The Lies That We Tell

𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬

The whole coffee shop was full of people which made sense since the clock was already over 3pm and a lot of people had also finished their day at school and work. Fortunately, they lived in New York and there were coffee shops pretty much in every street.

The coffee shop was also a safe place to have this conversation and now he didn't have to worry about anything happening while they talked. Not that anything would happen but it was always good to be prepared.

Somehow Theo had managed to get seats and had even put his backpack to the other chair as if to make sure no one sat there. Now he was drinking something while looking at his phone so he didn't see Quentin walking in.

He still wondered if he should just leave and tell Theo some pathetic excuse why he couldn't make it but decided not to. Now was the time when they could put this all behind, all this tension that created a lot of questions and awkwardness afterward when neither knew what to say or do. Yes, talking things through was necessary.

"I hope you haven't waited too long," Quentin said and gave Theo's backpack to him before he sat in the chair. Theo looked up, smiled, looked somehow nervous and put his phone to his blue jean's pocket.

"No, not at all. I- I would have brought you a drink too but I wasn't sure what you wanted and it could have gone cold so..." he explained and looked as if he really believed that Quentin would blame him for not spending money on him. But when he saw how long the queue was, he almost wished he had done that.

It took almost fifteen minutes for Quentin to get back at the table with a cup of hot chocolate in his hands. He drank it even though it was very hot just to have more time to think about what to say.

Now that he was here and Theo was very quiet and kept avoiding looking at him like a coward which was very annoying, he was starting to think that this was a bad idea.

"So!" he said, got Theo's attention and stopped at that. Great, now what? Why was it Quentin's job to start the conversation? "So... how's basketball?" Fuck. He so didn't come here to talk more about basketball. He heard enough of that in school.

He was sure that if nothing else, that would make Theo talk but it seemed to make him feel even worse. Since when had he looked like that when someone mentioned basketball?

Maybe he was just stressed and he couldn't be blamed. His team had already played five games and won all of them which was amazing! Their school had hope that finally, their school could say that they were in finals and won there the championship. So why wasn't Theo smiling?

"It's ok..." Theo said and damn, it had been a while since Quentin heard someone sound that depressed. Now forgetting everything else, he got his chair closer to the table and started to plan in his head how to make Theo open up. Knowing from experience, that wouldn't be an easy job but he was never one to give up easily.

"What's wrong?" he asked worriedly. Theo was silent for a while and kept frowning at the table as if he wanted to burn it down and right now, he knew what he was thinking. Could he trust Quentin? Could he open up to him without getting judged?

"You can trust me, I want to help you as much as I can. Please," he begged. He didn't know if there was someone else Theo trusted more and could talk with.

"It's stupid," Theo just mumbled.

"Your feelings aren't stupid," Quentin simply said. Theo opened and closed his mouth three times and he was starting to get a little hope that Theo would open up until the boy shook his head and just stared at him.

Sighing, Quentin took another sip of the hot chocolate and decided to change the subject. It wouldn't do any good if he kept asking instead of respecting his decision not to talk about whatever is causing him trouble.