Keeper

Chapter 23

After a very successful volleyball match with Harry and his friends and six excruciatingly long classes later, I ended up back in the cafeteria. This time Harry surprised me by beating me to the lunch table.


I made my way over to him, his back turned to me, and sat down across from him,

"You're here quite early." I spoke, quickly catching his attention. His dark green eyes darted up from his bright blue phone screen.


"Yeah, I am aren't I?" He smirked.


"What have you been up to?" I asked, grabbing a granola bar and a bag of chips from my back pack.


Harry shrugged,

"Nothing much. Mikey got detention in English for screaming "pussy" in the middle of class. Harry laughed.


"You should of seen the teacher's face it was fucking hilarious. How about you?"


I was about to say the same when the image of a small folded up slip of paper popped into my head,

"I got you Ben's number."


I reached down into my pocket to find the warm piece of loose leaf, unfolding it delicately before placing it in front of Harry.


"He said he would love to talk to you." I added.


"Thanks." Harry nodded before adding the number into his phone and crumbling up the slip of paper.


"Do you talk to Ben?" He asked out of the blue.


I scrunched up my forehead,

"Yes?"


His eyes darted to his folded up hands,


"About what?"


I was confused by his motive of asking me such a silly little question.


"We had to have a partner for a worksheet we were assigned, we just talked about the questions."


Harry kept his eyes down and nodded.


"Alright." He spoke simply.


I was about to speak when Harry cleared his throat,


"I was um...wondering if you'd like to grab a slice of pizza with me right after school? Nothing fancy of course, I just happen to know this nice little pizzeria down the street from my house and thought that maybe you'd like to tag along with me?"


"Yeah sure. I'll just have to call my mom once school's out and tell her I won't be home right away."



"I like your mum." Harry smiled.


"Why's that?" I asked.


"Just that she sees that I'm not just some punk ass player." He shrugged.


After I didn't say anything Harry let out a sigh.

"I think she knows I won't hurt you." He added.



Once the bell signaling the end of the day rang through the school building I was up and out of the classroom within a matter of seconds.


I saw Harry leaning against the wall opposite my classroom and once he saw me he gave me a wink.


"I'm going to call my mom on the drive there." I informed Harry as we started walking towards the school exits and out into the student parking lot.


Harry nodded,


"Alright. You can tell her we won't be too long, I promise. We will just grab a slice, chill out for a little bit, and I'll have you home with plenty of time to finish all of your homework." He ended his sentence with a joking smile.


"We can stay as long as you'd like, it won't matter to my mom." I laughed.


"You sure? Do you have a lot of homework?"


"Not really, a math worksheet but that's it."


Harry only smiled wider, his teeth on full display, as we approached his car in the parking lot. We both hopped in and he drove off, fortunately dodging the traffic that usually built up due to the other students who drove to school.


After about a ten minute drive and a discussion on the best pizza toppings we pulled up to a dark red brick building which was surprisingly packed with people at three o'clock in the afternoon. A sign sitting on the roof read, "Angelo's" and the name immediately clicked in my head.


"My dad gets takeout here a lot. Like every Sunday." I spoke, looking over at Harry.


"At least me and your dad can agree on one thing." Harry laughed.


"What's that?" I asked with a smile.


"Their food is the shit."



Harry took my hand as we walked through the front door, a high pitched bell going off above us as we did. A few heads turned to look in our direction but soon went back to talking and eating once they saw it was just two teenagers. He lead me to a table in the far back corner of the restaurant, far away from everyone else who was uncomfortably grouped together towards the front entrance. I took in a deep breath through my nose, the smell of tomato sauce and Italian dishes overtaking my senses.

I sat across from Harry and folded one leg over the other,

"How often do you come here?" I asked, resting my elbows on top of the table and tiredly holding my head in my hands.


"Usually once a week, or two if I'm in the mood for Italian or something." He shrugged.


"You come alone?" I asked, but it came out more as a statement.


Harry nodded and coughed into his arm,

"Yeah, I do." He mumbled. His eyes met mine and he brought his lip ring between his teeth. I knew he was thinking about something so I absentmindedly asked,


"What?"


He shook his head,


"Nothing."



"Harry, tell me." I practically begged.


I went to grab his hand which was lonesomely sitting on the surface of the table but before I could reach it he pulled it off and slipped it onto his lap.


"It's nothing." He repeated, but this time his words help a sense of venom.


After a brief silence I spoke up,



"You can tell me anything." I whispered.



His eyes narrowed as they landed back on mine but softened as he took a deep breath in through his nose, quickly exhaling.


"I just...it's just that I think you should know that I live alone."


A questioned popped into my head and I reluctantly bit down on my bottom lip, wondering if it was appropriate to ask such a personal question. Before I could even think to speak even a syllable of it though, Harry answered my thoughts exactly on point,


"My fathers in jail. Shot a man in the head which killed him at impact. There were a handful of witnesses and undeniable evidence. He was sentenced to life without bail. The bastards lucky he didn't get the fucking death penalty." He spoke slow and the way his tone dripped with with disgust made she shutter.

"We still don't know why he did it though." He whispered.

It was quiet once again but Harry continued not much later,

"I also don't have any siblings, I'm an only child."


After I didn't say anything once again, since I had absolutely no idea how to respond to this new found information Harry had just given me, Harry furrowed his eyebrows and turned his head to look back at the kitchen. His fingertips tapped at the glass tabletop,


"Now where's that damn waitress."






{Sorry it's short.


THANK YOU FOR 900K READS IM SCREECHING}