As I stared straight ahead in my second period, looking but not really seeing, Gio’s face popped up. I can’t explain why it did but it had. His cat like green eyes that glowed when he was smiling or in his case smirking because that is all the cocky boy ever freaking did. The way his honey brown hair swept across his forehead barley touching the surface of his dark, flawlessly sculpted eyebrow. His straight nose that lead down to two plump lips that could rival any girl’s and day. I wonder how they would feel pressed against miii- What the hell am I thinking!?
I jerked up out of my seat and stared down at it as if it were the reason for my corrupted thoughts. “Mr. Mussolini, do you have a problem?” my teacher Mr. something said.
I have a problem, I thought. One about five ten, beautiful green eyes, and a body that could rival my own. I grabbed the sides of my head and closed my eyes so tight my head began to throb. Why couldn’t he just leave my head alone!? This place, my brain, has always been the only place that I could escape to and now he takes it up like a six thousand pound woman in an elevator.
“Mr. Mussolini?” the teacher said with more aggravation in his voice.
“Vin, what’s wrong?” Sammy hissed from beside me. My eyes diverted from him and went straight to the door. I needed and escape and I needed one fucking now. Not only from this room but from Gio. How could a boy I hate so much make me feel like- whatever the hell I was feeling was called.
I cleared my throat suddenly. I met the eyes of my teacher and found him glaring until my honey brown eyes met his. He straightened his back but I could practically smell the fear on him. “I need to go to the nurse.”
“S-sure,” he stuttered. Everyone in this school knew who my dad was.
They feared me.
Even the damn teachers.
I yanked the pink slip out of his hand and walked out of the room so fast I almost fell out of the door. Everything swam in my head so I leaned against the door and waited.
What is happening to me? I begged my own brain for the answer to this question. Three days. Three days and a few hours I have known Giovanni Catalino and he has become the number one priority in my world. Taking him out was on my to-do list but after Monday on that –should I dare to call it- date, I have been feeling really weird. The very sight of him has me on my toes and ready to give him a good tongue lashing or maybe even a good stare down.
“Fuck!” I cursed. I had to get away from this place. Away from the people. Away from the stares. Away from him.
I turned on my heel and started my beeline for the door. The sound of my thick souled boots hitting the cracked tile was the only sound until I passed the bathroom. I heard his voice and my steps came to a screeching halt. I could practically hear the screeching.
“….a face that makes me want to….he gets…but I can’t help the way I feel.”
Those few word were the only things I could catch as I slowly walked closer to the bathroom. I knew that voice as only Gio’s. My heart sped as I tried to figure out what the missing words were. Annnnnd then the last thing hit me.
The way I make him feel?
“Gio, this is crazy,” Angelo, his second in command, hissed. Just yesterday I had found his name out when I came around the corner of my first period and heard Sammy telling him to step off. I knew both groups of boys despised each other, but this sounded like it meant something entirely. Sammy sounded almost…frantic.
“Angel, I can’t do this to him,” Gio said.
Okaaaaaay. Do what?
“He needs to be shown that we are his equals and not his stepping stones,” Angel countered. The sound of conversed feet pacing back and forth began. “I thought you hated him too.”
“I do! God, he is such a cagna!” I winced a little. I am not a bitch. An asshole? Yes. A bitch. You are mistaken bambino.
“Then why can’t we do this?” Angelo finally asked.
The pacing stopped. “My dad would kill me and wouldn’t bat an eyelash doing it.”
“Your dad-“
“Angelo.”
“Fine!” Angelo seethed. It was quiet so I began to pull away from the door until Angelo spoke again. “You and him got a secret fucking love affair or somethin’? You two seem to be all talk these days and neither of you are doing shit.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Gio shouted. “He is nothing but a sorry excuse for a male. His great, great grandfather might have been a great man, but he is what’s left. You want to do that shit? Be my guest. I’ll hold the goddamn tape recorder.”
My fuse blew at that moment. I turned around so fast my head spun and then stalked out of the hall and out the side doors. When I was safely out, I walked over to the hot red R8 that was owned by that boy and put my fist right through the damn window. My anger only seemed to amp up however when the pain started.
“Fuck you, Gio! FUCK YOU!” I slammed the same fist into the back window and then kicked the side of the car as hard as I could until the car alarm went off. Blood fell oozed out of my still clenched fist as I walked to my car and opened the door. I pushed the keys into my Lamborghini and then pulled out of the parking lot.
Pain began to shoot up my arm as I gripped the steering wheel as hard as I could. These….emotions I was having were beginning to piss me off. How could I go from being all googley eyed over him one minute and then panicked the next and then hopeful of his feelings and then utterly pissed when I heard exactly what I should have expected.
I am a Mussolini. I should not even be having these types of feeling toward a guy. What I was feeling for the enemy was weakness. I had finally found somebody that I was like me and that was not one of my boys and that gave me a certain connection. What I was feeling was nothing other than curiosity of him. I was curious of him. Yep! Fuck everything else.
I jerked the steering wheel to the left and heard the tires screech as it made the hard turn. I made out my destination and slammed my brakes as hard as I could without slamming my foot right through the damn floor. I hopped out of the car, yanking the car keys along with me. I jumped over the side of the bridge that was not going to land me in water and then ran to the one place I knew would keep me safe. It always had.
I remember the first time I had come here. Ma and I were sitting on the couch and she had told me to model this ugly ass hat she was making for my grandmother. I had refused until she threatened to take away my 22. I slid the floral pink hat onto my head and then stood there. I could still hear her voice. “Strut! Come on I know you can.” I sighed and began to walk back and forth. She laughed and then played some song and I started to smile and dance along to the music all while flashing the hat around.
The next thing I knew I was held up by my throat with blazing brown eyes burrowing into my very soul. “What the fuck is this!” he screamed at my ma. She stuttered over her words but he cut her off. He had thrown me onto the ground and punched me in the face more times than I could count. When he was done he said only seven words. “You are a Mussolini. Have some respect.” I had jumped up so fast. I ran right through the front door and didn’t stop until I fell over one of the large stones by this bridge. I rolled down and hit the edge of the water. I looked at myself and chanted my father’s words in my head.
That day and after, this place became a haven when I couldn’t handle the terrors of my life. When I couldn’t take my dad’s life lessons. When I couldn’t handle what they wanted to turn me into. This place made me feel like a normal teenager with normal problems. I was not a Mussolini here. I am just Vincent. Just fucking Vincent.
“You damaged my car, asshole!” the scream came from my left. I looked over just in time for a fist to slam into my left cheek. I fell back onto the ground and stared up at the graffiti that littered the cove. “I am going to rip you to shreds!” he yelled.
“Please. By all means,” I answered with a kind of deadness to my voice. That seemed to make him pause. He yanked me up and our eyes met. He had searing hate in those eyes, while mine? I had no clue what they held.
“What is your problem?” he seethed.
“Nothing you should be concerned with,” I answered with the still dead in my voice. He looked me over and then smirked that signature smirk.
“You are totally mind-fucked right now.” I didn’t understand what he meant so I stared at him. “You’re on drugs.” I jerked away from him and gave him a offended look.
“I will never- fucking ever- take drugs!” I hissed. He laughed so suddenly it made me jump. The sweet sound echoed off of the cement cove.
“Your face was priceless!” My eyebrows slowly came down from my hair line and covered my eyes as I glared at him. “Oh, fuck.” He fell over and laughed even harder.
“I don’t see why this is funny,” I said.
He wiped his eyes. “You were in shock!” he said finally.
What?
“You are bleeding out of your hand. I think you hit something major,” he said as he crawled over to me. He was still smiling for some reason. “God, you are such an idiota!”
“How am I an idiot?” I hissed.
“You were going to bleed out if you stayed here and your were in shock so you wouldn’t have left,” he said with laughter still in his voice.
“You are laughing because I was going to die?” That hurt more than I want to admit.
He shook his head. “I am laughing because if I hadn’t been just as much of a hothead as you, I would have never come and you would have died because of me.”
“That’s….not funny, Gio.” I still can’t seem to find what is funny.
“Do you have an Idea what my pops would have done if he found out you died because of me?” The laughter was still there. “He would have killed me! Oh, fuck! He would have killed me!”
I suddenly laughed. I have no idea why. “This isn’t funny Gio.” I was still laughing. Actually, laughing is an understatement. I was straight out honking.
“It’s not!” he shouted still laughing.
“Why are we laughing!?” I laughed back. He suddenly grabbed the side of my face with a smile still on his face.
“Because we are the same. “ Only a second passed and our laughing had abruptly stopped. His eyes burrowed into my own and I found it very hard to breathe. God, what is happening to me?
He leaned in closer and for a moment I hoped he would kiss me. Just the thought of his lips against mine had me growing hard behind my zipper.
Oh fuck me.
“We should clean this up,” he said suddenly yanking me out of my head. His long, skill fingers brushed across the gushing wounds on not only my hand but my forearm.
He started to pull me closer to the edge of the water and I followed like a dog on a leash. He took his shirt off and I commanded my eyes to stay down. I heard the thin material of his white shirt hit the water and then he was pushing it against the wound. “Hold this. I’ll be right back.” He got up before I could answer and then what seemed like seconds passed before he was back with a first-aid kit.
“You carry that around?” I asked.
“Duh. Isn’t that like rule number two in the rule book?” he countered.
“Number eight,” I answered. He laughed and then yanked my forearm away from me. I hissed in pain and he showed me no sympathy.
“You owe me for my car,” he said as he bulled wipes out and then yanked the bottle of alcohol out of it. He popped the top of and then poured the whole bottle onto my wounds.
“Oh fuck! Ow! Fuck!” I hissed.
“Be still, grido bimbo,” he hissed back.
“Do not call me a cry baby.” I narrowed my eyes at him. He looked up and met my eyes head on. “You are so infuriating.”
He scuffed. “And you aren’t?” That shut me right the hell up. I looked back at the throbbing wounds and then winced when the tweezers dug into my skin and pulled the first shard out. The silence stretched until he had got most of the glass out.
“You hate me, right?” he asked suddenly. My eyes snapped up to his and I found him still looking at the wound as he dug the tweezers in. I watched him.
“Let me ask you a question first?” I said slowly.
The probing stopped as he slowly looked up. “What is it?”
I swallowed hard. “Do you hate me?” A long silence stretched out again. Our eyes never left each other as though we were both seeking the answers there. The eyes, like many people said, are the windows to the soul.
“Yes,” he finally answered, snatching his eyes away from mine. “I h-hate you.”
For some reason that felt worse than the shards being extracted from my throbbing skin. I cleared my throat. “Good. Me too.”
He finally plucked the last piece loose and began to wrap my hand and forearm with gauze. His fingers lingered on the bandage as his eyes slowly went up my chest and then met mine again. He opened his mouth to say something but the words were lost as I grabbed his face and held him close to me.
“Don’t say anything,” I whispered. “We were created to hate each other, Gio. Let it stay that way.” I pulled away from him and stood up on wobbly legs. I walked out of the cove and distantly heard his coveresed hitting the cement.
“Vin!” he said and I was tackled just as a flashlight passed over us. He covered my mouth and pulled me up against him with me falling between his legs with my back against his chest. “Shut up.”
“I wasn't talking,” I hissed in a whispered. He slapped his hand over my mouth again.
“His car is here,” I heard Georgie say. Oh fuck. The boys came looking for me.
“Maybe he just left it here,” Ralph said.
“Doubt that,” Sammy answered.
“We need to get back home guys. Our parents are goin’ to flip shit,” Leo said.
“He is grown. Come on Sammy,” Ralph said.
I huddled closer into Gio when the flashlight past right in front of us. I hadn’t even realized it was this dark up until the flashlight had first came out. Pops was so gonna kill me.
“Stop moving,” Gio hissed like he was in pain. I tried to give him some room but then something hit my lower back and we both tensed. Please be a gun. Please be a gun. Please be a- “I told you to stop moving.”
“You got a hard on?” I hissed.
“No, that’s my gun.” Oh thank- I am not that stupid!
“Liar.”
“You want it to be the other thing?” he hissed.
I felt my face heat. “O-of course not!?”
“Psh, who’s a liar now?”
“Still you, bambino,” I seethed.
“It’s my gun,” he said back.
“Pull it out then,” I said.
He stilled behind me. I slowly looked back and found him staring at me with pinkened cheeks and wide eyes. “You- you want me to pull it out?”
I felt my face heat more. “If it’s a gun-“
“Get out of my lap,” he said. I shook my head at how fast he changed the subject. “Vin, do it.”
“Do what?”
“Get out of my lap,” he hissed as he pushed me. I looked back and pushed him back.
“Don’t you push me, stronzo.” He pushed me again and this time I grabbed him by his bicep and yanked him over my shoulder. His “gun” pushed against my face and I felt the world go blurry for a second before I pushed him over and straddled his waist.
“Get off,” he hissed.
“No,” I hissed back.
“You must be gay then.”
“Coming from the guy who got the hard on!” I hissed back.
He scuffed. “You have one too.” That made me pause. I looked down and found that he was soooo right. I went to get off of him, but he grab my thighs and flipped us so my back hit the cement.
“We hate each other, right?” he hissed.
“Yes,” I answered. He nodded and then the next thing I know he is off of me running away before I could even blink. My eyes widened slightly as the events that had just happened came into my thick skull.
“Cazzo!” I screamed in Italian. “Fuck!” Just to clarify what I had previously said. I ripped myself away from the ground and stomped up the incline that lead to my car. When I got there, he was pulling out. I watched him look out the window and then slam on the breaks. The window slowly rolled down.
“I hate you!” he said.
I tried not to smile. “I hate you too.” He pulled away with only that. I smiled and then caught myself. I slid down the side of my car and looked toward where he had just split, but my eyes caught something else instead.
A huge hunting knife sticking out of my front tire.
“Madre ventosa pene cazzo!” I screamed. He is so infuriating!