Adults Don’t Understand

The Place Where Promises Aren’t Kept [Chapter 14]

I almost was ready to burst out at Kyle as we went back to the computer after dinner. He had said the thing I had told him not to mention, the thing about going into the computer lab at lunch. I held back. I knew that even angry whispers would clue my mom into something going on. Kyle would have probably said something out loud, too, like how it didn’t matter. It did matter!

He decided to change over to his Rune Quest character. He showed me his armor. It was Mythril like he had said, but only the piece that went over the body. The rest of his armor was bits of iron and even leather, a lot weaker. I think he had probably sold a lot of stuff just to get the strong piece of armor so he could brag.

He was a higher level than me and Jakey, but only his fighting skills. Pretty much everything else, like the abilities to collect stuff and make stuff, was pretty low.

“How come you don’t do any mining or cooking?” I asked. I was hoping for a good answer. I didn’t get one.

“That’s boring. I just want to fight,” Kyle said with a shrug. He was already fighting something, a group of weak goblins near the starting area.

“But then you have to buy your own armor and food to heal yourself,” I said, trying to talk sense into him. I wondered if he even knew about all that stuff.

“I get money from the enemies I kill,” he said. His eyes didn’t leave the screen.

“But, like, there is so much good stuff you can craft too. I just crafted a bow so I can level up my archery and help out Jakey better.”

“Wouldn’t a sword work just as well?” he asked cluelessly.

I didn’t want to put in the effort to talk about the strategy for a three-man group that I had come up with Jakey.

I was almost relieved when the doorbell rang. It was definitely Kyle’s mom. Soon enough after the door opened, I heard our two moms talking. Kyle kept clicking away like he planned to stay the whole night in front of the computer.

He finally jumped up when his name was called from our front room, hurriedly smashing the log-out button. I followed after.

“Hey there kiddo,” his mom said. She was sitting on the couch with my mom. She was skinny, with short hair, wearing a baggy sweatshirt. “And you must be Mike.”

“Hi,” I said. I kind of nodded at her.

“These two had a lot of fun,” my mom said. “Of course, homework calls.”

Kyle’s mom pushed herself off of our couch and nodded. “Sure does. What do you say, Kyle?”

“Thank you for dinner and letting me stay,” He said. He was somewhere between his normal self and his super polite self.

My mom walked them both to the door. I waived as they walked back to their car, and my mom finally shut the door. I wondered if my mom was going to instantly ask about the computer lab, or about what we were playing.

“Okay then, that’s enough time on the computer today, Mike,” she said. Those words I was also expecting, but not what she said next. “He’s a good kid, Kyle. I’d say he’s free to come over any time he wants to… within reason, of course.”

The Longest Weekend

I didn’t immediately have a desire to have Kyle back after that, despite what my mom had said. I kept thinking about how he had gone and talked about the computer lab. I wondered if my mom didn’t hear it in the first place, or if she had forgotten to ask about it. I hoped it was the first.

I tossed about in bed that night, thinking about what could have happened if my mom was paying attention. I thought about what she would make me do at home if she thought I was messing around at school.

By morning I had forgotten all about it. Unfortunately, seeing Kyle first thing that next day at school brought it all back. My anger had been reignited. Of course, I couldn’t just let it out right there in the classroom.

“Hey Mike,” he said first thing before Mrs. Carpenter started calling roll and teaching. “That dinner last night was super good. I asked my mom to ask your mom to get the recipe for that potato thing.”

“Sure,” I said. That was all I said. Kyle tried to talk to me a few times that period, but I just mumbled back or pretended I hadn’t heard him. I even packed up early to avoid talking with him outside the classroom.

When lunchtime rolled around, it wasn’t long before I had yet another encounter. He rushed up to me on the way to the computer lab. “Hey, Mike! What’s up? You stay up late last night having to do homework? That’s almost what my mom made me do!”

“No. What the frick, man?” I shouted. I swerved into him, causing our shoulders and backpacks to ram against each other.

Kyle pulled away, rubbing at his arm before kicking at my ankle. “What the heck are you mad about? I didn’t do anything!”

I stopped and turned to face him. A few people were looking at us, but I didn’t care. “You blabbed to my mom about the computer lab! Last night at dinner.”

“What? I didn’t!”

“Yeah, you did,” I huffed, leaning into him. “You said that me, and you, and Jakey all hang out there at lunch.”

“I didn’t say that!”

“You’re a liar! You did!” I yelled. My voice hurt from yelling like that for the first time probably ever.

“I didn’t, you freaking nerd! And if I did, I didn’t remember! And I didn’t hear your mom say anything about it, either. If your mom yelled at you about it, then it was your fault for bringing it up anyway!”

I stomped my foot. I felt my anger dying down. It didn’t have anything real to be mad at. “My mom didn’t say anything,” I said, my voice mostly lowered. “But you could have gotten her on my case.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Whatever! You’re wasting both of our times out here yelling at me. Dork!”

“Don’t call me a dork!” I said, almost laughing. I didn’t want to laugh. Just the way he said it was funny. I was still mad at him though, so I just turned back around, ready to finally go to the computer lab. Whether he followed me or not was up to him.

---

School that Friday came to a close and I found myself back at home with the whole weekend ahead of me. To my surprise, the topic of the computer lab never crossed my mom’s lips that evening. I couldn’t help thinking of the reasons I was still miffed with Kyle, though.

That weekend, I returned to my regiment of Rune Quest. I went back to my mining that Kyle had taken me away from. I was collecting materials and gaining experience just as usual until my chat flashed with a new message.

FirePlay3r has logged in.

I had forgotten I had added him to my friends’ list. My heart suddenly was beating faster than normal. If he noticed I was on too, he would want to chat and even play with me. My Kyle meter was already at max. I did the only thing I could think of, which was to log off right away.

I kept my Rune Quest hours to a minimum that weekend, avoiding a meet-up with Kyle, even if it was virtual. I did a lot of flash game playing and some browsing of the Rune Quest wiki, even if it loaded really slowly on our internet. I didn’t want to go do chores or other boring stuff that might clue my parents into thinking something was wrong. When something was wrong with me, they often blamed the computer and being on it too much. That was garbage.

That Monday came around after an extremely long-feeling weekend. Long feeling, but not in a good way. Kyle was there, in my first period, then in the computer lab, just being himself. I was able to talk to him like normal, mostly. I was kind of dreading the thought of him asking to play together online or even again at my house.

That Wednesday, one of those calls came to my science class, just before we got to go to lunch. “Mike,” said Mr. Jones said from the classroom phone. “Head to the office before you go to the cafeteria for lunch, okay?”

At the office, I had the same treatment as the time before. The lady behind the desk said hi to me. “Seems it’s Mr. Adams again. You remember where his room was, right?”

I answered that I did. I went up to his door which was held open like it was inviting me.

“There he is,” Mr. Adams twitched his head back at me from a pile of papers on his desk. “Come, sit. Oh, and the door.”

I guessed I was going to be there for a little bit. I set down my backpack and found the seat on the couch. I couldn’t remember if he told me I could eat there, but I wasn’t going to anyway.

“Now, I know I invited you here today,” the counselor began, turning his chair to face me, “but I think I completely forgot what I was going to ask.”

I didn’t fully believe that was true. “Can… I go, then?” I asked hopefully.

Mr. Adams slumped his shoulders and laughed one little laugh. “Well, I suppose I could let you go. But if I just sent you right back out, the ladies at the front desk might think I’m all harebrained and can’t do my job right. But while I’m remembering, how about you tell me what’s new with you?”

I shrugged. I was a shrug fully on purpose, not accidentally copying Kyle and the way he did it all the time. “I dunno,” I said.

“No new friends?” Mr. Adams asked. “I think I heard one of your classes got a new student.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” He repeated the same sound. His sound sounded more interested than mine.

“Yeah, actually. His name is Kyle. We sit next to each other in Mrs. Carpenter’s class.”

Mr. Adam’s eyebrows danced up and down before he responded. “Well, excellent. Make as many friends as possible, is what I say. Once you’re an adult, making new friends is harder. So the more you make now, the more likely you’ll have some sticking around when you’re all old like me.”

Despite his bald kinda head, Mr. Adams didn’t look that old. “You don’t look that old,” I said.

“Well, probably older than a lot of parents of Middle School kids,” he said with a sigh. “Now there’s no way you made friends with this Kyle right away. Tell me about it. What’s he like? Maybe I’ll run into him one of these days.”

I tilted my head in thought. “Actually, I think I talked to him first. After Mrs. Carpenter sat him by me sat him by me, of course.”

“Ah, one of those accidental friendships,” Mr. Adams hummed. “Those can be the best.”

“Yeah, and it turns out he plays the same online game as me and Jakey.”

Mr. Adams snapped his fingers like something had just popped into his head. “Ah, that’s right. You’re always heading to the computer lab at lunch. So, playing games at recess, are you?”

I looked down at my lap. I thought about what my mom would be saying if she knew that’s what I was doing. I thought about Kyle accidentally blurting out about it to my mom.

“Well, it’s your recess after all,” Mr. Adams said to end the awkward silence. “As long as you’re being safe and responsible, you’re free to do as you like. And Mr. Tate wouldn’t have his room open if he didn’t want kids in there. So, this game is online, huh? How does that work? Do you two fight each other in it?”

I sighed and began to answer. “Well, there is PVP— player versus player, where you fight other people. I like a lot of the farming and gathering and crafting parts, though.”

“I see,” Mr. Adams said, nodding.

“Kyle doesn’t like any of that stuff, though, He came over last week and we hung out. We played on his character…” I said. I leaned on my legs, looking away from the counselor. “He’s… he’s…”

I don’t know why, but I started to cry at that moment. I think it was because of Kyle. Every time I thought about him, my heart pulled itself into a tight ball— and not in the good way when you like someone. I thought about how he had broken his promise. I thought about how he had yelled at me the other week. I thought about how seeing his name in game made me want to log off.

My eyes were all blurry and my nose started to run. I couldn’t put any words together.

“Take your time,” Mr. Adams said. He scooted his chair over and put a tissue into my hand.

I sobbed for a little while, looking away from the counselor. “I don’t want to be Kyle’s friend,” I said as my tears and snot began to dry up and I was able to catch my breath.

“Let me put it together if to see if I have it right,” said Mr. Adams. He was leaned back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other. “You thought Kyle was going to be another nice person you could hang out with. Someone who liked the same things as you. Birds of a feather. But he ended up being not the person you thought he was? How close am I?”

I wiped my eyes with my arm and nodded. “He’s not nice. He makes fun of Jakey. He says he’s fat and he smells. He always brags about his stuff being better than mine. He’s a liar, too. When he came to play… he acted all nice and stuff around my parents… but that isn’t him. And… he broke a promise and won’t apologize.”

“I see. That’s a lot,” Mr. Adams said, nodding his head up and down. “I can imagine that your parents think he’s a nice dude, though, and you can’t say otherwise. He probably got a talking-to before he came over. ‘Oh Kyle, my son, be on your best behavior when you go over there,’” he added, talking like a grumpy, old mom.

“My mom said it was fine to have him over anytime,” I said, a final sniffle coming to my nose.

“But, obviously, you don’t want that. Does Kyle know that his actions are upsetting you? It doesn’t sound like he’s intentionally being a bully, at least to you, but he deserves to know if he’s putting you down. Nobody should force you to be his friend, but if you can talk things through and make it better, wouldn’t that be the best thing?”

“I guess,” I said, slumping back in the couch seat.

“Jakey might do the same thing if he feels like he’s been put down, too,” Mr. Adams suggested. “Standing up for him never hurts, either. When someone is being a bully, or just mean, they often stop when a third person calls them out. And… if Kyle doesn’t want to change how he talks with you two, I’d say it’s fair if you don’t include him for a while. He will realize that he drove away a friend acting that way.”

I nodded. Deep in my stomach, I felt two things. First was the weight of all my worries being lifted up, even just a little bit. Second was the hunger from not having eaten lunch yet.

“You said I could eat in here, right?” I asked sheepishly. I didn’t want to head out to the computer lab where the others could see my red eyes and nose from crying.

“You may stay here in the office until the end of the day if that’s what you need,” Mr. Adams offered.

“I’ll… probably go to my next classes after lunch,” I said after a few moments of deciding. Sitting around in an adult’s office for several hours seemed a little awkward.

“Still a good student despite it all,” Mr. Adams concluded.

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