The wrong words

Josh lay with his feet hanging over the couch, his eyes closed. He started to drift off to sleep, but then… his phone buzzed. He jumped to his feet in surprise, knocking his phone off in the process. He scrambled to recover it. No damage was done and he sighed in relief. He turned the phone on. Who was messaging him? Or was it just another ad? He switched to notifications. Huh it was a real message not just some spam. Oliver had texted him. The message read.

“Hey Josh what’s up,”

He started typing a response “The sky! What’s up for you?” Then as soon as he wrote it he deleted it. 

“Too corny” He decided. Then he typed in the usual response.

“Good you?” No response, the phone started to go dark. He tapped it. He waited a few minutes. Then waited some more. And some more. Had his Oliver’s phone died. Why was he taking so long to respond? Oliver rarely took more than thirty seconds. He shrugged it off, there was a first time for everything. Suddenly Oliver's text popped up.

“You know Cory and Devin… I have been hanging out with them some. How many times have you hung out with them? You know I want to see if we can become a whole friend group or something.”

Why did he want to know? Was Oliver trying to get him in trouble? Plus what was with this weird friend group thing? That didn’t even make sense. Josh hesitated before he sent. “No more than you have.”

“Really?! How many times would you say I have seen them?”

Now this was weird why did Oliver care so much about this subject? He needed to answer these strange questions carefully.

“Well we see them at school every day so… a lot.” He typed.

“You know I mean out of school”

“Then I don’t know,” He replied. The next message didn’t come until five whole minutes later. The first time this happened today Josh just passed it off as a coincidence, but twice. Something was wrong, he just needed to play it cool until he could figure out what. 

“Come on just take a guess.” Oliver prodded.

“I don’t know,” he replied. Maybe if he annoyed Oliver enough he would reveal what was happening.

“Just guess” came the next message.

“I said I don’t know!”

“Alright alright calm down.” Said Oliver. Josh glared down at these words for so long they started to blur. Did Oliver just tell him to calm down? He wasn’t the one asking weird questions. Finally a message popped up on the phone. Josh had to rub his eyes so he could make out the text. 

“They do dangerous things for their channel and one time they asked me to do it with them.”

“I know that. You already told me.” Josh replied.

“I know but what do you think I responded.” Oliver asked. Josh almost threw his phone on the floor in frustration. Why was Oliver asking all these questions? He was tired of it. He wasn’t going to just let it go any more. He started to type and type and type. Then he closed his eyes and hit send.

“Oliver. What is wrong? You are talking strange and you take forever to respond! You keep asking strange questions about Cory and Devin! Why do you care so much? I don’t know how many times you saw them! Probably around fifteen! Why does it matter? Then you started talking about how they do dangerous stuff and how they asked you to join them! You already told me all that! Why would you feel the need to repeat it? Then the weirdest thing of all is you asked me if I knew what you said! You said yes, but why would you ask? Especially because you were there! You should already know this yourself! So what is really wrong? None of this is like you. So don’t even bother to say you're fine and nothing is wrong because I know that isn’t true.”

No response. Six minutes later and there was still nothing. He sat down on the couch and closed his eyes. Had he overreached? Maybe he was too mean. Maybe Oliver was going to tell him something was wrong and he needed help and was just working up the courage. Maybe that is why Oliver had taken so long responding because the entire time he was debating whether to tell him something really important. The more he thought about it the more and more likely it seemed until he couldn’t bear it anymore and picked up the phone and texted 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you how to talk.” Two minutes passed and Josh was becoming sure that Oliver had turned off his phone and was never going to talk to him again. Then all of a sudden a short message popped up on his screen.

“It’s fine. I have to go, bye.” 

“Bye,” Josh responded. He slumped down further into the cushions of the couch. Oliver hated him, and it was all his fault. He didn’t mean it. He should have just been more patient. He shouldn’t have rushed Oliver. He covered his face, then all of a sudden his phone buzzed. He jumped up. What had Oliver written, but there wasn’t a new message. He swiped down the notification screen. His shoulders slumped when he realized it was just an ad trying to make him buy some soap that was twenty percent off. He scrolled through the entire conversation with Oliver. The more he re-read it the more weird it felt. The wording didn’t seem quite right. Oliver didn’t use a single “bro” the entire time they had talked, and there were no quirky jokes. His stomach churned anxiously something was really wrong. He started to put his phone down, but before he could it buzzed again. This time Josh didn’t rush to unlock it. He just slowly went through the process expecting another ad, but it wasn’t an ad Oliver really had messaged him.

“Josh! I’m in soooo much trouble. My mom hates Cory and Devin, and she found out I was hanging out with them.”

“How?” I ask.

“That wasn’t me texting you a little while ago. That was my mom”