GABRIELLA'S POV:
The bell rang for the end of school and everyone rose from their seats. In excitement, I turned around and met Andrea arranging her things.
She gets surprised when I hugged her. "Thank you so much for allowing me to....you know." I released and smiled at her.
She looked confused at first but then sighs and chuckles a bit. "That's no biggie. He's all yours. By the way the pointy part is really sharp."
My eyebrows furrowed. but I shrugged it off. "Thank you."
"It's OK. Make sure to take care of him." She said with a smile.
"For sure."
***
I took the books I needed from my locker and put it into my bag. Without warning, a hand grabbed my arm and dragged me to the back of the stairs and pinned me to the wall.
"Andre what are you-?" I tried to talk but he covered my mouth with his palm.
"You need to be quiet." He spoke and removed his palm from my lips.
"Why?" I whispered.
"I don't want anyone to know we are going on a date." He said.
"Why?" I was kinda hurt with what he said. "Does it mean you're ashamed to let people know we're going on a date together?" I raised my eyebrows at him. "Let me know so I can cancel this date."
"Shit! Of course not. Who is putting all these trash in your brain?.." He sighed. "....Look I'll explain later."
Suddenly I receive a call from Mr. Anderson and I sighed.
"Who is it?" He asked and I replied.
"It's my bodyguard."
"You have a bodyguard?" He asked.
"Yes. Excuse me I have to take this call then we can leave." I said and dismisses myself from him.
***
"Let's go." I said as soon as I entered his car and he zoomed off.
During the drive, he tried to get in a conversation with me but I just answered or replied him with either a Yes or a No or a Maybe or an OK or a Whatever or an I don't know or a Nothing.
"OK what is your problem?" He sounded irritated with my behavior.
Good, he should be.
"Nothing." I said as I kept on looking outside the window.
"What did I do this time?" He parked the car by the side of the road and looked at me with annoyance in his tone.
"Nothing."
"Gabriella what did I do? Tell me?" He pleaded.
I clenched my fist tight and glared at him. "This! This! Is this all a game?! Are you playing games with me?!"
"No! Of course not." He said and unbuckled his seatbelt.
The anger was building up inside of me bit by bit. I needed to get as far away from him as possible. Thank God I'm not on seatbelt. I quickly unlocked the car door and came out of the car and banged the door. I folded my arms as I walked on the pedestrian side.
"Gabriella what did I do?!" He shouted as he came out and rushed to me. "Hey hey hey what's wrong? Look at me." He held my upper arms as he stood in front of me with his eyes searching for answers in my brown eyes.
"Are you ashamed of me? Why? Why don't you want anyone to know we are going on a date together?" I mustered up courage and asked him.
His forehead creases as his hands fell to his sides. He heaved a sigh and held both my hands in his. "The only reason I'm doing this is because I don't want anyone disturbing you. Once the whole of RAA finds out that you went on a date with the Andre Lombardi, everybody will start pestering around you like how paparazzies and the press would do to a celebrity and you wouldn't want that right?" He kisses my forehead. "I'm not and neither will I be able to be ashamed to say I'm going on a date with you."
"Really?" I looked up at him.
"Really." He smiled. "So you wanna walk to the location of our date or you want me to drive to there?"
"How far is the place?" I asked.
"It's like a seven minutes walk." He said to me after calculating the amount of time in his head.
"I'm too lazy. Drive." I said and walked to the car and entered.
***
He suddenly stopped in front of a giant black gate with L in the middle.
They automatically opened and he drove in. "Andre where is this place?"
"It's kind of like a special place I come to think and calm down my anger." He said.
Everywhere my eyes landed were trees and bushes all clustered around.
He parked the car by a corner and we came out immediately.
"I need you to close your eyes for me." He said.
"Why?" I frowned.
"Because it's a surprise."
"Kill me and I'll come back in spirit form and haunt your dreams." I glared at him but he laughed it off.
I closed my eyes. "Wait...how am I supposed to see and walk?" I asked him.
Suddenly I felt a hand on my waist while another holding my hand. A husky voice whispered to my right ear. "I'll guide you." He said.
After some time, we stopped walking and he told me to open my eyes.
My eyes wander around the beautiful park with grasses and trees, bushes, troll bridges above small pools of water, flowers of many examples and types, all so beautiful.
In the middle was a picnic mat laid by the side of the lake. On the picnic mat was two picnic baskets.
"I made sure to order all your favorite food, both your favorite Mexican, Italian and also your favorite African delicacies. I remember when we were talking about food on Monday and you were calling all your favorite food. They all are stuck to my memory. Even your favorite drink and also I bought some strawberries 'cause I remember you saying how you're addicted to strawberries. Since I know you love food, I...decided to make our date mostly about food....your favourite food. I know it's not really big or fancy but-"
I cut him off. "I love it!....phewww.." I sighed in relief. "Here I was thinking that your gonna carry me to this fancy restaurant or something..boy am I happy you didn't." I smiled at him. "Everything is perfect, the scenery, the atmosphere, everything, just everything." I said as I held his hand and walked and sat on the mat. I opened the purple ribboned basket and brought out the first thing my hand touched.
It was a plate of Tomales. Damn! It's being weeks since my taste buds touched Tomales.
Oh I miss Abuela.
I removed the cover and took a bite of the Tomales. I moaned in satisfaction as I devoured the whole Tomales. I took another plate of food. I snatched the cover and saw it was Rissoto alla pilota.
Where have you been all my fucking messed up life?!!!
I kept on eating and eating nonstop as I moved from food to food until I held my brake. Eyes were on me.
I looked at them.
"Yo hazel eyes. What's good?" I arched an eyebrow with a half eaten slice of pizza in my hand that was about to enter my mouth.
Realization suddenly hits me. I brought down the pizza. "Oh I'm sorry.." I chuckled sheepishly. "...I'm sorry do you want?" I stretched my hand out to him with a pizza slice.
"No it's not that." He said still looking at me with that same face.
I took a bite of the pizza. "Then what is it?" I covered my mouth.
"Nothing." He spoke.
I rolled my eyes. "Tell me."
"Nothing."
"Tell me." I demanded.
"Nothing."
"You asked for it." I dropped my pizzas on the pizza board then straddled him. "I am not going to get off you until you tell me why you were looking at me." I folded my arms.
He laughed showing off his white teeth. "Is that supposed to be a threat?" He asked after his laughter.
"Yes it is." I frowned.
"Baby girl, you have no idea how I enjoy and love when you straddle me or even when we have skin contact. You don't know the joy I have." He smirked at me.
I rolled my eyes. I poked his chest continuously. "Tell meeee." I whined and pouted.
"Alright fine." He sighed.
"Yayyyyy." I said like a child.
"I was looking at you in admiration." He stroked my sides.
"Wait...I don't understand." I sounded confused. "Why?"
"Because your beautiful." He held my chin.
The pain suddenly came back as it was evident of my face. I stood up from him abruptly and walked away as I hugged myself.
"Hey hey hey." He rushed to me and placed his hand on my shoulder as he looked at my brown eyes while searching for answers. "Pumpkin what happened?"
"What is it and this Pumpkin and Dollface and Baby and Baby girl stuff. I'm not your Baby." I said irritated with the names.
"Yes you are." He said possessively.
"No I'm not. And I'll never be. I'm not beautiful! You said so yourself!" I said angrily.
"It was a lie!" He raked his hair with his fingers. "God dammit Gaby how many times do I have to tell you?! I was stupid and I wasn't thinking straight at that period and I'm sorry! I'm really really sorry for hurting you! I regret doing that to you." He exhaled heavily. "You're beautiful, so beautiful. In fact there are no words to express your beauty. You're like a precious gem, so rare. I'm sorry I'm not explaining how beautiful you are like those boys or poets, I'm not really good with words and shit. That's why I entered the Science Clan. I prefer calculations and formulas more than creating poems and learning about poets and other shit." He cutely raked his silky dark brown hair with his fingers and licked his lips. "Please can we just stop fighting and go back to our date...please." He pleaded with me.
I nodded slowly with a weak smile and he gave me a dashing and heartwarming grin and we went back to the mat and continued our date. He offered to feed me (actually more like started feeding me without warning) and I just kept on opening my mouth to receive the food delivered to my mouth because I am literally in love with food!
"My Belleza." He said to me and I gave a faked and forced smile.
He frowned. "OK that smile was so fucking pretentious. What happened now?" He sighed after feeding me my seventeenth strawberry.
Did I mention that Strawberry is my all time favorite fruit?
I sighed and spoke. "My....dad used to call me....that." I looked at my knees.
He held my hand. "You must really miss him." He said and I looked at him.
"I guess so." I shrugged my shoulders.
"Let's play twenty questions." He offered in order to change the topic.
"OK. I'll go first..." I started to think of things to ask him. "Uhhhh...." A question suddenly popped into my head. "Have you ever been rejected by a girl?" I asked him.
He frowned immediately. "You mean other than you?" He rolled his eyes. "Nope." He shrugged his shoulders and drank his orange juice.
I had a very strong feeling he was lying. I raised an eyebrow at him. "Andy." I said his name and all of a sudden he began to choke.
"What did you just call me?" He dropped his drink on the mat and looked at me in surprise.
"Uhhh your name. Duhhh." I said and shrugged my shoulders.
"Uhh, not duhh. And you didn't call my name. You called me Andy."
"Yeah, so?"
"Don't call me that." He said so abrupt.
I got a tat bit annoyed. "But you let Chloe call you that. You let Becky call you that, you let Natasha call you that. You let the whole female population of RAA call you that but I can't?! Why?"
"Like you said, the whole female population of RAA calls me that. I don't want you to call me that." He looked at me.
"Oh. I understand." My back suddenly slouched.
Now I know, I will never ever call him Andy. Never.
"Back to my question. You still haven't answered it."
"Must I?" He groaned in frustration.
"Yes!" I said to him.
He mumbled something but I wasn't able to hear it.
"Andre." I gave him an answer me, now look.
"Fine. Alright. I have...been rejected by a girl."
I was shocked, like really really really shocked. But my expression was calm. "How did it happen?"
"My turn young Lady." He said and I rolled my eyes. "Number one, what's the deal between you and that Snow boy." He said the last two words with irritation.
"Snow boy? Who is—" Realization hits me. "Oh my God Andre! Seriously? Snow boy? His name is Daniel Snow."
"I really don't care." He rolled his eyes.
"Really Andre?.....so mature.....Anyways we are just friends. Nothing else."
"Truth?"
I heaved a long sigh. "Of course truth. My turn. Number two...did you ever think for a moment what Scarlet did wasn't a prank?"
"To be honest Gabriella." He scratched the back of his head. "I knew it wasn't a prank. I could see the truth through the pool of tears in her eyes that she held on so tight, making sure they don't fall as she declared it was a prank. But I.....I didn't care....I want to be honest to you, Gabriella, I didn't care one bit. That was so stupid of me. I've hurt so many girls before but I didn't care...one bit. I am a despicable human being." He raked his hair with his fingers.
"But. You've changed, right?" I asked him but there was no answer from him as he only looked at me.
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