CHAPTER ONE

The feeling is just so foreign to me. I just feel like every single part of myself is getting obliterated and I am not able to breath anymore. After all this time, everything has finally come to an end. It seems odd, like if all the pressure of the world has fallen over me.

     "It's been so hard for me," he says.

     "What?" I ask, quickly. "How?"

     Does he mean he was just playing a pretending game? Because if so, he could have told me from the beginning and could have prevented all the damage coming to me. Apparently, that didn't matter.

    "It's all me, okay?" His face shows no emotion. It's like he has no feelings. On the other hand, for me, it's different, because I'm crying.

     "I've told you, Tadeo," he increases the tone of his voice, starting to move in the room. "All this time, I knew something was not the same anymore. I didn't want to hurt you."

     "You know all the shit I've been going through. You knew I've been needing you."

     "Reason why I felt I could stay with you for a little longer," he pauses, touches his face and gets close to me. "Look, Tadeo, I love you, okay? But things are not the same anymore."

My brain generates hundreds and hundreds of questions, but I have no clue of which one to ask. Should I ask him if he has fallen for someone else? No. He's not trying to make this complicated, and neither am I. However, of all a sudden, our noses touch each other, and I can feel his intensified breath.

"Everything is going to be fine, okay? I want you do to anything you can in order to make yourself feel better. I don't want you to be stuck with me."

Those words come out of his mouth smoothly, which make my body to get warmer. The tears start to fade away. I make up my mind, and give a step back from him. "Everything is going to be fine. Absolutely."

     The P.E room is empty. All the students must be getting in their buses by now, and so should I. Though I'm stuck with this guy who now has become my ex.

     And I wonder how can someone break up with their boyfriend at school after the Physical Education class is over. Who does that?

    "I can take you home, Tadeo." He says, and I look at him in the eyes. "If you go looking for your bus—"

     "It'll be gone."

     "It'll be gone, yeah." Tyler grabs his backpack. The  gray straps of it dig into his shoulders. After that, he stares at me again. "So? Are you coming?"

     My mom is at her work place at this moment, which means I can't call her to pick me up. And being honest, I'm not interested in Tyler taking me home. I don't know what I'd do. Possibly, tears would begin running down my cheeks.

     "Connie can take me." I say, firmly.

She texted me last night saying that she was driving to school today and that if I wanted her to give me a ride.

My mom asked to drive me to school this morning, apparently she had something to talk with me about. That's the main reason why I said no to my best friend.

"Are you sure?" He asks. "Do you really want your friends seeing you like that?"

Oh, Lord. I can't believe he stills has the nerve to tell me how I look.

"She's my best friend. I've known her forever. She certainly won't be laughing of my look."

"Can you call her? Just to make sure she's actually coming for you."

"Why do you care?"

It kind of hurts that he still cares, at least, a little bit for me. The only reason I haven't left yet, is because I'm still waiting for him to say that he still loves me. Part of myself wants to hear a "I love you" one more time.

"Because I care about you, Tadeo." He says, and my heartbeat increases immensely. "I'm not willing to leave you here by yourself."

"There are more students still waiting for their–"

He rolls his eyes. "Yeah. I know that there are more people still waiting for their parents. But that's not exactly what I mean, Tadeo."

If he really worries about what's happening to me, then, he wouldn't break up with me. That's not exactly what you do when you care about someone. You do the opposite. You attach yourself to them and protect them as long as you can. You don't leave. You stay.

However, what's happening here is just disappointing.

"So, can you please call her and make sure if she's picking you up?" He insists, with his eyes widely open.

"Still. If she isn't coming, I am not going with you, Tyler."

He laughs. "Is this what we doing now? Pretend we don't know each other?"

"What? I just don't want to see you anymore. We're breaking up. I mean, we already did. You can leave right now. I can get the transit."

"This is so immature of you."

My phone buzzes. I unlock the screen to be able to see a new message from Connie.

I'm at Mrs. Young classroom right now.

     I text her back: Can you take me home?

     "She says she can take me." I say, without even getting an answer back from Connie.

     "Let me see your phone." He tries to get closer, stretching his head in order to see my phone screen.

     "Can you please go home?" I ask, peacefully. "You already know someone is taking me home."

     He looks down. Breaths in, deeply, and then, looks at me again. "I'm really sorry, Gonzales."

     When he mentions my last name, I just feel like if my soul is leaving my body. There's this odd vibration in my body, and I don't know what method to follow in order to stop it.

     The boy who once used to call me a bunch of different weird cute nicknames starts to walk away towards the door in order to leave the Physical Education room.

     "Thank you." I say aloud.

     He looks back, confused. "What for?"

     "For worrying about me."

     He grins. After that, he turns back, and finally gets to the door stating an end to all the things that we ever had.

     I get another text from Connie confirming that she can give me a ride home.

     Wya?

     R u coming or u want me go for you?

     I can't believe we're in honors English class and she still has the nerve to type a text with that spelling quality.

I type: I'll be there in a minute.

I already got my backpack.

The room is empty at this moment. The only person in the room is myself. I have no idea where the teacher went.

I get another text from Connie: I'm done talking with Young. My car is in the parking lot.

Where else would it be?

My best friend is waiting for me outside the school, where the parking lot is at. I'm close to approach her.

The idea of talking about what just happened with her doesn't quite fit in my mind, because I'm not sure of what I should say. Should I just go straight to the point? She'll definitely ask a lot of questions. She certainly will make a big deal about it. I should've listened to Tyler and go with him.

"Let's go." She says grabbing my left hand. She hasn't seen my eyes.

She's basically dragging me to her car. I have no clue why the hurry.

"You got something to do?" I ask. My voice is broken.

Hearing my tone, she stops and turns her head towards me. "My boy!"

Her expression at this moment is something I can't quite explain. She has this doleful expression that tells me she doesn't really want to make questions about it. Connie is intelligent. She knows what has happened.

"Did you—" She just keeps holding my hand. "I'm sorry, Tadeo."

Out of nowhere, there's this warm hug she gives me when she feels I need it; and she knows I'm needing it. I don't count the time it lasts, but it's kind of a long hug, which I don't want to end.

That moment when she ends hugging me, Connie smiles; then there are these pats on the back of my head. "I love you. Everything's going to be okay."

I can't help but smile. "No clue of what I'd do if I didn't have you."

"Possibly you'd be crying in the bathrooms and thinking of killing yourself tonight." She says, laughing at the last sentence. She looks at me serious. "You're not— You're not thinking about that, right?"

I laugh. "Oh my gosh. I'd never do something like that for a stupid guy."

This lie slips out easily.

"Okay. You better not."

The idea of unplugging my life has crossed my mind thousand times, and at this moment is the main thing in my brain. It's like there's this being controlling everything inside me and the only thing it wants is to stop feeling.

The Cajun Red Tintcoat Chevrolet Equinox Connie is owner of is parked not too far away from the north side of the school building. She gets her keys out, unlocks the doors and I open the passenger seat door. My backpack gets thrown to the back seats, and so does Connie's. She turns the car on.

"One day we all are going to die." Connie says, suddenly. "All this love shit won't matter, Tadeo. That's what I mean. Eventually, everything that we ever had won't be remembered. YOU won't be remembered, and neither will I. Our parents will die, and we're going to cry about it, and we'll forget them."

"I don't think I'll be able to forget my parents."

"You'll get older, and probabilities exist that you'll lose your memory... Leaving everything behind."

There is this part of me saying I won't be able to forget this last two years that Tyler and I spent together. But if Connie's words are the reality, I will be able to let everything go away then. One day I'll see him in the hallways and my mind will act like he's just someone I once needed.

This is the sea by The Waterboys starts playing on Connie's Spotify playlist. And I turn to her.

"The Waterboys?" I ask with a disgust expression. "Seriously?"

I have nothing against them. I LOVE THIS SONG. I just didn't know that my best friend listens to it.

"That's definitely not my playlist." She says, grabbing her phone to change the song. "Dude, you saved it last time you played music on my phone."

"Ohh." I laugh.

     The song is gone. A new one is playing right now and I can't recognize it. It's good.

     There's this red light which makes my friend stop.

     "Look, I do want to talk about what happened today, but when you're ready." She says, with a softly tone. "Not now, okay? Just take your time."

     I nod, and smile. "Okay."

     The traffic light turns green. It's funny how the lights change indicating we're allow to go and be safe; or stop, because something tragic can happen. Why isn't life like that? Why isn't there a light that indicates when we're about to be hurt?

     "Ohhhh. By the way, did you get the job?" She asks, keeping her eyes on the road.

     "I got a called during lunch when I was in the bathroom. I couldn't answer, tho."

     "Why not?"

     "Because I was in the bathroom."

     "And?"

     "I was doing something, okay?"

"Call them right now."

I swear to God that if I don't do what she's asking me for, she won't stop. So I take my phone out my pocket and call back to the missing call number. Someone answers really quick.

"This is Tadeo Gonzales," I say. "Yeah. So I received your call this morning, but I was in my Biology class and I couldn't answer."

Connie laughs. "Sure you were."

"I got the job?" I ask just to make sure I'm hearing right. "God, seriously?"

"Yay!" Connie says, smiling. "That's my boy."

"Sure. I'll be there tomorrow."

I hang up the call, and turn to my best friend, smiling.

"So I'm waiter now."

It feels weird. This is my first time being a waiter. My last job consisted on standing behind a register, and I didn't get to have conversations with people constantly. Now it's going to be different. I'll take the order of people and I'll try to make them have a good moment in order to get a nice tip.

After this ten minutes drive, we finally get to my neighborhood. There are these Hispanic people outside on the front yard of their house throwing a carne asada; at least that's what it looks like. I don't really known them. My mom does know them perfectly well. The only thing I know is that they're from Guatemala.

"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow." I say, getting my backpack from the back.

"Do you want me to pick you up in the morning?" She asks, turning the volume of the music down.

"If that's fine for you." I say.

"Come on. You're my best friend. Of course that's completely fine for me." She smiles. "I'll see you tomorrow, my boy."

I smile. "Later."

Her car fades away with the distance.

My house is walls and rooms like any other, tables, chairs and beds. The color of the walls is apple red and they're decorated with portraits of the family.

Upstairs are the bathrooms and the dorms.

I go ahead to my bedroom and turn on my computer just to see what's on Facebook. I don't have the app on my phone, and I don't really know why. There's a new friend request I've gotten from a guy named Benjamin Moore. Not that I'm interested, but before accepting his request, I check his profile and he's single and is a Sagittarius. His education information says he goes to my school, but I've never seen him. Probably he's not that popular, but I don't care. I mean, who cares about being pulular in high school? What matter is gaining good marks so you can go to college. And that's it, I accept his request.

     After one minute has passed, I get a text on Messenger from him. What's up. That simple; not question mark.

     I text back: Hey.

     Not even two seconds pass when he's already typing again. And I kind of want to know what this guy wants.