Still Dreaming - Treebros

Chapter 6: "This House Is Falling Apart"

Wednesday, September 11th

  Sitting here on rusted bench, watching the river gurgle, I feel at peace for the first time in a while.

"Should I throw my crust to the ducks?" Sam asks, having picked his pizza clean of everything except for the crust. The box has several sitting in it from him refusing to eat them.

"No. Bread isn't good for ducks," I say. I won't be killing any waterfowl today and I won't be letting him kill any.

"But what if he's hungry?" Sam asks.

"Do you not like pizza crust?"

"Hey! Don't judge me," he says, glaring at me as he drops the crust into the box.

"I'm not! Just asking," I say. I'm judging a little bit not in a malicious way. I don't think it's weird I think it's cute. I mean, no, okay, not cute but it's funny.

"No. And I won't apologize for it," Sam says, crossing his arms.

"I'll eat it," I offer. I won't eat all of them but I'll eat one if it stops him from poisoning the ducks.

"The day is saved," he grins.

He grabs another slice from the box, a huge piece of pizza dripping with sauce. He doesn't notice that some of it drips onto the sleeve of his Nirvana hoodie. I don't think he'd notice if he did care. That thing must be old as time and immortal with the things I've seen it withstand.

"Who knows what would have happened if you had to eat pizza crust," I roll my eyes. Maybe it's because I grew up in a household without a lot of food, but I eat the crusts on everything. "You were right though. The river is pretty."

"I like to come downtown on the weekends and stuff. Well, I call it downtown but I think it's actually below downtown so it'd be down-downtown. But, where ever it is, it's nice to walk around with friends. I brought Benji here one time but he wasn't a fan," Sam explains.

No sooner than Sam had returned from one of his psychology classes than he had asked if I wanted to go out for dinner. I'd thought he was asking me out on a date and said yes, then got freaked out because I said yes and didn't know why he did that. But then he said he was gonna text Noelle and invite her too. So I guess it wasn't a date.

But he drove us down into town where we walked around and got pizza from a place Sam claims has 'the best pizza my mouth has ever had the pleasure of eating'. Sam had his skateboard and laughed whenever I had to jog to keep up with him.

Eventually we'd taken the pizza and settled down on a bench in a park overlooking the Genesee river. The view was nice and there weren't a lot of people, thankfully.

"I'd come here every day just for this pizza. And those cookies," I say. He'd taken me to this cookie place that was a little pricey but we'd both inhaled the cookies before even walking out the door.

"I thought they were local but apparently they're like a chain restaurant thats open until like really early in the morning and they're always around colleges so that you can get cookies while you're up late studying," Sam says. I will definitely be utilizing that. I hope they're on delivery apps.

"That's so smart," I comment.

"The amount of money I've spent on cookies from them is heinous."