High School Mayhem

~~~69~~~

Chapter 69: Back With The Jerk
~Travis~

I stare at my phone and sigh. I honestly can not believe I'm about to do this. Dante gave me Gene's number so I can ask him to meet up to talk. I never thought I'd be asking him to take her back.

I decided to stop stalling and call him. "Hello?" He answers. So far he seems like a decent human being, but I know what's behind that tone.

"Uh... Gene?" I call out.

"Yeah..." He says slowly, "Who's this?"

"Oh! Uh, I'm Travis, Zerenity and Dante's friend." I explain.

"Oh right, we met at that party one time." I'm genuinely surprised he even remembered.

"Yeah." I nod though he can't see me.

"How'd you get my number?" There it is, the tone that makes him seem like he the biggest dirtbag in the world.

"Dante gave it to me," I answer.

"Okay..." He urges me on, "so... what do you want?"

"Oh, uh, I was going to ask if we could meet up somewhere, I need to talk to you about something."

He sighs exaggeratedly. "This isn't about me breaking up Zerenity, is it?"

"Well..." I trail off.

"Look, you should be glad I did. You like her, don't you? Shouldn't you be thinking of a way to ask her out?" He has a point but this is my way of asking her out. I need him to take her back for me to eventually ask her out. ...This logic sounds terrible but I trust Dante that this will work.

"That's the problem, I can't, not yet."

"So why are you telling me this?"

"Because I have to get you to--" I sigh. "Listen, you need to get back together with her. I'll explain later, meet me at the McDonald's on Bergson Street at three." I hang hoping that was assertive enough to get him to come.

I hope he's going to come.

~*At McDonald's*~

Dante and I stood in front of McDonald's waiting for Gene to show up. "You're worried for nothing, Gene's a considerate, pretty chill dude." Are we talking about the same Gene? "He'll help you out with no problems."

"Are you sure?" I raise an eyebrow.

"Completely." He nods. "I'll stay and help you out if you like."

"Thank--" I'm cut off by him silent flirting with Lyrvanna as she walks into McDonald's with her younger siblings rolling her eyes. I sigh. "Just go." I shake my head.

"Thanks, man. Good luck with Gene." He pats my shoulder. "That skirt looks great on you, Babe." He walks into the fast food restaurant.

Lyrvanna folds her arms. "Die--" The door closes.

I check the time as I lean against the wall. It's already 3:23.

"Now will you tell me why I had to use my lunch break to come here?" Gene's voice questions. I turn around to see Gene walking toward me. "I hope you don't plan on taking forever, I have to go back to work soon."

"This won't take too long." I hope. "I just thought it'd be easier to talk face to face than over the phone." He just stands there not saying anything but still rushing the conversation. "Right, so, I need you to get back together with Zerenity."

"Which you mentioned over the phone. Are you going to explain why or is this just some really weird need of yours?" I stop myself from glaring at him, what did Zerenity ever see in this guy?

"I'm getting to that." I shift my weight to my other foot. "So... the day you two broke up she came to me really sad." I look to him hoping to see some sort of sympathy.

Some type of emotion flashes in his before he says something, "Most people get sad after breakups." Did you?

"Yeah, I know but it was still heartbreaking to see."

"Wait, we broke up at like two in the morning, you were awake for her to come straight over?" The real question is, why were you two together at two in the morning?

"She knocked on my window and it woke me up," I explain. "Anyway, to make her feel better I accidentally confessed to her."

"I like how easily you own up to the fact that as she was crying and you 'accidentally' confessed to her to make her feel better about a break-up." He shakes his head. "Wow, man, who does that?"

"It wasn't an 'accident', it was an accident."

"Right, keep telling yourself that to make you feel better." He chuckles. "I think I know where the rest of this story is going. After you 'accidentally' confessed, she called you out on it so you chickened out and something along the lines of, 'did I say me? I meant to say... Gene', am I right?" He checks his messages uninterested in our conversation. "Then she got happy, you saw her beautiful smile, and decided not to say anything while she thought I pulled a prank on her."

"That... was... exactly it. Completely it."

"It's a predictable scenario." He shrugs putting his phone away. "Especially from what I know about you since Zerenity literally talks about you... non-stop..." He looks away annoyed.

"Really?" I wonder and I can't help but smile.

He stares at me for a second, this time when something flashes in his eyes, I catch it. Frustration. It's gone just as quickly as it came. "Okay, I'll go along with it. I'll go out with her again."

"You... will?" I blink at him, my smile completely gone.

"Don't get upset now, this was your idea remember." I didn't expect him to do it though. "Before today she could've been as good as yours but you came to me."

"Can I ask you a question?"

He checks his phone. "You have two minutes."

"Why did you and Zerenity start dating?"

"Why did Zerenity and I start dating? She was crying and begged that I didn't dump her. ZPrevail, on the other hand, had a certain edge to her that I liked. When she became Zerenity again, that edge was completely dropped like she was a whole new person, but I still wanted to find something in her I liked."

So he's liked ZPrevail all this time, not Zerenity. "Did you ever find anything you like?" I question.

He's silent for a moment then pulls his phone out again. "Your two minutes are up, I have to go back to work. I'll talk to Zerenity later on." He walks off.

I guess that's said and done. I lay my head in my hand as I walk into McDonald's, I need to drown myself in fries after that. Zerenity's back with that jerk now, and I'm the reason why. Oh, my Irene... why is this my life?