Power Games

I drive home thinking about what happened and how desperate people are to try and get me out of town but I know they’re not going to win like my family isn’t going to win their battle against me being who I am so they’ll just have to admit that I’m not perfect.

I’m barely pulled up when Adam comes out of his front door and comes straight over to my car and I look don’t know why he’s in such a panic. I open my door and get out of the car “Is everything alright Adam? Something wrong since we talked on the phone?” I ask as he stands there starting to fuss over me.

Adam stands there “No, it’s good I just wanted to make sure that you were alright and that everything was truly alright in the situation,” he says genuinely caring about me but at the same time, I’m exhausted and mentally drained at the moment and not really in the headspace to deal with it anymore.

“What don’t you get about when I said that it’s fine and the situation is dealt with alright? I don’t need a babysitter every two minutes I’m a fucking adult that can handle my own situations and that’s what I want to do” my voice raised and venting unfairly at Adam who was only there to help me and be the support person I wanted.

“You know what that’s fine Isaac, I was the only person that was willing to give you a chance in this town and help you, I helped you settle in and was looking forward to helping you plan this party on the weekend to get people here to see the true you,” he says almost in tears now “But now I know that you don’t really want to prove yourself here to anyone right? You just want to make sure everything looks good so that you can move back home”.

“Adam…” I plead with him as he storms off clearly upset by what I said and he now thinks that I was only making a show about trying to make a change which isn’t true and I can understand why Adam is thinking that right now.

I put my stuff inside the front door and walk over to Adam’s place and knock on the door, “Adam, man can we just talk please? I didn’t mean to take it out on you alright,”. I don’t hear anything from inside Adam’s place and I wander back into my place, annoyed at myself that I took things out at one of the two friends that I have in Yellow Peak.

Walking inside I just go straight to my bedroom and pick up a pillow and throw it against the wall as I strip down to my underwear and just get into bed, after picking up the pillow. I lay there and ring Adam but it almost instantly gets sent to voicemail and I leave one “Adam, can we please talk man? I never meant what I said ok, it was just me being frustrated with everything, I’m sorry”.

I leave the message and hang up the phone, still thinking that I need to do more because I like Adam a lot and he is just an amazingly sweet and kind guy who was the only person who made me feel welcome in town and I need to apologise to him. Even though giving Adam space would be the best option I can’t leave it and text him “I’m sorry Adam, genuinely I shouldn’t have taken my frustrations out on you”.

I lay there without getting a response until I start to slowly drift off to sleep when I hear my phone go off and see Adam’s name light up on it “Fuck off Isaac and leave me alone” is all the message says and I feel so upset that he feels that way about everything at the moment.

My night’s sleep is restless, worrying about everything going on and I lay there trying to reassess my feelings about everything and is Adam right that I am only trying to prove myself so that I can go back to Grantham and get my old life back?

The next morning, my alarm goes off and I get ready for Danny to pick me up for the Gym as I see that Danny is already at Adam’s place early and I wander over there and knock on the door, Danny answers “Not going to happen Keppel” he says trying to close the door on me.

“Come on Danny, let me talk to Adam please, I was just frustrated with what happened at the mine and I didn’t mean to take it out on him,” I say pleaded with Danny who nods “He doesn’t want to see you alright and honestly, I’m not really feeling in the mood for the gym today with you man, you really hurt Adam a lot” standing there nodding and feeling upset about everything.

“I totally understand that but I just want to explain things alright because I was just so tense up about everything and I think I just hit breaking point last night and I took it out on Adam when all he was trying to do was help me again,” I say talking to Danny who steps inside and leaves me on the doorstep for a moment as he talks.

“Just leave it for today man and then maybe over the weekend he’ll be ready to talk about things with you alright?” Danny says to me as I nod, “Yeah ok, just make sure that he knows that I’m sorry about everything I said last night and how I appreciate his friendship”.

* * *

Getting off the phone to Danny, I hope that he could’ve helped the situation with Isaac because I know that he is trying really hard to prove himself here and I would love for everyone else to see what I can see in Isaac.

I work through my school stuff and Isaac rings me to tell me everything went well at the mine and it makes me feel relieved that it did. I continue to finish off all the things that I need to do for school and then working on making sure everything goes well for the party on Saturday afternoon to help everyone get to know Isaac better and see what I do in him.

Organising the party is fun, getting all the supplies organised and the response has been good with everyone happy to come and it’s one of the projects I’m working on that makes me happy because I feel like this could be the first time that Isaac actually feels like he is welcomed by anyone. I finish organising and eating dinner at my desk when I hear Isaac’s car pull up and I go outside to see how he’s going and feeling after everything that happened today.

I wander out there and see him and help him take his stuff before checking to see if he’s ok with everything that happened today because it could’ve taken the toll. Not expecting to get the response I did, Isaac takes his frustrations out on me.

“What don’t you get about when I said that it’s fine and the situation is dealt with alright? I don’t need a babysitter every two minutes I’m a fucking adult that can handle my own situations and that’s what I want to do” I listen to Isaac raising his voice and deep down it hurts me because I don’t want to think the worst of him but at the same time, I guess people were right about him.

“You know what that’s fine Isaac, I was the only person that was willing to give you a chance in this town and help you, I helped you settle in and was looking forward to helping you plan this party on the weekend to get people here to see the true you,” I say almost crying with how upset is him throwing my support back in my face “But now I know that you don’t really want to prove yourself here to anyone right? You just want to make sure everything looks good so that you can move back home” I vent out really upset and frustrated and walk off as I hear Isaac calling out to me.

Inside my house, I just cry hard because I trusted Isaac and wanted to help him prove himself but he just upset me so much because I just wanted to help him and let him talk about things but really, I can see that he is all about the show.

Sitting on my couch crying, I can hear Isaac at my door begging for my forgiveness about not meaning what he said but right now I’m not at all interested because I don’t know if it is coming from a genuine place or just wanting me to flatter his ego. I watch him walking off and I go to have a shower, letting the water flow over my body self-massaging my body to let the tension out of my back and shoulders. I massage my shoulders just thinking needing to let go of everything as I just feel so angry about what Isaac said to me.

During the night, I don’t feel any better about what happened and I ignore the multiple times that Isaac tries to call me because I don’t want to talk to him right now because right now I don’t get why he just couldn’t talk to me. Laying there, my phone buzzes again and eventually I respond annoyed that Isaac can’t just get it through his head that I don’t really want to talk to him at all right now. I grab my phone and text back “Isaac leave me alone and Fuck Off” just wanting nothing to do with him.

I get some sleep and the next morning I wake up and text Danny to see if he can drop by before picking Isaac up for the gym. Within a matter of minutes, Danny is at my front door “Hey man, everything ok?” he says to me.

“Not really, to be honest, just him next door you know,” I say venting at him as Danny looks at me “What happened with Isaac? Thought everything was going well Adz,” he says asking me as I throw a cushion on the couch.

“I went out there to check on him after he got back with you know everything that happened at the mine and thanks for pulling your influence out there helping him after I called,” I say to Danny “So then he just throws all this shit about me being a babysitter and then I probably said things that I didn’t mean either”.

There’s a knock at the door and I see that it’s Isaac at the door “Fuck sake, I don’t really want to talk to him at the moment can you deal with him please?” Danny deals with Isaac at the door and comes back to me.

“He’s genuinely sorry I reckon Adz and you should hear him out later man, I genuinely think he just took his frustrations out on you because he didn’t have anyone to vent at ok?” Danny says sitting down next to me as he puts his arm around my shoulders. I nod in agreement but deep down I feel embarrassed about what I said to Isaac about him not really wanting to prove himself at all more than anything in the world.

Danny wanders over and talks to Isaac as they go to the gym and I head to school for the day but my mind isn’t on anything other than how I feel about Isaac.