Chapter 11

Jonah

       I had a feeling Reed was mad at me for some reason, and I had no idea why. I stopped asking him about his disorders, and I stopped asking how he was doing mentally. I only asked how he was doing physically.

       I didn't think I did anything that would make him mad at me.

       While Reed and I did have our differences at times, and while we didn't get along at first, I didn't like him being mad at me now that we actually were getting along. So I bought him some more food from the store before heading over to his motel room and knocking on the door.

       I knew Reed was in there because I heard his music playing quite loudly, but he didn't come to the door. I sighed and knocked on the door again before saying, "Reed, I know you're in there."

       Reed paused the music before opening the front door, and he didn't look happy to see me. "What do you want?" he asked.

       I held out the grocery bag. "I bought you more food."

       Reed hesitated before taking it from my hands. "Anything else?"

       "Kind of, yeah," I said. "Why are you mad at me? Because I don't remember doing anything that could have made you act like this."

       Reed scoffed. "Really? Well, that's odd, because I could have sworn you promised not to tell anyone that I have mental disorders."

       I furrowed my eyebrows. "Yeah, and I kept that promise. I've never told a single person that you have mental disorders."

       "Then how else would Linnea know?" Reed asked. "She talked to me not too long ago, trying to get me to open up to someone even though it's clear that I don't want to talk about it. And I thought you actually understood that, so thank you for showing me where I stand with you."

       "Reed, I never..." I began but he cut me off by slamming the door shut.

       I didn't get it. I never told Linnea specifically that Reed had two mental disorders. All I told her was that he was going through something and didn't want to talk to anyone about it.

       ....I also told her not to go talking to Reed about it because it was best to leave him alone and wait for him to be ready.

       I went into my motel room where Linnea was reading a book. She looked at me and gave me a smile. "Hey," she said.

       "Why did you go talking to Reed?" I asked. "I told you to just leave him alone."

       "I know," Linnea said. "But he seemed like he was struggling so I thought he wanted someone to talk to."

       "He doesn't want to talk to anyone," I said. "That's why I told you to just leave it alone but now because you decided to ignore me and talk to him anyway, Reed is mad at me. He thinks I told you exactly what he's going through when I promised that I wouldn't tell anyone. It's his choice if he wants to talk to someone about it, not yours or mine."

       "I'm sorry," Linnea said. "I just wanted to make sure he was okay."

       "You could have done that some other way," I said. "Definitely not by asking him to open up to someone when it's clear he wants to be left alone about it. He's doing just fine dealing with it on his own and if he's ever struggling, I know he'll talk someone about it."

       "He's obviously struggling with something," Linnea said.

       "You don't think I know that?" I asked. "He's my brother, and I know a lot more than I told you, which is why I didn't want you talking to him about it."

       "Yet last week, you didn't even want him as your brother," Linnea said.

       "That's not true," I said. "I just wasn't use to having another sibling but after he told me what he went through, I had to suck it up and try getting along with him. Which has been ruined, by the way, thanks to you."

       "Thanks to me?" Linnea asked. "Jonah, I just wanted to make sure he was okay."

       "By going behind my back and talking to him about it when you promised me not to?" I asked. "I keep telling you that there are some things he doesn't want to talk about. It's his life and it's his choice whether or not he'll talk about it. So thank you, for bringing me and him back to square one."

       "Jonah..."

       "You know what? Forget it. I am going to go try to fix thing between me and Reed so he knows he can actually trust me when he needs to talk to someone."

       I left the motel room and headed over to Reed's, but he didn't answer when I knocked on the door. There wasn't any music playing this time so he either left the motel room or he had his headphones on so he could purposely ignore me.

       Just to double check, I headed over to the stables to see if he went to go see his horse. That would be the only place he would go.

       And unfortunately, he was there.

       In the fields.

       With his horse.

       And he was about to get on.

       I stood on the first log of the fence and called out to him. "Reed?! Don't you dare get on that horse!"

       Reed looked at me for just a second before turning his attention back to his horse and attempting to get on.

       "Reed!" I called. "You're not supposed to ride your horse for another few weeks! You're going to injured yourself more!"

       He still ignored me and got on his horse anyway, though it was clear he was in a lot of pain. In fact, he couldn't keep his balance for too long and it wasn't long before he fell off his horse.

       I climbed over to fence and hurried over to Reed as he sat up, holding his side. "Are you really that stupid?" I asked. "You're ribs are bruised. You can't ride your horse."

       "I don't need you telling me what to do," Reed said. "Not after you betrayed my trust."

       Reed tried to stop up, me he winced instead so I helped him stand. "Reed, I did not tell Linnea that you had mental disorders," I said. "All I told her was that something was going on with you and you didn't want to talk about it. I didn't say you were mentally struggling. And I even told her not to talk to you about it because you don't want to talk about it and we have to respect that."

       "Really?" Reed asked.

       "Yes, really," I said. "And I'm actually mad she crossed the line and decided to talk to you anyway. I know you don't want to talk about what you're going through and I'm not going to push you to talk about it when you're not ready or when you don't want to."

       "Thanks," Reed said. "And sorry for getting mad at you about it."

       "It's fine," I said. "You might get mad at me, however, for telling you to go back to the motel."

       "What? Why?" Reed asked.

       "Fore getting on the horse when you know you shouldn't have," I said. "You might have hurt yourself even more and it could take you longer to heal. I said you can come to the stables, but you can't get on your horse."

       "Well, sorry for missing riding him," Reed said. "I haven't ridden him for a long time and I just wanted to get back into it."

       "You can get back into it once you're healed," I said.

       "Won't we be leaving Meadowcliff afterwards?" Reed asked.

       I shrugged. "It all depends if the others want to. This was the only stop we were really looking forward to, and we're never running out of new things to do. I'd be fine with staying longer."

       "Yeah, but who's to say they'll be fine with it?" Reed asked. 

_______________

I had beef jerky today. It was good beef jerky.

lol idk what else to say in the author's note.