Enemies

by Tijan

“How long am I staying here?” “You’re here until I deem you’re able to function in the real world again.” He was saying that all imposing-like. Two days ago I would’ve considered his face smirking and arrogant and pompous, but now I saw the thinly veiled concern. He stood and straightened away from the counter. His eyes flashed, dropping from my face. “Listen. You have a concussion, and that shit’s no joke. That means ensuring you have the least amount of stimuli as possible. After today, no homework. No phone. Try to keep the television stuff to a minimum. I feel bad that I even invited you to watch a movie with me last night. Just until you’re okay to travel, stay put. I already cleared everything with your job and your college. They all know the deal. If you want it, they said you could take a leave of absence for the first semester and there’d be no penalty or impact to your tuition or your GPA.” My heart sank. I’d already lost so much, I couldn’t lose a semester of school. “No way.” I’d have to restart all over again. I could only handle so many restarts. “I can’t do that.” “You lost your father. You lost your stepmother. I know you still haven’t called your stepbrother yet. You are barely managing to get through a day here. And yeah, your job called me, said some bullshit that you’d be in tomorrow. I told ’em to fire you if you tried that shit again.” “What? Stone, you can’t—” “I can and I will!” I was wrong. It was evident we were back to the ‘I hate you’ phase. I s...