Chapter eleven - Pizza Parade

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"That was my piece you greedy dickhead!" Lana screams when I stuff the last slice of pizza in my mouth.

"Oops." I smile innocently , not letting her ruin my dinner.

"I even called dibs on that one!" she trhows her arms up dramatically. "Spit it out!" she orders. "Spit it!"

"What? No!"

"Spit. It. Out." The vein on her forehead is swollen and before I can even make fun of that, she scoots over to me and starts squishing.

"Let me eat!" I struggle to get free from her grip but that girl's strong. Well stronger than me at least.

"Ladies." We hear from behind us and instantly freeze. Oh no, this voice sounds disgustingly familiar.

We turn around, me still chewing on my delicious piece of heaven.

"Uh hi," Lana stutters while I try to clean my mouth from tomato sauce and she tries to get rid of my saliva on her hand.

"Well don't you look lovely," Dwayne's sarcasm says. Wesley leans in to kiss Lana. You can't imagine how glad I was when she gives him the cheek.

"So what are you girls doing here?" Chester asks.

"Oh you know, just randomly swimming around in pizza hut."

Lana giggles and Chester stares at me with a slight smile on his face. Dwayne clearly doesn't appreciate my sense of humor. Wes can't take his eyes of Lana and Geoffrey is simply ignoring my existence.

Again.

He has been doing that ever since the day we went to the cemetery.

When we returned home that evening, he disappeared to the backyard immediately.

I briefly talked to my mom about it but she still wouldn't tell me anything about Geoffrey's mom's death.

I had spent some time in my room before getting hungry. After grabbing something to eat, I passed a big window in the hallway and couldn't move anymore when seeing something that broke my heart.

Geoffrey was sitting aside of the pool, his knees pulled up against his chest, his head resting on them.

He looked so desperate, so breakable...

At that moment my mom passed me by, pausing at the same window, staring at the same view. "Jerald figured it'd be smarter if we'd leave the house for tonight."

"So?"

"So Jerald and I will stay at a hotel for the night." I raised my finger in objection which she just ignored. "There is some food left in the fridge and you can stay up as long as you want. We'll be back tomorrow." She placed a small kiss on my cheek before leaving. "Bye sweetie."

"Yeah bye," I mumbled.

I returned my attention to Geoffrey, and couldn't take the sight of it any longer. I pulled on a fleece vest and made my way outside.

When my presence came to notice, he tried to repose himself, pulling up his shoulders and stretching out his legs. He cleared his throat allowing an uncomfortable silence to rest like a blanket on top of us.

I knew I had to break the ice if I wanted to become any wiser about today's events, "My- uh my mom and Jerald will be gone all night."

"Was that a very lame pick-up line to get me into bed?" I could hear the amusement in his voice and it instantly became 500 degrees hotter.

"No, no tha- that's not what I meant, I uh-"

"Relax." He turned around with a small adorable smile plastered on his exhausted looking face. "I'm just messing with you."

"You're an ass," I hissed, hitting him in the arm.

The silence returned but wasn't that uncomfortable anymore.

"So my dad ran away huh?" I nodded, he shook his head. "Typical."

"What?" I asked.

"That he runs from his problems. He always does that."

"You're calling yourself a problem?" I relaxed a bit when he pulled his legs back to his chest, which (in my eyes) significated that he was no longer ashamed to show his weakness in front of me.

"Well, that's what I am right?" he rhetorically asked. "I'm nothing but trouble. That's why he wants to get rid of me."

Right when I wanted to comfort him, he continued, "And that's exactly why you have to stay away from me." The sudden change in his mood certainly surprised me. He shot up, seemingly wanting to run, but something inside of me wouldn't let him.

"Geoffrey don't," I warned, "if you run away now you're no better than your dad." He returned his gaze to me, eyes dark as hell, with his dangerously sharp jaw moving to keep the harsh words from falling.

"Don't you dare compare me to my dad, I'm nothing like him!" I was getting him angry but somehow I felt like this was the only way to give me answers.

"Oh really?" I was playing with fire, but maybe I had to push him over the edge if I ever wanted him to fly.

"Yes!" he snapped louder than necessary and took a few steps closer. "I may have caused a lot of trouble but they're nothing, absolutely nothing compared to what he did!" At the end he was yelling at the top of his lungs, but I had to drive him even farther to get where I wanted to be.

"Then why are you running if you've got nothing to hide?" I retorted.

"That's not what I said!"

"Then what were you saying? That you're not trying to cover the fact that you do drugs? That you're drunk most of the time? That you beat the shit out of people? Are you saying all those things aren't true?"

"No but-"

"But what?" I hissed, surprised how I got carried away with all of this, trying to calm the rhythm of my heartbeats. But whatever I did, it couldn't calm me down.

Anger was pumping through my veins and the tension could be cut with a knife. The pause between sounds might have been short, it felt like ages as I watched him reach the top of rage, a grenade I examined as I dropped it out of my hands right in front of me, ready to explode.

"But I never caused anyone's death!" he screamed. Silence returned, nothing was able to be heard. Nothing except our heavy breathing and hearts beating in our ribcages.

I wanted to say something, anything to prevent him to put on that sad face again, the face of a left ten years old boy, begging for love. So I gave him exactly that.

I shot forward. In no time I had him in between my arms, hugging him as if his life depended on it.

"Geoffrey please talk to me, I can see you're in pain, please let me help," I pleaded, and although he didn't reply, the way he lifted his arms and put them tightly around me caused me to gain back some confidence in the situation.

"You can talk to me you know, about everything. It'll make you feel much better I promise."

He took a step back, not looking into my eyes at any second. His eyes were glued to the sky, his adam's apple bobbling with every swallow, "It's just, I just never told anyone about this." I looked at him, the way his eyes were so soft in the moment, sparkling like the stars in the sky. Without being able to control my actions, I ran back into his chest, hugging him once again.

"I expected that," I let out, not letting him go.

"Why's that?" he asked.

"Your life is like one big routine," I started, "and talking about your feelings isn't part of that routine. If you would, you'd break that circle so you just don't." I felt him shuffle in my embrace, so I tightened it. I had come this far, there was no way in hell I was letting him go right now. "And I think that's why, on days like this, reality smacks you in the face and you weren't prepared at all."

"My life's not a routine." He finally spoke up and it managed to make a small smile appear on my face. Of course he'd deny, of course he wouldn't tell me I'm right, of course he had to be difficult. And I liked it.

I liked the way he denied and was difficult, I liked the way he'd try to convince me otherwise and the way he wouldn't let me go by easily.

"Convince me then."

"Okay," he said while releasing me and sitting down next to the pool, so I did the same. "Okay, uhm I don't always go on the same run."

"So your daily morning run isn't always as long? Oh you've so convinced me!" I laughed.

"Shut up! It's not like your life is so exciting."

"Touché, but I, at least, change the guy I'm having a celebcrush on once in a while."

"I do too! I just changed Taylor Lautner for Zayn Malik a couple of weeks ago!" he cooed and when he saw my expression he released a small chuckle, the most adorable sound ever produced.

My face lit up. It didn't last long though, due to his laugh to fade as quickly as it came. "When was the last time you changed something in your life?" he asked.

"Uh, I don't know, I started wearing dresses more often, lately. You?"

Another chuckle followed, but it wasn't as beautiful. It was bitter, the kind that made my heart ache. "Six years ago." It seemed like the words hurt is throat as they made their way out of there.

"What'd you do?" I asked cautiously, slightly afraid that curiosity could kill the cat once again.

"I stopped playing football." He bit on his nails. I didn't know if he wanted to tell me more of he'd like me to drop the subject and start about something random again. "Aren't you going to ask me why I stopped?"

"No," I said a bit unsure. "Did you like playing?"

"I loved it." His lips edged up into a smile. "The rush I got was crazy, like, when you manage to do something unexpected or great and you could finally make someone proud." I caught a little twinkle in his eye and I had never seen so much life in them before. "When I was little my mom would always play with me, and come to my games although she didn't know anything about the rules and stuff.

"And yet, she'd always cheer me on, whenever I did something good she'd always go crazy. At first I was embarrassed about the way she acted but later on, I loved to see her so proud." His gaze dropped to his lap. His voice changed dramatically. "And then she died."

My head filled itself with questions, as my heart got filled with pain and aches but a wise man once told me that once a person starts giving an explanation about something, or start telling his story, you have to let him. Give him the time, give him the silence to think, pick his words and finally speak.

So I did, and he reacted as hoped.

"My mom was the only one who ever cared about me, so when she died I-I just didn't see a reason why I'd keep on playing. I didn't need to impress anyone anymore, I didn't feel like I had someone who I could make proud of me. So I quit. I quit the one thing I ever loved doing." He released a laugh, a fake one for that matter. "It's stupid right? Foolish even."

"The one thing I think is foolish is that you think that you can't make anyone proud," I replied silently.

"There's no one who really cares about me or what I do or don't."

"What about all those million girls from school? I think they're pretty interested in you." He shook his head.

"They're interested in my body."

"I don't-"

"No one is interested in me, the real me I mean." He sighed. "No one cares. I can't even blame them, I'm a human monster."

"All monsters are human," I hummed.

He released a laugh and faced me. "What?"

"Sorry, it's just a little fact." I tried to hide my embarrassment, why did I have to let that out again?

"It's a nice intermezzo." He played along.

"I know right?" I smiled and so did he.

Words might be powerful, and able to change a whole lot in this world, but nothing, absolutely nothing would be able to describe the sight of his smile without decreasing it's value.

It was childish yet mature, playful yet serious, mysterious yet clear and honest, wholehearted yet heartbroken.

And somehow that seemed to be the perfect description of not only the beautiful existence of his smile, but also of the complicated existence of Geoffrey Rice.

The existence that contains mainly contradictions. In everything; his mood, behavior, emotions, everything.

It's like he craves attention, yet he hides from it. Like, he wants to be loved -just like everyone else- yet he can't love anyone in return. Maybe if he could just open up he'd be able to find someone to love and maybe-

"I love pizza." Pizza?

I look back up and realize I reentered the present, straight into pizza hut.

"Loren, you want some?"

"What?" I ask half sleeping.

"Wow someone dozed off for a while." Slowly all of my senses come back to life.

Geoffrey's troop is still surrounding us, causing a lot of girls to stare at us as well. A waitress is tapping her pen against her notebook while Chester was writing –probably his number - down on it.

"What?" I ask again since everyone keeps staring at me but no one really answered.

"You want some more pizza?"

"Uh no th- wait yes I want so- uh oh no- wait." I think for a second. "Hawaii please."

"You sure?" The waitress rolls her eyes at me.

"Dammit woman just bring us the food!" Lana intervenes, rude and unmannered, just how I like her.

"You girls sure know how to eat." Wes says as soon as the bitch is out of sight.

"Got a problem with that?" Lana says.

"Jeeze stop the flirting it makes me want to vomit," Geoffrey grumbles and I can't help but agree with him on this one.

"It even makes me want to watch him vomit, and eat it afterwards," I say.

"That sounds... Appealing," Wes says unsure.

"It's interesting really, something I definitely want to witness," Lana nods.

"Gross," Chester remarks.

"Feel free to leave if you can't handle our coolness," Lana says.

"Yeah like what are you guys even doing here?" I ask them.

"Oh you know, just casually swimming around in pizza hut." Geoffrey quotes my words.

"I meant what are you doing in a two foot radius around us?"

"It's not like you own this place." He puts his arms on the arm of the booth, like he just won. Ain't gonna happen fella.

"I think with the amount of pizzas we've eaten here, we hold a big share in their company, so technically yes; we do kind of own this place." Lana fist bumps me. The guys just stare until our food comes and we fly on it like pigs on Thanksgiving dinner.

Due to my overly enthusiastic participation in all the eating, I didn't notice Geoffrey scooting over until his breaths fan the back of my neck. "Nice one Poole." Followed by a sneaky wink.

Like I said, a living contradiction.

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