"You don't need to pay me back, Reece." Hugo said in an almost too-polite tone of voice. Though he appeared as one of those rebel-break-the-rules-bad-asses, he was a complete nerd. His long brown hair naturally left his left eye inconspicuous, the regular plastic grin plastered onto his narrow face. I lifted my eyebrows to give him one of those 'that's cute' expressions and a mimicking smile to counter his. My fingers were laced into one another, my elbows supporting my head weight onto the hammock they made.

"No, but I will anyways." I replied, sub-consciously jerking my neck a bit in an effort to swish my dyed back hair out of my eyes. When the locks were absent from my view, the world was much more apparent to me; everything was much clearer, and it took a lot less effort to sharpen those things that appeared blurry. Hugo, sitting up from the seat opposite of me, laughed silently before turning his back to me and approaching the counter of Rooters, a typical greasy burger joint that sold grade E meat and grease. I was satisfied with myself a the time, so I'd instructed Hugo only to retrieve me a small beverage. At the table next to me, there was a black man who looked as though he were about in his early twenties wearing a hat with our area code embroidered into it. It struck my fancy slightly and swayed my attention before Hugo again was seated before me.

"Alright, so," He started, the overly friendly tone of voice now lowered into one much more serious. He was an easy person to read, I thought. "What're you going to do about the whole Sam situation?" At that name being mentioned, my smile faded into a groggy look, fingers parting as I folded my arms over the table in front of me.

"Not sure what I can do, since there's no way to prove anything." I shrugged, playing off my craving for gossip as a chill attitude.

"Yeah, but what if he did do that to you? You're just going to let him get away with that? C'mon." Obviously, Hugo was not very happy with my decision to let this matter fly by. He seemed to care a lot about me; that made me feel pretty good.

"Again, whatever." I shrugged again, fake grogginess now overcome by real fatigue. We'd walked from our school to the fast-food restaurant, and at least to me, it was no easy feat. Speaking of feet, supporting my total weight had really taken its toll on them, causing a strangely comforting throbbing sensation when there was pressure relief. "Even if I did do something about it, there's no way it'd stop it from having happened, ya'know? It's best just to forget about these things."

Obviously, Hugo was not pleased in the slightest. His slightly furrowed brow, along with his pondering lips and slight lean backwards, let me know that his concern was more than any laughing matter.
"You think he took advantage of you not knowing what you were doing." He began again, starting to sound as if he were rambling up a storm. Soon enough, it's blow me out and away from Hugo for quite some time if he didn't knock it off.

"Get out of here." I chuckled. Reece Boleyn was characterized as the giggly type, so even in serious conversations, a laugh was inevitable. Nothing had to be funny, something just had to happen. "It's not like Landon was the only guy out there who used people. I've just got to learn to get used to it and adjust, man."

My, that'd slipped out; it seemed that for the seven and a half months Landon and I had been separated, I was unable to stop mentioning something about him here or there. I felt as though those anecdotes and notions were branded into my cerebrum, forcing useful knowledge out so that whenever tried to recall something, the only files that were found included at least one thing about him. Frankly, it was pretty disgusting to both me and everybody else how I had moved on and still referenced him in nearly every conversation.

"Landon, huh?" Hugo huffed, giving me a 'not again' sort of smirk. He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms expectantly at me, sharpening his eyes so that he could stare slits into my skin and hope that I bled soul. Before he was allowed o strike, however, Maurice, the Rooters cashier, called for him to pick up his food and drink. The look on his face was washed away like a seashell on high tide, and he held a finger for a moment to indicate that he'd be right back. I watched my friend again leave his seat and approach the counter, and as I felt my personal bubble strengthen its walls, my overactive mind began spreading its wings and soaring.

The whole Sam situation bothered me. I had goose-bumps riding up my arms under my jacket as I developed the rare 'cold sweat' symptom of anxiety. Frantically, though my face didn't show it, I tried to retrace the events of that night: Sam and his brother whispering, accidentally inhaling too hard from the three-hundred dollar bong he kept in a suitcase and having the water splash a bit onto my lips, then some close hugging.. While some memories seemed clearer to me, most of them had deteriorated into near static. Though my breathing remained easy to maintain, I felt as though my innards were clustered with a great ball of unwanted emotions.

Soon enough, Hugo returned to the table sporting a tray holding a giant advertisement as a place mat, a boxed Rootersburger, and a cardboard lidded cup with a hint of blue visible through the frosted plastic that, I assumed, was mine. My suspicions were confirmed when the boy's arm outstretched to clamp it and place it in front of me. One arm folded over the tabletop as the other balanced itself on its elbow for me to hold the straw to my mouth. Sucking in the cool, blue liquid made my mouth tingle. As it washed down my throat, I could feel it through each tube in my body, refreshing me physically. Strangely enough, I still felt that ball of frustration within.

"Don't say anything to him, though." I decided to take precautions, lifting my hostile gaze towards Hugo. He looked as though I were going to pounce on him any moment, slightly taken back, before he shrugged and cracked a grin.

"Don't worry about it. I know that that'd be a terrible idea. C'mon." He smiled a bit wider now, opening the box and wrapping his long fingers around the buns of the drippy fat-monster he called food. I smiled back, lifting one eyebrow.

"You'd better not. I'd have you castrated."
The two of us shared a laugh for the first time in a long time that night. Sine we'd walked to Rooters, everything we discussed had been dipped in melancholy sauce. A smile felt good after so long, anyways.

"Yo, talk to her." Within moments, mine and Hugo's smiles transformed into awkward ones, as the area-code-hat-man turned our way, staring his intimidating eyes at Hugo as he hunched foreword, holding an ice cream cone. "She obviously likes you. She's feeling bad. Talk to her, you'll never know what happens."

Oh, how awkward that was; Hugo and I looked back and forth between each other and the loon beside him. It had seemed written in stone that I would never look twice at my friend and classmate, for it would just be creepy, to be nice. Not only was he not my type, but he was entirely unattractive. The imagery made me shudder.

"..Okay." Hugo replied to the man, quieting him down and looking back at me with one of those faces that looked like he was ready to laugh up a storm. I reflected his expression, taking another sip from my drink.

"I'm going to text Landon." Immediately, I changed the subject, whipping my phone from my pocket and rolling the little cursor ball towards my contacts to find the man I hadn't spoken to in over a half a year. As soon as I said that, Hugo's happiness faded as well.

"No." Peering upwards, I was surprised; he was being demanding? As a passive person, he must really hate Landon. I sighed. "He's a jerk. Why would you want to talk to him?" Irritated, I looked back down at my phone.

"He'll have something to say about the Sam situation."

"No! Come on, Reece, blahblahblahblahblah....."
I tuned Hugo out. Clearing my throat a bit, I punched letters into my keypad.

'Hey. I have a question to ask. It has nothing to do with us personally. Please text me back~'

"Sent." With a smirk, I placed my phone back into my pocket, standing up and placing the half-full cup back onto Hugo's tray. I could tell by his troubled expression that he was worried for some reason or another, or that I'd cut him off mid-sentence. "I'll see you later, Hugo."

"Where're you going?" He called, placing his burger back down as I stepped towards the exit. Without looking back, I pushed the bar on the door.

"Home."