"Where's your mom?"

I turn to see Morgan coming into the kitchen. What the fuck? "How'd you get in?"

She dangled her keys in the air and gave me a weird look, "I used my key. I didn't feel like waiting for you."

Okay. That's weird. Okay, it's not weird. But what if I was completely naked or something. What if I didn't want to see her, which there have been times where I just didn't want to hang out with her. But whatever. Today, I don't care. "She went to lunch with Sam and my aunt or something like that."

"And you didn't go with them?" she goes straight to my refrigerator and grabs herself a water.

"Nah, I'm leaving in a bit to go hang out with Gabriella."

Instant smile on Morgan's face, "what? That's, like, the third time this week. Things are going good?"

I couldn't help, but smile, either. Things were going good. Our first date was Sunday. Tuesday, since it was break and we didn't have school, we went to watch a movie. Wednesday, we grabbed some dinner and ice cream. And today, Thursday, we're going to the mall. I have to get my dad something for Christmas and she has to get a few things as well, so why not go together?

"Yeah, I mean, yeah, things are good. I like her," I smile at Morg, who looks like she wants to scream, "it hasn't been long, but yeah, things are going good."

"We should double date!" she comes over next to me and hops on the counter, "like a real double date this time. That'll be so much fun. We've never doubled dated in our life and now we can!"

I shook my head at her idea, "too soon. We're not even anything yet and I'd like to keep it just between us for another while."

Morgan rolled her eyes and got off the counter and went back to the fridge to grab some food. She took out a bowl of grapes and a bowl of strawberries, because why not? Of course she can help herself to whatever.

She pooped some grapes in her mouth and gave me a smile, "I'm so happy for you. Ever since Gabriella, it's like everything's gotten a little better."

I know what she means. I hardly drink anymore. I don't really enjoy parties anymore. And it's kinda weird. I feel like people thought I would never stop enjoying that. But here I am, not wanting to do any of that anymore. And it's not just because of Gabriella. It's not. I swear, it was just a phase. I knew it was. But she just gave me that push. Her showing up everyone forced me to not want to do any of that and eventually, I sort of just stopped.

"She's, like, Kenzie 2.0," Morgan says and I immediately hate her for it.

"Do not compare her to Kenzie," I probably look really disgusted by it, "it's not. It's completely different. I'm not exactly changing for her. It's just... with Kenzie, I was never over partying. I just stopped because I was busy hanging with her. Now, I don't even think about it. I don't want to drink. I don't have the urge or the feeling."

Morgan looked ecstatic. Sure, she parties and she drinks here and there, but it's never excessive. She just likes to have fun. "I'm happy for you. Gabriella seems like a really sweet girl and I hope it all works out for you."

I hope so, too. I really do.

"You HAVE to get this," Gabriella holds up a shirt while we're in Neiman Marcus.

I take one look at it and shake my head. No way. It's definitely not for me. Nope. I'm not a preppy white boy. "You're kidding, right?"

She gives me this look as if she's serious, but it's all for about ten seconds before flashes me a smile and starts laughing a bit. She puts it back on the rack and looks over at me, "of course. I don't think I would be able to hang out with you if you were to wear that."

"I'll never buy it then," I tell her with a smile before moving on to the sweaters, trying to see if my dad would like one.

Gabriella looks a bit shy now and I know it was probably because what I said, but it's true. I want to keep hanging out with her. I'm having a good time.

After 30 minutes of going from store to store, I finally found my dad the perfect gift- a watch. He loves watches. And his was getting a bit old. So I got him one and now, we're going to get some lunch at the food court upstairs.

And as we were walking, I felt Gabriella stop in her tracks, which in turn made me stop.

"What?" I turn back to look at her, her face a little taken aback. She has no emotion and it looked like she had seen a ghost or something.

"Nothing," she tells me, shaking her head.

I turn to see what's in her eyesight and I'm met with a guy laughing with some girl as they're looking into a window of some store. This is what made her stop? Who is this guy? Or this girl? Does she hate them? Does she not want to run into them?

And as I turn back to her, she's looking the other way, trying not to make eye contact with them, "do you know them?"

"Yeah," is her simple response and when I look at her for more, she just shrugs, "he's my ex boyfriend, okay? And I really don't want to run into them."

Oh. Her ex boyfriend. The dumbass who let her go. But hey, I guess better for me. I guess we can go the other way, though. It'll definitely take longer and we're literally right by the escalator to take us up to the food court, but if it makes her feel better then why not? I don't mind.

But then I see her groan and I look back to the guy and girl and they're now walking over to us.

"Gabriella," the guy says, who I now have a better look at. He's very put together and is an attractive man, "um, fancy running into you here..."

He laughed so I think it was a joke. Or an inside joke. I'm not sure. Gabriella, on the other hand, looked like she wasn't having any of it. "Yeah, um, just doing some Christmas shopping."

The guy then looked over at me, gave me a look like who the fuck was I, and then turned back to Gabriella. "Us, too. Um, actually, it's kind of cool that I'm running into you because I've been meaning to ask you when I can come by to drop some of your stuff off."

Oh wow. This just got a bit awkward. I look over at Gabriella and it looked like she just wanted to laugh. The girl he was with looked a bit uncomfortable and this guy had a smug look on his face. Like he's proud of having an ex girlfriend meeting the new girlfriend or whatever, I don't know. It's really fucking uncomfortable and really fucking rude, if I do say so myself.

"Oh, I don't really want my stuff back," she tells him as she pushes some hair behind her ear, "you can throw all that out if you want."

"Throw it out?" he chuckled a bit, "you actually want me to throw away your stuff?"

Gabriella shrugged, "I mean, none of it really matters to me anymore. What did I even leave there?"

Okay. I have NO idea what happened between them, but I think so far, it's Gabriella, 1 and this guy, 0. He looks like he's so embarrassed right now and she is just, like, owning him. I don't know. I feel proud of her because I feel like she's this really sweet girl who lets people walk all over her or something.

But no, I'm probably wrong. Maybe she's strong and stands up for herself. And doesn't have a problem saying what's on her mind.

I mean, she did basically orchestrate this whole hang out situation. If she didn't confront me about avoiding her and kissing her, maybe we wouldn't be here. So yeah, I probably am wrong. Gabriella can hold her own.

"Are you serious?" he asks with another laugh as his girlfriend looks on, a bit uncomfortable, "it doesn't matter to you anymore? I seriously doubt it because last I heard, you were still pretty upset about the breakup."

Gabriella looked like she wanted to get the hell out of there and that maybe she wasn't exactly owning him. "I don't know where you heard that."

This guy shrugged, and let go of his girlfriend's hand, "people, Gabriella. We do go to the same school. We do have the same friends."

She looked defeated. It looked like she literally had no comeback and I felt bad. I felt like I wanted to help her, but I seriously had no idea what in the world that I could possibly say. I mean, I don't know their situation AT ALL.

"Hey man," I step in, "we're kind of hanging out here and hearing that she's upset about your breakup is not something we want to hear. Nor is it true..."

He looked over at me like he couldn't believe I was even talking, "who are you?"

I laugh a bit and then extend my hand, "oh, I'm Troy."

"Troy," he repeats, not grabbing my hand at all, just glancing over at Gabriella as if he's looking for an answer.

"Yeah, Troy," I tell him, "and look, I can assure you Gabriella is not upset about your breakup so when she says you can throw her stuff out, I'm pretty sure she means it. Am I right?"

Once Gabriella realizes I'm talking to her, she wakes up and nods her head, "oh yeah, yeah, no, he's right. You can throw all my stuff out."

This guy looked like he couldn't believe what was happening and honestly, I couldn't believe it, either. Who knew this is how our afternoon would turn out. Me helping her out with an ex boyfriend. But I mean, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

"Sorry, we have to get going," I tell him before looking back at Gabriella and offering her my hand. She looked at me, looked down at my hand and then smiled and finally went along with it and grabbed it, "nice meeting you."

And with that, we walked away, made our way up the escalator and saw him walk away, leaving his girlfriend in the same place we were just at.

Once we reached the top, Gabriella looked over at me and couldn't have looked more thankful about everything. "You really didn't have to do that, you know, but thank you so much. I owe you one."

"It was nothing," I shrugged, not wanting to make a big deal about it, "I don't know what happened, but he was being pretty annoying."

"Yeah," she says as we walk to Lemonade, where we were going to eat, "yeah, um, it's just weird when you think you know someone, but you don't."

I know exactly what she means. "No, yeah, it sucks. I know."

And now suddenly, I want to know everything about her past dating life. Why her last relationship ended. If it was her longest one. If she was in love with him and if she actually in fact miss him and is pretty bummed out about their breakup.

So after we get our food, I ask her what happened and she starts explaining everything to me.