The Ice Cream Pact

Chapter Six

The car smelt nice, like some sort of pine and mint, but there was a very faint smell of cigarette smoke somewhere in there as well. I looked down at the cup holder on his side, and nevertheless, saw a pack. I tried to hide my frown.

"You smoke?" The question came out before I could stop it, and his jaw feathered a little at it.

"I'm not proud of it, but yes," he hesitantly replied.

"Then why do you?" I asked again before I could stop it. He paused, his deep brown eyes on the road in front of us.

"We didn't live in the best area in LA.. I guess substances just sort of rubbed off on me, and I chose smoking over anything else my friends tried to get me into, but, I wish I could go back and tell myself that smoking is still a stupid thing to chose," he explained, and I watched him as he did so. "It's a lot harder to quit an addiction than most people think," I could tell he was ashamed.

"No, I understand," I told him, and he made eye contact with me then, as if no one had said that to him about substances or smoking before. When he turned his eyes back to the road, I added, "I have some family experience in that department," as a short little explanation, and then directed him on another turn to take.

"A parent?" He asked, and my mind froze again. When I didn't answer for a few moments, he quickly chimed back in with, "Sorry, that was overstepping. My bad-"

"No, no it's fine," I forced a small smile and cleared my throat, "my street is up there," I pointed, and he turned into it when we got there. "Thanks for the ride, and for what you did with Bruce. I appreciate it."

"I didn't do anything less than what I should have, but your welcome, cielo, anytime," he replied and stopped the car when I pointed to my house. Part of me wanted to stay in the car with him and talk for hours, but obviously I wasn't going to let myself even entertain that idea.

"What can I call you? What can be your nickname?" I asked him, and he smiled at me.

"Come up with something yourself, and I'll approve of it next time we see each other," he replied.

"So tomorrow?" I chuckled, "I mean, alright, but I doubt it will be good."

"Can't wait to hear it. See you then," he said when I got out of the car, and I said goodbye before walking up to my house while he drove off.

The house was empty, as usual, so I just dropped my bag off by the island and made my way to the bathroom. I lifted my shirt up and turned around to look at my back in the mirror, which did in fact have two new bruises already forming on it- one on each shoulder blade where they had been slammed into the lockers. With a sigh, I let my shirt fall back down again and made my way back out to the kitchen, where I got some water and walked to the couch.

I got out my homework and stared at it for a solid few moments, but then the silence started becoming too loud, and I had to turn on some music. My heart was still beating pretty fast from everything that had just went down, and I found myself yet again asking myself the same damn question... why did I have to be gay??

I mean, did the universe really think that my life wasn't hard enough already?? It had to go and make a huge amount of people hate me for something that I couldn't control? Part of me would never forgive the universe for it, but the other part of me was thankful that it had at least given me a few loving family members that I could surround myself with.