Chapter 2
Luca
“Wow, you snort like a good friend of my fathers. That’s creepy.
Are you related? Do you have family in Germany?
” Noah looks at me in disbelief, but I don’t know why.
“What part of what I said shocked you most? The fathers thing? Imagine that, I have two of them. But no mom, never had one. Well, obviously I did, but she didn’t want me. Long story.” Why am I telling him this?
“I… no, it’s fine… I don’t have a problem with it… I…”
Oh my God, his stuttering is cute.
“Calm down, I’m just messing with you. Can we please talk?
” Noah lifts his glasses and presses his palms against his eyes, but nods.
“What’s your problem? We’ve been sitting in the same classes for a year and a half, we’ve never exchanged a single word, but you’re acting like I’m the worst person on campus. ”
“Not the worst person, but you’re pretty impossible, and you know it.”
Huh, his reply is pretty spot-on. And I kind of like the way he looks at me, with his hazel eyes flashing through his black glasses.
“You’ve got some pretty thick glasses. I can’t even see your eyes properly. That’s actually a shame.” I blurt out instead of replying to what he said.
“You don’t want to make fun of the kid with the thick glasses, trust me.”
“Why? Are you blind?” Is it even okay to ask that?
“Without my glasses, I pretty much am.”
“Let’s say I steal them from you. How far would I have to run before you can’t see where I’m hiding?”
Annoyed, Noah rolls his eyes. “You could just stroll away. Without my glasses, I can only see blurry outlines.”
Oh, that’s got to be hard. “But with your glasses, you see perfectly fine?”
“Yeah, I can even see that stain on your T-shirt. Curry sauce?”
Damn it. I curse inwardly about my ruined T-shirt, but to be honest, I’m having more fun right now than I expected. Noah Martin’s got fire, who would’ve thought?
“Okay, the stain aside, what’s your problem with me?”
“I’m not sure we have that much time to dive into all that. Next class starts in thirty minutes.”
I smile to myself. “Come on, give me something, anything.”
“Your life is a game. Everything just falls into your lap; you don’t have to work for anything, but you don’t appreciate any of it.
Instead of attending class regularly, you come and go as you please.
You have no respect for anything, and you get away with it because everyone here either thinks you’re great or they have a crush on you.
They bask in your glow, hoping to catch some of your light.
But you don’t care about the people here or you would have made friends over the past year and a half.
To you, everyone here is just a means to an end, so you can get by. You’re a spoiled little boy.”
That hit home. He’s not wrong—to be honest, he’s analyzed me pretty accurately—but the conclusions he came up with are way off-base.
I applaud sarcastically. “Very good. I’m impressed.
There’s only one problem. You know nothing about me, nothing at all.
You say I’m spoiled? Yes, I am. My fathers’ spoil me, and I enjoy it, because after twelve years of nobody giving a fuck about me, not even the woman who gave birth to me, I finally have a family that loves me, and I’ll take whatever I can get.
And you’re right, I don’t have any friends here.
Keen to know why? Because friendship requires trust, and I can’t let anyone get close enough to actually build a friendship.
Trust has always been dangerous, and until I came to my fathers, every bond I painstakingly built was torn apart sooner rather than later.
My life is a game? Funny, I didn’t notice that.
My life was nothing but hell for quite a while, but I’m glad you have such a clear picture of me. ”
With those words, I turn around and walk away.
Shit. That wasn’t planned. Why did I do that?
How could that happen? I never lose my cool like that.
And I don’t talk about myself, ever. It makes me weak and vulnerable, and I don’t want any part of feeling like that.
But he provoked me and managed to push all my buttons. Fuck.
***
“Hey kiddo, can I come in?” Paps pokes his curly head through the door and I nod. “You never slam doors, and usually you say hello when you come home. What happened?”
Paps sits down next to me on the bed, where I’ve flopped down in my clothes with my backpack still on my back. Gently he runs his fingers through my curls, massages my scalp, and all the tension melts away. Paps has magic hands.
“Am I a superficial asshole?”
“Hmm, that certainly depends on who you ask. Here in this house, absolutely not. Quite the opposite. Outside these four walls, you keep everyone at a distance. You know that yourself, and you know why you do it. To me, it makes sense, but it may come across as superficial and arrogant to outsiders. Maybe even indifferent. Why are you asking?”
I take a deep breath, my face still buried deep in my pillow, then I turn onto my side. “I wasn’t at university last Tuesday because I drove Nael to the orthodontist.”
Paps nods. “Thanks again for stepping in.”
I shake my head defensively. “No big deal. It’s just that the teams for the project assignment were chosen last week, and there was exactly one person left.”
“And you don’t want to work with them?”
I pause to think for a moment, but I don’t have a problem with Noah Martin. “Actually, I do. He’s really good. This project has the potential to be great, but he doesn’t want to work with me.”
I leave it at that—no need to repeat everything he said.
“You don’t have to become best friends, but maybe you can show him who you really are somehow?” I already have, and I seriously hope he doesn’t use that knowledge against me. Maybe social media is already full of it? Fuck. I open my app, but there’s nothing.