Boy Across The Hall

Chapter 4

❝I love helping out good people who are doing good things.❞ㄧ J.R. Martinez

          I took a shower to pass the time. Most of my thoughts were: what will I wear? Where will we go? What will we talk about? When I got out, I got my outfit ready. I decided to go with a cute theme. I picked out a short white and light pink sundress with straps that tied in a criss-cross style, showing off most of my back. I picked white flats and a tiny black handbag to go with it. Dad was at work, and Spencer just left to go to her overnight summer camp, so I didn't have to worry about what to do with her while I was gone.

        My screen on my phone turned on, showing me that I got a text. It was Matt. He wrote that he will be taking a break in fifteen-ish minutes and that he will knock on my door when he's ready. I texted him saying: 'Great!' and started to change. My face wasn't looking too bad, so I settled on not wearing any makeup. I stood at the door, waiting for him to come. It wasn't long before I heard his knocks. I ran up and opened my door.

          "Wow! You look beautiful!" He said with his eyes visibly shining of happiness. I was pretty sure that mine looked the same.

          "Thanks! You look awesome yourself!" I blurted out, returning the compliment.

          "Let's go?"

           "After you!" He exclaimed looking nervously at me. I didn't think he would be nervous. He seemed too confident last night... What changed?

           We walked over to his car. It was a small Toyota, but sparkly clean inside and out. He must have treated it like his own child.

          "Welcome to my ride. Her name is 'Bianco, il secondo' a.k.a White, the second. White because it's white, and the second because it's my second car. Oh! And it's in Italian because I come from an Italian family." He said with a proud expression on his face.

          "WOW! An Italian boy. That's a first. We don't have any Italians living here. I don't know why."

          "I know why. Most of us are rich. No offense, but living in this part of the city would be a disgrace to our culture." He opened the door to the passenger seat, being a gentleman, and letting me sit. He the walked over to the left side and sat down himself.

           "So why do you live here then?" I asked, confused at how he could 'be a disgrace to his culture'.

           "Haha! Well, buckle your seatbelt, because you're in for a bumpy ride metaphorically and literally. I used to live in a mansion in the suburbs with my parents, but my mom passed away from cancer two years ago, and my dad started drinking like crazy. He basically became an alcoholic. After that, everything went downhill. He got fired from his job after he came late and drunk a couple of times. He started gambling to get some kind of money, but that also ended in an addiction, and in the span of 2 two years, we became completely broke. Turned out, that my mom had left me whatever was in her bank account as her will. It wasn't anything big, but enough for us the sell our house and move into a cheap apartment. And now, we're here." He said, as he parked the car and turned off the engine.

          I felt so bad for him. It must have been really hard for him to see everything good in his life disappear.

          "Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I actually know what it's like to lose a mother. I lost mine because of a failed C Section whilst she was giving birth to my little sister, Spencer. Of course, my story isn't as bad as yours, but my dad did also have a short part in his life where he started to smoke a lot of weed and drink like a maniac, but he got a wake-up call when he got fired from the job of his dreams."