redamancy || georgenotfound

twenty one

George reached across the table to hand me a napkin, only prompting me to give him a blank stare.

"You've got mayo on your lip," he said, and I could sense a laugh that he swallowed back. I snatched the napkin from his fingers and wiped my mouth, internally groaning when a glob of the condiment was found once I set it down.

"No need to gloat," I frowned when I saw the corners of his lips turn up as he observed me. After flicking off the last bit of onion from my bun, I plopped the rest of the burger in my mouth and took my time to chew. George had finished his burger and was slumped in his chair, fiddling with the paper wrap from his straw between his fingers. I could sense he was a lot quieter than usual, but I didn't want to be the one to bring up the discussion I knew he came out here for in the first place. So I sat in the silence, letting the wind toss my hair back and forth as bikers zipped past our table and pedestrians lingered across the street, where the local bookstore had closed for the day.

A ringtone from George's phone snapped the both of us out of our trance, and I observed as he silently rolled his eyes before turning his ringer off and sliding his phone in the front pocket of his hoodie.

"Don't let me stop you from taking calls," I said.

George just shook his head. "It wasn't important." I thinned my lips into a small smile before reaching out to grab a fry from the half-eaten basket sitting in the middle of our table. I knew well it had been Dream, since I had seen the same notification pop up on my watch not even two minutes ago.

"Why'd you call me out here?"

"Is it a crime to want to hang out?" he replied, twisting the paper around his fingers. The smile on my face remained frozen in place as I reached for my drink, taking a sip to swallow down some of the nerves threatening to present themselves in the form of vomit.

"George, I'm leaving."

George's silent blinks that followed the three words I had been carrying on my chest wasn't enough for me to infer what he was feeling. I finally relaxed my face so that I wasn't wasting energy trying to mask what I was feeling.

"Leaving to where?" he asked after a moment too long of silence.

I frowned. "America, where else would I go?" That seemed to do the trick in cracking a smile on George's face as he finally met my eyes and shook his head.

"No, like back to New York? Or just as a vacation?"

Here came the inevitable. "I'm moving back home. This was the vacation. To visit Ria and get my mind off of things for a few months. Autumn is approaching, and I have things I need to do in America." The words felt foreign leaving my mouth. Not foreign in the way I wasn't used to saying them. It was who I was saying them to that made regret continuously blossom in my chest with every passing second.

Say something. Say something, I begged George silently. The way he was looking at me like he was trying to reel out the right words to say without sounding like an asshole made me want to crawl under my chair like a child.

"Are you leaving earlier because of me?"

"You think I want to leave you?" I laughed, my amusement only growing when my eye caught the noticeable pink blush lightly spreading across George's cheeks. Fortunately, he returned a wide smile that he did a good job of making seem genuine and cleared his throat. I swallowed nervously and asked "Do you want me to go?"

His eyebrows creased. "Of course not," he murmured. I sucked on my bottom lip, suddenly becoming very aware of the dull sounds of my heartbeat echoing in my chest.

"Can you say that while looking at me in the eye?"

He sighed, eyes darting around before flickering up to my face. "Of course I don't want you to go."