Chapter Thirty- Judd’s Suspicion

“Hey.”

I looked up to see Harry grinning down at me as I sat in the shade under the massive sycamore tree. “Hey. What’s up?”

“I’m the one who should be asking that question,” he remarked, lowering himself onto the ground next to me. “Why are you having lunch out here instead of inside with us?”

I shrugged, my eyes on the guys playing football nearby, “I wanted some fresh air.”

“Oh. So it’s not that you’re avoiding Dougie?”

I choked on the mouthful of apple juice I’d just drank, and spent a minute or so hacking up a lung. “What?” I finally asked Harry in a hoarse voice, my face no doubt bright red from the strain of coughing.

He rolled his eyes, “How stupid do you two think I am?” Oh, God. He knew. “You’re going out of your way to avoid him, and- whenever I do manage to force you together- you don’t talk to each other! You won’t even look at him!” He reached out, touched a hand to my arm to make me look at him, “Tom, did something happen at his party?”

I leant my head back against the trunk of the tree, closing my eyes. He didn’t know, but he wasn’t stupid. “We had an argument.”

“About what?”

“Can we not talk about it?” I asked him wearily. “It seems stupid now, but I don’t ant to be the one to apologise when he started it.”

“Tom, it’s been two weeks. One of you has to be the bigger man.”

I looked back out towards the footballers stubbornly, “And why does that have to be me?”

“Because Dougie could carry on like this for months and not say anything out of principle, even if it was eating him up inside,” he told me seriously. “But you don’t work like that.”

“Oh?” I asked him, ice in my voice. “And how I do I work? Go on. I’m intrigued.”

He ignored my tone, “You let stuff fester in your mind. You start to pick flaws in your own argument. Your reason kicks in. You see that both of you were to blame, and in the end you face up to it, but it drives you crazy first.” As I turned to look at him once more, Harry shrugged with a knowing smirk on his face, “I’m just trying to save you a lot of time and agony, here.”

“I’ll take the time and agony if it means I don’t have to talk to him.”

He made a frustrated noise, “What the hell happened that was so bad?!”

“I said: I don’t want to talk about it,” I reminded him through gritted teeth. He held up his hands in mock surrender.

“Okay. Fine.” He leant back against the tree as well, “So, where’s Danny?”

I nodded towards the footballers, “Over there.”

“Is this Dougie’s prediction coming true?” he teased, and I shook my head, remembering Dougie’s snipe about Danny joining the team.

“Nah. He just plays with them during lunch sometimes.”

He nodded, sensing my sour mood and deciding not to push his luck, “Okay.” As he stood, he clapped me on the shoulder, “But you really need to make it up with Dougie. I’m sick of being the go-between.”

“No-one’s asking you to be.”

His eyes bored a whole into my shoulder, “No. But- actually- neither of you seem to be saying very much to me recently.” Then he was gone, walking back across the grass to the school. I sighed, casting my gaze towards him and punching the ground beside me in annoyance. I was losing my best friend over this stupid thing, and it was entirely my own fault.