a hopeless romantic | r.s

Chapter Eight

Jojo gave him a side glance. "Depends on how ya look at it. It was a good sellin' day fa me. What's got ya so glum?"

Romeo bit his lip, eyes flicking around nervously. "I was out wit Yellow earli-ah."

"Thought ya didn't wanna talk 'bout love."

Romeo huffed, not able to meet the boy's gaze. "Dat ain't... she wanted ta know somethin'."

"What?" Jojo questioned. "Why ya led her on?"

"I already apologized fa dat," Romeo said, shooting him a glare. "She wanted ta know 'bout Brock's death."

"Well," began Jojo, laughing, "dere ain't many places ya can go ta get those kind 'a answers, unless you was plannin' on breakin' in ta tha meetin' Jack was holdin' ta-day..."

He slowly trailed off as he took in Romeo's sheepish look.

"No," Jojo denied. "Rome, please tell me ya didn't break inta dat meetin' wit Amy."

"I didn't break inta dat meetin' wit Amy?"

Jojo groaned disbelievingly. "Well, I hope yer happy. Ya coulda gotten Juliet inta some serious trouble, y'know."

Romeo gaped at him. "What about me?"

"Yer a newsie," Jojo told him, waving him off. "Ya woulda been fine."

He let it slide, knowing that the boy was probably right. "Dey think tha kids from tha Refuge did it."

Jojo frowned. "Yer sure? I mean, I know dat place can do a lotta stuff ta people, but what reason would dey have had fa goin' aft-ah Brock? Flushin' may be a little off-puttin', sure, but they's one 'a tha least problematic boroughs we have. Why wouldn't dey have gone aft-ah Brooklyn? Or even us?"

Romeo sighed. "I dunno. Maybe dey had somethin' personal against Flushin'. Maybe they's plannin' on workin' their way up."

Jojo visibly shuddered, and Romeo swallowed hard. If Jojo was so openly nervous, then they really had something to fear. Romeo knew the boy hated letting his fear show. He knew Jojo just wanted everyone to be as happy as they could at all times.

But that wasn't how life worked.

"I guess we jus bett-ah hope dat it ain't nothin' like dat," the boy eventually replied.

Meanwhile, Sniper was still in the middle of having a heart attack, watching a motionless Finch. "Is he dead?"

"Look," Albert said at last. "He ain't dead. He's jus too weak ta deal wit a headache."

"Albert," Buttons said warningly.

"What?" Albert questioned innocently. "It's Finch. He would say tha same 'bout me."

Mush frowned. "I don't think we should be talkin' 'bout Finch right in front of him."

"It's alright," Specs said. "He's layin' on his good ear, he can't hear ya."

"I can hear ya."

"He can hear ya," Specs muttered reluctantly.

"We should keep things down fa him," Buttons mentioned. "Wese probably only makin' his head worse. It's tha least we can do ta help."

Everyone grumbled their disagreements, but obediently made their way out further from the bunk room nevertheless.

"Has anyone seen Jack?" Crutchie questioned, bringing back their earlier predicament. "He was s'posed ta be back by now."

"Well, he obviously ain't," Romeo pointed out absently, glad to see Race nodding along at his comment.

"We nev-ah noticed," Albert deadpanned.

Jojo came bounding towards them, probably itching to soothe their anxieties. "Hey, Jack's gone missin' 'fore. Ise sure he'll be back he-ah in no time!"

But Romeo was hardly listening. His mind kept wandering back to Amy, Amy, Amy. He knew it was wrong. He didn't even know why he was thinking of her. Laura had made it quite clear that he was better off with her. She knew Amy better than he did, anyway. After all, they were sisters.

And he did like Laura. A lot. When he thought hard about their relationship, he could see that they both had feelings for each other, however deep down they were.

But it wasn't like it was with Amy. She wasn't like Amy.

"I know I ain't s'posed ta want dis," Romeo whispered to himself. "Can ya take me back ta when it was jus papes 'n Jacobi's?"

He sure thought about it a lot.

Jack came stumbling into the room then, much like Finch had done, looking like he'd quite literally see a ghost.

"What's tha matt-ah?" Crutchie questioned, standing up in concern. Romeo admired his restraint at not demanding where their leader had been right away, and although he didn't care much himself, he was curious as to what had come across Jack's path that made him so late to get back. Romeo hoped for the boy's sake that whatever it was had been for a good reason, as everyone would surely tear him apart if they found out that he'd just been slacking off, like he'd warned the newsies not to do a certainly generous amount of times.

But that would soon become the least of everyone's worries.

"It's Smalls."

(2025 words)

I can just feel everyone's want to murder  me right now, and I haven't even published the chapter.

Yikes.

I feel like I'm the worse. I'm the absolute worse because I'm killing off all these likeable characters and someday I'm definitely gonna get what's coming for me. I can feel it coming already. That's great, honestly. Love that for me.

Welp, now that I've accepted that, lemme tell ya about a dream I had last night. So, for those who don't follow me, I do these things occasionally where I post a question on my message board, and usually reply to everyone who answers. Anyway, so in my dream, I get this PM telling me that I should do a Harry Potter themed question, (??), and I didn't know how to tell them that 1) I don't usually (sometimes I do, and I have my reasons) reply to PMs because of something that happened a few years back, and 2) that I wasn't in the Harry Potter fandom at all XD.

I'm pretty sure I woke up before I was forced to make any life changing decisions, thankfully-

Also, for those who've been looking into Cimorelli music since you've found my profile, there's a brand new Lisa Cimorelli cover of Still Have Me by Demi Lovato that came out a few days ago at the top of this chapter. The girl who she collabed (is that even the word?) with has such a great voice, too. I've been streaming it ever since it came out lol.

So this is the last chapter of part one! And, lucky for me, exams are coming up as well! So that means that, unfortunately, I probably won't update an actual chapter until the end of next month, when I'll just publish four at once. I'm leaving Wattpad by the end of this month, and I'll be back sometimes after the 15th of June probably. We will see.

Anyway, please don't kill me for killing Smalls. I need to finish this book, at least.

~ nutcracker645