News Chapter 2

It wasn't the first time I had seen that expression on his face, and I knew it wouldn't be the last. He quickly changed it to a big smile with shining eyes. I looked up at those eyes and I almost fell for the act. But I had seen this too many times. It was the same smile he gave his relatives, customers at his job, his dog. I wanted to hug him, but then I also wanted to knock the shit out of him. I decided to let him make the move to hug me. To my surprise, he made it.

"This is such an awesome surprise! What are you doing here? How did you find me? Have you eaten already?" I explained how I knew he was in California via his old coworkers. I also told him I had already eaten, but I could go for some ice cream. He said, "I know just the place," and off we went.

With him, there were always things you had to explain and things he had no business knowing. In this situation, there were a lot of things he had no business knowing just yet. Things like how I found out he was dating someone while he and I were sleeping together.. She wasn't too happy with the discovery, either. That was why she broke up with him, and why she was so willing to tell me where he was. She was hoping I would punch him in the face, and then, when he came back home, she could punch him in the face too, only harder because she didn't have to worry about over-exertion like I did.

He also didn't need to know his parents paid my way to California, and told me what hotel he was staying in. Nor was it any of his business yet that his parents knew the situation I was currently in. They weren't surprised at their son's actions, and were in fact heartbroken. I also figured he would find out in his own time just how many people wanted to punch him in the face.

We made it to the ice cream shop, which I wasn't really impressed with, but pretended to be. I figured I would try to live in his world where he pretended to like everyone and everything but in reality shunned it all. I got something called a SuperChocoCrunch Cone, but it just tasted like chocolate ice cream with peanuts on top to me. After finishing the most pathetic food item to have the word Super in the title, I decided I couldn't live like that, and wondered how he did it.

I asked him what he was doing all the way across the country. He said he just had to get away. I thought how stressful his life must be, not doing anything but knocking up me and probably a couple more girls I'd yet to find out about. All that "casual" sex must have really been taking a toll on him. But I didn't say any of this out loud, because I chalked it up to my hormones being out of control. That's also what I planned to chalk punching him in the face up to. So I asked him, "What did you have to get away from?"

He told me everyone was putting too much pressure on him, and he didn't feel appreciated by anyone. "I needed to get away so people would miss me, and understand I have feelings, you know? I always felt like a nobody, and I wanted people to know I was someone, and that if I wasn't in their lives they would notice."

My hormones won the battle on this one. Looking back, it probably wasn't the best thing to say, but it got my point across, which is something I had been trying to do for the past two years.

"Is that why you treated the one person who cared about you like dog shit, then? You know, to let people know you had feelings, and that you were 'someone?' I guess I need to accept my place as a liability, right?"

I didn't think he was expecting me to talk to him in such a manner, because he dropped his MegaMangoFiesta Cone right on the table. I wanted to laugh at the waste of five dollars, but I didn't even crack a smile. I waited for a response to my question. He looked away, and in that instant I understood him, finally.