Zach's POV:
Brian :heart emoji: "hey, can we talk? I can come and pick you up to school if you want"
This is the message I woke up to this morning.
Honestly, looking at it made me think I was still dreaming.
A month.
A whole month.
He hasn't been speaking to me for so long,
So what has changed?
Why is he so eager to talk to me?
Did he miss me as I missed him?
Olivia was right.
I can't let him in again so quickly.
Not after all he has done to me.
I'm not going through that ever again.
So I just ignored his message.
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"everything alright? You haven't touched your plate" Dad asked at breakfast.
"yep, I'm just tired" I moved my plate to the center of the table.
"I know you are, you've been working a lot more ever since Brian decided to take a break from the bakery. Is he doing well at school at least? That's why he wanted to the break"
How should I know how he's doing?
Why would I care anyway?
He fucked it up. Not me. I did nothing.
"knock knock, earth to Zach, are you still here?" Dad waved his hand in front of my face.
"what? Yeah, I'm still here... he's doing fine, I guess"
"you guess? I thought you two are best friends, did he took a break from you as well?"
"well, I guess you can call it a break"
"don't be mad. I'm sure it wasn't easy balancing school, work and being of the football team" Dad said in empathy.
I just nodded.
I don't care if he had a hard time.
I had it harder.
Brian :heart emoji "guess you're busy. Can we catch up later today? Maybe at lunch?"
Ugh.
I ignored once again.
I don't care if I'm being mean,
Which honestly, I'm not.
Do I miss him? Yes.
Did he hurt me so bad with his decision to need some space?
Well, here's the issue.
I get people to need space.
I need space sometimes as well.
It's just his timing asking space was shady.
I mean we literally kissed the night before,
And all of a sudden he wants space?
Well, fuck him. I'm giving him space. So he should stop texting me.
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Dad drove me to school today.
I was too tired to ride my bikes,
And I didn't want to bother Olivia.
Speaking of which, she seemed extremely happy today.
"guess what?" she came to greet me by the locker.
"what?" I groaned.
I wasn't in the mood lately,
And seeing other people happy made me feel even worse.
"Hey, what's wrong? trust me, when you're gonna hear what I have to say, you'll be happy in no time!"
"I doubt it, but go ahead"
"soooo my dad is going to have some Thanksgiving party at our beach house, and he said I can invite whoever I want over soooo, get ready for vacation! Yay!" she cheered.
"ugh, is it already Thanksgiving? Yeah count me out, I can't skip going to the bakery since I made Brian quit so we're short on staff"
"boo, you suck, I can call my dad to hire some staff for you, it's not a problem" Olivia started playing with her hair.
"thanks for the offer, but please don't"
"why not? You guys missing staff, I can fill it in, you could come to the beach house, what's wrong?"
"I don't want you to spend money on me, Olivia"
"but that's what friends are for!" she said disappointed.
"Yeah, well, not really" I sighed.
"well, can you at least offer your parents to hire someone else instead of Brian? It's not like he'll be coming back anytime soon if at all..." she rolled her eyes.
I guess it's not a good time to tell her he just texted me an hour ago...
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At lunch, all went usual.
Olivia, Fred and I were seating all together at our table.
Fred ate some hamburger, Olivia a salad, and I went for some mac & cheese.
We all ate in peace and quiet.
But then someone else sat down at our table.
Brian.
"hey" he said and looked at me.
Well, it's surely going to be hard to ignore him face to face...
"Um, why are you here?" Olivia asked Brian.
"I wanted to talk to Zach, but he didn't respond to any of my messages"
Olivia gave me a confused look.
"well, maybe he doesn't want to talk to you, otherwise he would have answered your messages. Now, you may leave, we would like to have some space" Olivia dragged the last word.
"ok, I get it, I acted terribly, but I'm here to apologize, you don't even know the entire story, none of you do"
"and we really don't want to know, it doesn't matter, now get this message clear, we don't want to talk to you, we don't want to hang out, so what I'm trying to say is, bye Brian," she said and returned to eat her salad.
"Zach?" Brian looked at me as if asking for any help.
I could see in his eyes that he was hurt, but I didn't care, because I was hurt as well.
I lowered my head and continued to eat my lunch as well.
Brian got up from our table and stepped outside the cafeteria.
"good job Zach, I'm proud of you!" Olivia chirped.
"Yeah, whatever" I mumbled. This made me feel even worse, like the feeling you get when you know you did something wrong even though you could act right.
"I think you overreacted Olivia, he's right, we never heard his side of the story," Fred said.
"and I don't want to hear his side of the story," Olivia said aggressively.
"fine, then all I'm saying is, till you won't know the whole story, you can't really judge Brian" Fred defended.
"whatever Fred, if you want to listen to him blabber so much, why don't you go and spend your lunch with him!?" Olivia snapped.
"you know what, just forget about what I said," Fred said to Olivia yet looked at me while saying it.
Is he trying to make me feel even more guilty?
Because it's working.
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"mom, all I'm saying is, maybe you should consider hiring another person, even if Brian will want to come back, Christmas is right around the corner, and you know how busy we are that time of the year, just look for someone who is fine with working for the next two months. Nothing permanent"
"ok Zach, I'll talk with your dad about it later, I know you're not happy with the current situation, and we'll try to help you as best as we can"
"thanks, mom. I love you"
"love you too honey, now don't be late after school, we have a lot of work to do today"
"fine mom" I said and hung up the phone.
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After the last period been done, I grabbed my stuff and rushed outside.
Since dad gave me a ride this morning, I didn't have my bikes with me, so I had to walk to the bakery.
As I was walking by myself, admiring the nice weather, a car pulled over by my side.
I knew that car.
"Brian, what do you want?" I asked in anger.
I don't have time for him.
"can we just talk? Why are you ignoring me?"
"no, we can't talk, I'm not ignoring you, I'm just giving you space as you wanted"
"is that what Olivia told you to say? Because you sure don't sound like yourself right now"
"what? No, Olivia told me nothing!"
That was a lie.
"Zach, I just want to talk, I need to explain myself"
"I don't care"
"Zach, please, I think it's important for you to hear me"
"but I don't want to hear from you, you can keep driving!" I returned to look at the sky and ignored the car beside me.
I heard Brian sighing, and then the car took off.
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"Hey, sweetie! How was school today?" mom greeted me when I arrived at the bakery.
"it was fine" I sighed, I was still thinking about the conversation with Brian earlier.
Was I too aggressive?
"so I talked to your dad, and he thought it will be a good idea to hire someone temporarily to help us with all the preparations for Christmas, my friend Lisa have a son, Jack, who just finished conditory school, I'm going to interview him later today. Hope he'll be a good match, I mean we could also post in more places, but I think it's a good opportunity to help a friend's son so,"
"It's fine mom, it'll be great, thank you" I hugged her.
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After another long shift at the bakery, I was more than ready to go home.
I still needed to do my homework for tomorrow, ugh, I guess I'll be going to sleep late tonight.
Jenny offered to give me a ride back home.
"I'll be done in a minute, just need to finish icing those cupcakes, you can wait for my outside Zach"
"fine" I mean I wasn't going to help her icing honestly, I was exhausted.
I stepped outside the bakery and immediately I had the feeling someone is watching me.
"please don't scream, I'm not going to hurt you" I heard Brian's voice from behind me.
"why are you here? What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"Listen, I just need you to hear this one thing, and then I swear, I'm not going to bother you ever again unless you want me to"
"Brian, I already told you, I don't care about what you have to say"
I wish Jenny could come outside right about now.
"Zach, I love you"
What?
What did he just say?
"w...what? I don't understand"
Does he think it's some kind of joke?
"I love you, Zach," Brian said again.
I didn't know what to say or do. I just stared at him completely shocked.
It's probably another one of his pranks.
"ok Zach, I'm done, ready to g.. oh Brian, hey! Am I interrupting something?" Jenny joined us in the parking lot.
"no, you're not interrupting anything. Let's go home" I started dragging Jenny by the arm to her car.
I'm not doing this again.
I'm not a fool.
I'm done.
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A/N: Hellooooooooo
I really hope you liked this chapter,
all I have to say is,
that there's going to be a *small* *very unnoticeable* twist in the story,
but don't you worry,
he won't be here for long,
what did you think about this chapter? happy? sad? angry?
was Zach acting too aggressive?
don't forget to comment and vote!
xoxo