The next day came quickly, but that wasn't the only thing that came. Oh no, it could have been car trouble, it could have been people calling me names, but what happened that morning during homeroom was something that left me crying on Luca's shoulder by study hall.
I got all my books and binders ready for the day, and went to homeroom. Of course I wasn't going to talk to anyone, so I pulled out a book that I had randomly selected the night before, and started reading. That's when the whispers started. At first I didn't pay attention to them, but then I heard her name. Amanda.
"Yeah, I heard her best friend, Amanda or something, died."
"Oh my god really? Is that why she's so weird?"
"Maybe. I think they said she killed herself."
"Well if Samantha was how she is now, no wonder she did."
With that, well it just broke me inside. I ran out of the classroom when the bell rang. My next class was study hall, and I realized I had it with Luca. Luca must have seen the look on my face, because all he did was come over and hug me.
Normally, I would have a problem with people hugging me. It's just one of my problems. But oddly enough, Luca's embrace didn't bother me. People kept looking at us funny, but we let them. I couldn't do anything but cry. I actually stopped breathing. Luca was the one who made me aware of that.
"Samantha... breathe. Okay? Just breathe." he instructed me.
I nodded my head.
"Do you... do you wanna talk about it?" he asked me.
I looked up into his piercing blue eyes. They hard changed since yesterday. They were darker somehow. I felt like I could trust him for some reason.
"These girls, they were.... they were talking about my friend back home." I told him sadly, while fiddling with my necklace.
"Amanda?" he guessed.
"H-h-how did you know?" I asked him surprised.
"You keep muttering her name." he told me quietly, while brushing a piece of hair out of my face, and wiping some of my tears off my face.
The gesture was so simple, but yet so complex. It made my heart stop for a moment. Then I remembered why I was crying in the first place.
"Oh...," I said and looked down," She... she was my best friend in California."
I told him all about Amanda and I. How we had cheered on the same squad since we were 5, how we had snuck out all those nights to go see boys, I even told him about the time my shirt got stuck on a fence and I had to take it off and run home shirtless. But when I got to the cancer part.... that's when everything felt.... oddly serene.
He was the first person I had talked to about any of this ever. I had threw fits about not seeing a therapist, and I didn't talk to my parents about it. I just bottled it up, and kept it there. I knew it would come out eventually, but I didn't expect it to be to a complete stranger.
Luca seemed to sympathize with me somehow. He pulled me closer, into his chest so I felt more comfortable. He stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head. All of these things were oddly comforting. And I knew that was all he was trying to be. Comforting. Which was fine with me. I had no interest in dating right now. But it felt different from any boyfriend I had ever had before.
The bell rang dismissing us to our next class, but I didn't move. And Luca didn't make a deal out of moving either, so we just sat there. In the hallway. My head on his chest, and him holding me. That's how I fell asleep. I woke up to the slight prod to my side.
