Him and His Hoodie novel Chapter 10

Dad's work was having a family barbecue type thing that I had to go to even though I was currently in one of my moods where I didn't feel like going out anywhere. I had a feeling the only reason why I had to come was because of the way I had been acting recently.

At least Mom and Dad were letting Jerome come with me since he was one of the very few people I didn't mind being around when I was in one of my moods. In fact, he was probably the only person.

It wasn't even five minutes after we showed up that I was really wanting to go home. There were a lot more people here than I thought there would be and I was really starting to feel anxious. Very anxious.

I couldn't even stomach anything right now. I tried. I filled my plate with food but once I sat down with my family, I just couldn't eat anything.

Nobody seemed to notice how I was feeling except for Jerome. "Are you okay?" he asked me in a quiet voice.

I nodded. "Yeah. I'm fine."

I could tell he didn't believe me, but he didn't keep asking. That was one thing I liked about him. He knew not to pressure me into saying something otherwise that would make things a lot worse for me.

I was really hoping the feeling I had about being here would pass, but it wasn't. It was getting worse with each passing second. My lungs were feeling a lot more constricted, making it hard for me to breathe.

I had to get out of here.

I looked over at Jerome and quietly said his name. When he looked over at me, I said, "I can't be here anymore."

"Okay, I'll take you home," Jerome said.

"My parents aren't going to let me leave," I said. "That's the problem."

Jerome reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys before handing them to me. "Here, just head to my car," he said. "I'll tell them I'm taking you home and they can't say no if you're already by the car."

I nodded and got up from the table before heading to the parking lot where Jerome's car was. As soon as I unlocked it and was sitting inside, I tried my hardest to go back to breathing normally but it wasn't really working, and to make things worse, I could feel tears stinging my eyes.

Jerome soon got into the driver's seat of the car, but he didn't start it up. Instead, he looked over at me. "Are you okay?" he asked.

I could have lied. I thought I was going to but I didn't. "No, I'm not," I said. "I told my parents I didn't feel like going and they still made me and there were way too many people there and..." I stopped to take a deep breath before wiping my tears away. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Jerome said as he started up the car. "There's nothing wrong with you not wanting to be around other people right now."

I knew he was right but I didn't say anything else for the whole car ride. I just hated feeling this way at times and it made me feel like such a burden to everyone else, especially when they had to stop what they were doing to help me out.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify