Running from You

13

"Can I please come over to your house?"
I look at Lucas, and frown. I want to say no, but the way he's smiling at me makes that hard to do. His dark green eyes twinkle, drilling into mine. They're just too convincing.
"Of course" I say, without missing a beat. His smile widens, and he stands up from the bus seat.
"My parents are driving me crazy" he says, rolling his eyes. "They keep bugging me to start learning French. And they still want me to do my homework. I'm leaving in two freaking weeks, there's no use in doing homework!"
"I still don't get how they found a new house so quickly" I say.
"Well, my dad's company has a branch in Paris, you know. And they offered him that house to stay in until we found a new one, but my mom loved it so much that my dad decided to just buy it. We've got enough money now anyway".

He takes a deep breath, and drops his head against the bus doors.
"Lucas, don't" I say, and I pull him backwards. "You're going to fall out the bus one day if you keep doing that".
"We're getting out at the next stop, what does it matter if I fall" he says. "What does anything I do here even matter in the first place?"
"Now you're just being over dramatic" I say.
"I have all the right to be over dramatic, my life is over".
"Of course Lucas" I sigh. "But Jay was right, you'll find friends in no time".
"Really? How?" he asks.
"People like you" I shrug. "You just go be an idiot near some French guys and they'll fall in love with you within seconds".
"That didn't work on Jay" he says, laying his head against the door again. The bus stops at our stop, and I just manage to grab Lucas's hoodie and pull him backwards before he falls out through the opening doors.
"Because you were being creepy with Jay".
"You're choking me" Lucas whines.
"If I didn't do that you'd break your nose".
"What would it matter?"
"It would hurt. When you broke your thumb last year you wouldn't stop complaining about it, I don't want our last two weeks together to consist of you whining over your nose".
He pouts at me as we step out of the bus and start walking towards my house.
"Or your life being over, for that matter. So can you please stop saying that and just try to enjoy whatever time we have left?"
"I'll try" he sighs.

We arrive at my house, and go inside.
"Hi mom!" I yell.
"Hey sweetie!" she yells back, and she walks out of the living room. "Oh hey Lucas".
"Hi miss Walker" he says, smiling politely.
"Just call me Sylvia" she says, as she always does. Lucas never calls her Sylvia, he said he feels uncomfortable whenever he does that. I understand, I would never say anything other than Mister or Mrs Farell to his parents. But they wouldn't want me to call them by their first names at all, so it makes sense.

We go up to my room, and Lucas instantly drops himself onto my bed.
"Let's watch Friends!" he says, smiling up at me.
"You need to finish your assignment" I say. "Where's your laptop? I'll help".
He turns a light shade of red, and giggles nervously.
"Lucas, did you forget your laptop?" I ask. He smiles innocently, and quietly asks: "Can I borrow yours?"
I roll my eyes, but shove my laptop into his hands.
"Thanks! You're a life saver, I love you!" he says, and he opens my laptop and types in my password. He already knows it, he figured out a while ago.
"Yeah, no problem" I say, and I catch myself feeling those weird warm tingles in my cheeks again.

"Who's Rob Deacon?"
I look at him, now definitely bright red.
"Oh, that's... Nothing" I say.
"Then why are you searching him online?"
He clicks a few things, scanning the pages carefully.
"And what does he have to do with motorcycles?"
"Nothing" I say. "Just make your assignment, it has to be done by tomorrow".
"It doesn't matter, I'm leaving school anyway. I'll do my assignment when my new French school tells me to do it".
"No, you mean when I remind you to do it via WhatsApp".
He shrugs. "Same thing. Anyway, there's like... Fifty profiles on Facebook called Rob Deacon".
"Why are you still looking at that?"
"Because I want to know what's so special about him. Ooh, this guy likes motorcycles..."

I stare at my laptop for a second, feeling nervous. Yes, I looked him up yesterday, but I didn't look any further than my first search result. It's not like I want to be friends with him, I just want the answer to the question that suddenly popped up in my mind the first time he called. I just want to know why he left. I honestly don't believe anyone could just have a child, and then leave. I'll just need to get to know him well enough for him to feel like he could honestly answer me.

But I'm also incredibly scared to know what he looks like and I don't know why.

Lucas is frowning while staring at his laptop.
"What's wrong?" I ask, sitting down beside him.
"This guy is really weird" he says. "He has a girlfriend named Candace".
"That name isn't weird" I say, confused.
"Yeah, but he's got the name Sylvia tattood on his bicep" he says. "It's on nearly every picture".
I feel my face heating up significantly, even though at the same time I feel ice cold.
"Can I... Can I see?" I stutter.
"Yeah, you're the one looking him up" Lucas scoffs, and he places the laptop on my lap. "Here".

I look at the man in the pictures. A tall, attractive man, seemingly in his thirties. His hair is light brown, with a red glow to it, and his skin is tanned nicely by the sun. He looks like he's in good shape, with a confidence in his stance that shows he knows that. There's tattoos all over his arms and legs, but luckily his face doesn't have any on it.
He's wearing sunglasses in almost every single picture. Finally, I find one where he's not wearing them. His eyes are a very unique colour. Dark grey with a little hint of blue in them. Just like mine.
"Hey, he kinda looks like you" Lucas says, smiling.
"Yeah" I say, absent mindedly. It has to be him.
"He's got really pretty eyes" he continues.
"Hmmhmm" I nod, staring at the confident smile of the man that was responsible for half of my existence.
"Just like you".

I look up at Lucas, and he's smiling at me. I feel weird. On the one hand, because now I know what my dad looks like, and he's got my eyes.
And on the other hand because Lucas just told me my eyes look pretty and he's now smiling at me like there's nothing weird about that.
Or maybe it's because I do feel like there's something strange about that, when I've never felt that before. But now I do. And it feels both bad and good at the same time.

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