Chapter 4

POV Rio

I'm leaning against my bike, smoking when Davis walks up to me. Even if he's four years older than Spencer, he looks as young as his boyfriend. After his father suddenly died of cardiac arrest he took over the bar. 

"You got another one?" Davis asks when he gets close to me and I hand him out another cigarette. 

We continue smoking quietly. I know Davis is here for a reason and I'm waiting for his interrogation but when he finally speaks, something unexpected comes out of his mouth.

"I think I'm gonna propose to Spencer."

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"You?"

"Please, no need to look so shocked."

That makes me laugh. Everyone who knows Davis also knows that he's one of those anti wedding people. It's not the idea of commitment that scares him but rather the fact that he believes that putting an official label on something as precious as love only attracts bad karma. 

"What made you change your mind?" I ask and he shrugs.

"Just looking at him everyday and realizing that it would eventually come down to this between us. So why waste anymore time?"

I nod. I can relate to that. When Mila and I were dating I couldn't imagine any other possible future for us than me spending the rest of my life by her side.

"You got something special in mind for the proposal?"

He laughs. "Think I'll ask Chae-young so I don't make a fool of myself."

Chae-young is his older sister also known as the most romantic person on earth.

"Well, congratulations."

Isn't that what people usually say?

"Dude, save it for the actual wedding."

There's a sharp pain in my chest that I force myself to ignore when Mila comes to mind. I've become pretty good at pretending that it's not there over the past thirteen months.

"You put on a good fight back there," Davis says and I tense. Here comes the interrogation that I dreaded.

"Yeah."

"Did something happen?"

I don't want to talk about it but I hear myself say, "There's a new student at school and it's none other than Noralyn Chase."

"Chase?" Davis seems to connect the dots quickly. "Hold on, don't tell me she's related to that family?"

"Yup. It's his sister."

I don't have to say the name, I can't. 

"Is the brother also attending your school?"

"I don't think so. His loaded parents sent him to Europe after his drunk ass provoked a car accident. Wonder why they didn't do the same for the girl, would've saved me the pain of having to see her almost every day now." I take a long drag of my cigarette and slowly let the cloud of smoke out. "I don't think I can handle it Dave..." 

He puts his hand on my shoulder in a gentle gesture of comfort. "I'm sorry mate."

"Yeah, me too."

***

After leaving the bar, I decided to go back to school to get my bag and that darn detention that the math teacher gave me. I text Kline and tell him that I won't be going to work. He replies that he'll put on a word for me to the boss. 

The rest of the day is kinda boring. When I get back home I make dinner for myself and my uncle. Uncle Greg is my late father's older brother. Those two spent their whole life hating each other's gut. I actually saw him for the first time when he attended my parent's funeral. I never knew what happened between Dad and him. I used to ask mom when I was a kid but as I grew up I lost interest in old family feud. 

Living with Uncle Greg is quite easy. He spends his weeks working at a farm and comes back home around 9 pm. On Saturdays he goes fishing at the lake  with his buddies and on Sundays he invites them over, they spend the whole day playing cards and drinking beer. 

Uncle Greg never bothers me. In fact we barely talk to each other and I love it like that.  However I often wonder, how was he able to live his whole life cut off from his only relative? He doesn't even look like he ever married someone. There are no pictures of a woman or children around the house. Or maybe he did get married but it ended badly. His life seems so lonely... At night when I can't sleep in my room I often wonder if I'm gonna end up like him.

My phone vibrates in my pockets while I'm eating alone at the table. Uncle Greg isn't back home yet.

I received six new messages from Kline:

Skateboard show tonight.

I'm up.

Come cheer me up.

You better get your ass here.

No kidding!

Come!!

I sigh. Kline has this habit of sending tons of messages just to say one thing. Like that night he sent over twenty texts to tell me to not forget to bring the snacks on my way to his house. 

I finish eating and do the dishes before going out. There are often skateboard shows at an abandoned warehouse where kids love hanging out. When I arrive there's already a lot of cars parked and loud music playing. Beers are being passed around, people are laughing, smoking, making out... I make my way through the crowd until I arrive close to the group of skateboarders standing apart from the crowd getting ready to make quite a show tonight.

"Ha! Look who showed up, Mr. antisocial." Kline throws a fake punch at me as soon as I reach him and I easily block. 

"I always come whenever you ask," I lie with a straight face and Kline snorts.

"Yeah maybe like two times out of a hundred."

I shrug. "It's time for you to realize that your vampire lifestyle isn't suited to everybody."

"Oh come on, you're so boring! There are way too many things to be doing at night instead of just sleeping."

Kline always thinks that the reason I often decline his countless invitations to hang out at night is because I prefer sleeping but he couldn't be more wrong. I'm an insomniac. On the nights I have to fight, when I come back home I'm lucky to fall asleep due to exhaustion but the other nights I won't ever fall asleep if I don't do this one particular thing. It's a habit I've developed shortly after I moved here. I write conversations that I would like to have with Mila if she was still there and I even imagine what answers she would give me. The floor of my bedroom is an ocean of discarded pages of dialogues that I've written over the months. I can never find the courage to get rid of them.

It's easier to let Kline think that I sleep at night though. Because how do you tell someone that you prefer having nightly conversations with your dead girlfriend instead of hanging out with them? He doesn't know about this part of my life and I don't plan to ever tell him either. Davis and Spencer already know about it which is already too many people to my liking. And now that Noralyn girl is here too...

"Noralyn!" Kline suddenly exclaims and my heart skips a beat.

Was I thinking out loud?

I don't think so.

When I turn around to see who Kline is talking to, I discover Noralyn Chase is standing right in front of me. For the second time today I see pure shock in her eyes.

"I'm glad you made it," Kline continues oblivious to the tension between us. "This is my friend Rio," he adds when he taps my shoulder. "Rio this is Noralyn. She just moved to town. I thought she might enjoy hanging out around here, unlike some people."

I ignore the accusation in his tone and keep my eyes on the nightmare standing in front of me. Is this girl gonna be showing up everywhere I go like my own shadow?

"Hi," she answers before quickly turning her attention to Kline. "Thanks for inviting me."

Someone starts speaking into a microphone, calling out the attention of the crowd because the show is about to start. Kline picks up his skateboard.

"That's my cue to leave, I'll catch you guys later. I hope you enjoy the show Noralyn!"

He joggs to join the other skateboarders leaving me alone with her. It seems like she doesn't know where to put herself and look at everything but me.

"Are you gonna start showing up everywhere I go?" I can't help but ask. She meets my eyes for a quick moment but drops it as fast.

"Kline invited me," she explains unnecessarily. I couldn't care less about the reason why she's here. 

The fact is, she ruined my day and now she's also ruining my night and she probably gonna be ruining the rest of my senior year. 

"I'm sorry if my presence is bothering you," she says.

"Your existence is bothering me."

She gasps at that but still refuses to look at me. The show starts and the crowd cheers loudly. I'm forced to lean forward so she can hear what I'm about to say.

"Do me a favor and go be annoying somewhere else." 

She doesn't say anything and simply walks away. She doesn't leave the warehouse but goes standing somewhere far away from me to watch the show. I force myself to focus on the skateboarders and their awesome figures, however I watch without really seeing them.  The blood in my veins has turned fire again. And no matter how bad I want to forget that Noralyn is here my head keeps turning toward where she's standing.

That's how I notice that Tyron and his clique seem to have taken interest in her. These dudes are from the community college of our town. They're these kind of jerks who think that being older gives them a free pass to being stupid. Davis even banned them from coming to his bar after they started a fight there last month.

The expression on Noralyn's face changes as she's talking to them. She looks nothing like that awkward girl standing in front of me earlier who couldn't even meet my eyes. She's talking to them with a composed face and  I can feel her confidence from here. 

They laugh in her face at whatever she says then she turns her back on them and leaves the warehouse. Tyron makes a gesture with his head to his three other friends and they follow Noralyn.

I turn my attention back on the show and keep it there.

This is none of my business.