|Concrete and Gold||dave grohl|

Chapter Four•I'll Stick Around

She made it all the way to the front door before Matt caught up with her.

"Hey, Eliza, wait up. I just wanna talk to you." He said, grabbing her arm once they made it into the parking lot.

Eliza spun around, revealing tears streaming down her face. "What do you want?"

"I want to say goodbye. I know it's over, and I just wanted to say goodbye to you."

"You aren't coming here to apologize?" She hollered.

"I mean, me apologizing wouldn't change anything."

"Get the hell away from me, Matt." She said, throwing his hand from off her shoulder and walked away.

Suddenly thankful that she drove herself here, she threw herself into the front seat and began to sob. Devastated that her first relationship had just come to a close, she sat there and just wept.

After Eliza had spent a while crying to herself, she decided to drive to her favorite restaurant and treat herself. She wasn't quite ready to go home yet and face the embarrassment of telling her mom what had happened.

She drove and pulled up to the restaurant, got out of the car, and headed inside. Sitting at a table for one, she ordered her favorite meal without even glancing at the men. A BLT without the tomato, a side of fries, and a lemonade. She could feel the stares from the other people in the restaurant drilling holes into the back of her neck. Of course, she recognized the fact that she looked like a disaster. Her mascara had been running down her face and her eyes were swollen. Her hair was tangled from laying in the front seat of her car. Her dress was no longer sitting perfectly on her frame, it instead had developed numerous wrinkles from her curling up into as tight as a ball as she could manage. However, Eliza did not care one single bit. Her life had just collapsed around her. The last thing she could care about was how she looked.

Her food arrived and she began to eat it as fast as she could. She'd worked up quite an appetite from all the crying she'd done in the past hour.

A few minutes later, she looked up as the bell above the door rang, signaling that someone had entered the restaurant. She could not believe her eyes. David.

He'd walked in with a group of his friends, all looking like they'd just come straight from a punk rock show. Each of them had on some variation of black leather, black boots, and greasy long hair. They all held skateboards at their sides, and a few wore chains around their necks.

Immediately trying to avoid eye contact, Eliza slumped back into her booth and began eating her meal in an attempt to not draw attention to herself.

David's group walked over to their table without any of them looking in her direction. She continued to eat and stayed out of their eyesight.

Once she was done eating, she went to grab her purse to find her money. Just as she looked up from her plate, David walked right past her, likely headed for the bathroom. Holding her breath, hoping he didn't recognize her, Eliza sat very still.

"Hey, Eliza, what's going on?" She heard the sweet sound of David's voice come from behind her. He walked around to the front of the booth, and she watched his face dropped from the sight of her.

"Oh my god, is everything ok?" He asked as he took a seat in the side of the booth in front of her.

"Yeah, it's a long story, but I'm ok."

"You don't look ok, that's for sure. Do you want to talk about it?"

"You're here with your friends, don't worry about it." She said, trying to blow it off. Deep down inside, however, she'd love to sit and catch up with David. It's all she'd thought about for the past three years.

"Eliza, I see those losers almost every day. I can miss a night out with them. I'm worried about you." He said, reaching out to touch her hand.

"Well, I guess, if you insist."

"Sounds good to me. Do you wanna go somewhere else?"

"Sure, just let me pay this bill." Eliza said as she began rummaging around her purse to find her money.

"I got it." David said as he placed some cash on the table.

"Oh, you don't have to do that-" She was cut off by one of David's friends approaching their table.

"Always one with the ladies, aren't you?" The guy said as he stopped in front of the table.

"Franz, this is Eliza, my neighbor." David said, introducing them.

"Hey Eliza." Franz said. "The gang's headed out to the bar. Let's get this show on the road."

"I think I'm gonna miss tonight. Go ahead without me."

"David, you really don't have to stay with me. I'm fine." Eliza piped in.

"David, who the hell is David?" Franz asked, laughing.

"Yeah, I kind of go by Dave now." David told Eliza.

She sat there, thinking about the other things she could have possibly missed from his life.

"See ya, Franz. Practice at your place tomorrow?" Dave asked.

"You know it." Franz said as he walked off.

Dave turned back towards Eliza. "Sorry about that. You ready to go?"

"Yeah."

They walked out to the parking lot. "Can we take your car? I kinda only have this." Dave said, showing her his skateboard.

"Of course. I'm parked right over here." Eliza said, leading the way to her car.

"Where do you want to go?" Dave asked.

"Anywhere." Eliza was jumping out of her skin at the thought of going anywhere with Dave. As long as she got to spend some time with him, she'd be happy going anywhere.