Take Me Away | ✔️

17. GOODBYE

IT WASN'T SO BAD when we had started eating, everyone was talking about their situations at certain things especially at home and it was fun to just listen to them and even see them laugh about the memories they keep bringing up about how they all met.

          Every single one at school new the story and, of course, I did too but it was different when it came straight from them. Robbie and Riley were the first ones to walk to Travis, having known that he hates company, and then, Lucas, Tyler, and lastly, my brother.

          Lucas soon turned to me with his brows furrowed, "You know, what's crazy?" I shrugged as my answer. "Sean does talk about you but has never once introduced you to us ever since we became his friends. Why is that?"

          The easy answer was that I never liked crowds. The hard answer was that after everything went down with losing the only friend I had and having to struggle at home, I didn't want anyone to think that they could come over to our house unannounced and start to have suspicions about what happens behind closed doors.

          For a while, when Sean would be asked if they could come over, the only reason would always that I didn't want anyone at the house and when Alex's friends would ask to come to my house when we were still together, the reason was the same only it's Sean's problem and not mine.

          Now, I haven't thought about them thinking about the house, about my mom.

          So, I shrugged and said, "I don't do huge numbers of people."

          The topic finally reversed back to them.

          I had found out that Robbie and Riley's parents were like Travis's—only, they come home every weekend to still keep up with their son's lives and they even call or FaceTime them to spend some time.

          Lucas, on the other hand, was working under his father when he didn't want to. He was just doing it because he knows that if he doesn't, he'll be a disappointment to the family and they're already counting on him.

          Then, there's Tyler. He didn't talk about much as usual but he mentioned about his father working harder than the last weeks because of their company going through a tough time. He never mentions his mother and I wanted to ask why but then I remember that his mother died when he was just fourteen. It was from a car accident—a drunk driver drove straight when the stoplight was red.

          It was all over the news. He didn't talk to anyone for weeks and started skipping classes for a month.

          "You know, if Bailey wasn't all that cray-cray with being popular," Robbie says, shaking his head. "I would have dated that chick."

          Zoning out from their conversation, I just stared at them bicker about it and eventually got to stare at Travis, who was just sitting beside me, holding my hand under the table.

          He was chuckling. I could see his Adam's apple bob, his white teeth fully bright, and just those gray orbs glinting while he just continued to laugh off his friends. Damn, this guy could just get me all hot and bothered by just sitting beside me and laughing.

          Am I actually that whipped?

          Then those eyes switched to my own, gazing at me with a sense of warmth around him. "You okay?" He squeezed my hand once as he grinned at me.

          Nodding, I squeezed back. "Yeah, I'm okay. More than okay."

          For the first time of my life, it felt like when I ad said that, it was really true.