fuck it." He turned to leave.
It was only as he left the cafeteria that he realised Chris wasn't following him and it took him another minute to realise that he cared.
