Chapter 604: Jonathan XXV—Fed Up
This had to be the crappiest All Star break ever. Not only was the game just plain weird, the whole situation with Peter Forsberg going insane and crashing Dad’s press conference was just plain uncomfortable. Why couldn’t anyone on this team act normal? All the adults blamed the kids for the weird things that happened, but hell, they were always acting like apes to begin with anyway!
Dad carried Jana, who was sleeping, into the house. Mom led the way to unlock the front door. Jonathan and Freddy carried the luggage. It took three trips to carry the luggage and packages into the house. All the while, Freddy remained silent, and this horrified Jonathan. He kept looking at his brother, who no doubt felt his stare, but he still did not acknowledge him.
After bringing the luggage in, they were sent straight upstairs to unpack. Jonathan followed Freddy to his room after seeing Mom and Dad tucking in Jana. Fred turned away from him as he opened his suitcase. Jonathan shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re just taking it like this.”
Fred didn’t answer.
“Why aren’t you fighting, Fred?”
“You can’t miss this tournament, Fred! It’s like the biggest thing in your childhood! I mean…I mean… FRED!”
“It’s done, Jonathan.”
Jonathan shook his head. “Fred, don’t let them do this to you! It’ll ruin your life.”
“It’s DONE!” Fred threw his arms out, frustrated, red.
“It’s not done okay? Go to Mom and Dad right now, and end it. They haven’t even called your team. They’re giving you a couple days to think it over. They don’t even want to do this to you. Just tell them what they want to hear and let’s go on with life!”
Jonathan sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “It’s not fair, Fred. They shouldn’t be riding on you like this. I’m the oldest. I’m the one who should be taking the heat.”
“Life isn’t fair, Jonathan.”
Jonathan sighed and sat down on the bed; he crossed his arms and gnawed on his bottom lip. Fred continued to sort clean and dirty clothes, his cheeks pale, his eyes tired. Sure, Fred was real good at pretending everything was okay, but Jonathan knew how much his brother could repress things. It killed Jonathan to think that he could be doing more to help his brother, but he couldn’t think of what… “Hey, Fred, look.” He stood up, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Listen.”
Fred stopped with the luggage and looked at him.
“Just promise Mom everything she wants to hear, okay? Just tell her everything and she’ll be happy. And when the shit hits the fan again, I mean we know it’s going to happen again, just tell them that I twisted your arm and got you into this. Tell them that I threatened to beat you up good, or steal your stuff or something. Okay? They can’t blame you for me being a dick, right?”
Fred smiled, and he nodded. “Naw, I can take it, Jonathan. Thanks. I really don’t want any help though, it’s my choice.”
Jonathan’s chest hurt and he felt panicked in a way he usually didn’t feel unless he was losing an important game. “Freddy! No! This is the most important thing to happen since…”
Fred scowled. “Since when? Since what? I mean, what if I get accepted into the NHL or discover the cure for cancer or something. Really, Jonathan, it’s just a stupid tournament. I hate all that traveling and stuff, anyway, I wasn’t that excited. It sounded pretty dumb. Actually I don’t even know what you and Dad are so worked up over.”
Jonathan scratched his arm, and he smiled weakly. “Okay, Fred. You got a point. You’re doing the right thing.”
Fred nodded
and Jonathan patted him on the shoulder before he left the room. He really
hated Mom and Dad right now, how could they live with themselves breaking
Great, this could really screw up his life. If he couldn’t have the internet recreationally, how could he email his friends? What if Elena tried contacting him? What if she wanted to apologize for the wenchy way she’d been acting? Mom could have really screwed this up if she didn’t understand that he’d been grounded.
Well, if Freddy didn’t want to take care of himself, Jonathan didn’t see why he should submit to suffering. Jonathan had promised Elena that he’d be online when he came back. Even though she seemed indifferent about that, he didn’t want to chance being caught in a lie to her. So he sucked it up and went to Dad.
Mom was in the bath and Dad seemed to be getting ready to sleep, perfect time to approach him. “Hey, Dad, I need to get online.”
Dad frowned. “Eh? Did you forget about your punishment?”
“I…I need to do homework.”
“Homework?”
“
“I guess so; I will have to watch you, though. You need to get online in the den.”
It took about ten minutes, and Dad began pacing and clearing his throat. Jonathan opened up a writing program and began to manually take stats and notes off the web pages. When Dad asked him why he wasn’t just downloading pages and cutting and pasting, Jonathan explained to him in lofty terms that he needed to write his own report from notes, not cheat by cutting and pasting like other kids did.
“Oh…very smart…”
Dad sighed and then turned on the television in the den, flipping through channels and sighing and coughing. The television faced away from the computer, which gave Jonathan the perfect opportunity to turn on his instant messaging service. He logged in and then minimized the box. And then he waited for it.
Sure enough…
Dad began snoring.
Sweet!
Jonathan checked his buddy-list and saw Elena online. Why hadn’t she IM’d him? Argh! She still wanted to play hard to get. Dammit. All of this work he went through just to get online and she still wanted to act like she didn’t give a damn.
Well…he wasn’t going to let this go to waste. He clicked on her screen name with a simple, “Hey there…..”
SkatingDancer14: Jonathan! I didn’t see you online! J
CSmythe33: Oh. You weren’t ignoring me?
SkatingDancer14: God. I’m not that much of a bitch. LOL J
CSmythe33: Well…
SkatingDancer14: Jonathan, you’re being a bitch.
CSmythe33: I got to tell you…
SkatingDancer14: OMG! Jonathan I got to tell you! It’s awesome! The Columbine figure skating club found out what happened with Jana and stuff. And they gave me an invitation to skate with them! JAren’t you happy for me? This is awesome! This is all because of Jana! LOL And everything looked like it was sucking so bad!
Jonathan’s cheeks blistered. Now, he felt so pissed. It must be nice to be so instantly mad at someone and then so suddenly happy that they can just forgive someone on a dime, even though they’d been sweating it out for a week!!
CSmythe33: A bunch of crap went down. We’re all grounded. I’m sneaking online right now. Freddy got pulled out of the big tournament.
SkatingDancer14: What? OMG That sucks. The BIG tournament?
CSmythe33: Yup. Mom’s being a real bitch about it.
SkatingDancer14: What happened?
CSmythe33: *sighs* The Earth puked on us again.
SkatingDancer14: Ack. What now? Leprechauns? Wizards?
CSmythe33: Doppelgangers, and we really got into it deep this time.
SkatingDancer14: Crap. Look, Jonathan I’m really sorry. That sucks. Is there anything I can do to help out? Poor Freddy.
Jonathan wiped his nose and scowled.
CSmythe33: Well, I’ve been grounded from the internet so you probably won’t see me around for a little bit. I hope you have fun with that new figure skating thing.
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