Are You There?

Chapter 3

"So, what are we gonna do today?" I ask Luke.

"Uhh, I don't really care. As long as we don't have to eat Chinese food again. We eat that like, everyday." He says.

I can't help but agree with him. I love Chinese food, don't get me wrong, but I'm kinda sick of it.

"Yeah, we should head to the pizza place down the street." I say.

"Pizza's good," Luke says nodding and getting up from the beanbag chair in my room.

Yes, I still have a beanbag. And no, I'm not five. They're just really comfortable.

Getting up from my bed, I follow Luke out of my house and into the streets of New York.

"Imagine what it would be like, if we didn't have each other." Luke says looking up and reading a sign above his head.

"We'd probably die. Like, you're the only one that's there and understands me. You hear my mother going on about you not really being there. I don't know what that's about either. Ugh, why does this stuff happen to us?"

"Rose, there are always gonna be people out there who don't understand you. Or give you a hard time. But I'll always be here, okay? You know that right?" Luke says looking down at me with a sincere expression.

"Thanks Luke, I'll always be here too." I say smiling up at him.

We arrive at the pizza shop and look at the menu. After a couple of seconds we look at each other and silently agree on what we want.

Double-cheese with green peppers and onions on it.

It may sound kinda gross, but we think it's damn good.

We get it every time we get pizza.

When we're at the front of the line I order our large pizza, a couple drinks, and some fries.

The cashier looks at me funny, like we're not gonna be able to finish it, but I shrug.

How healthy, right?

My look on it is that we're only going to be 17 once, so why not?

We sit down once we have our order and start talking. We mostly talk about school and how it's awful.

It's not because we don't have any friends, which doesn't bother us because we have each other.

It's just that the whole getting up at like 5-6AM just to go to school and learn a ton of stuff that we won't use.

"You know what I just thought of?" Luke asks me after taking a sip out of his jumbo drink.

"Not really, I'm not a mind reader." I say in my duh voice.

"Well," he says, ignoring my comment. "I haven't really told you... But... I'mgoingonvacationinAustraliawithmymomforlikeaweekortwo." He says quickly, shoving some fries into his mouth.

"What?" I say barely understanding him.

"You heard me." He says with a mouth full of fries.

"But... We've never been apart for more than, like, three days. Oh my god, how am I going to survive without you?"

"I don't really know, but we are just gonna have to deal with it."

"I already tried to convince my mum to reconsider, but she says we need a break."

"Okay..." I say, deciding just to close the subject. He'll probably explain further later, but I don't want anything to ruin our pizza night.