TROY

Senior year, day twenty-nine.

"Stop, stop," Nicole waves her hands in front of her face, trying to stop herself from choking on her food.

Brett laughs, stopping his story right away.

Everyone's laughing. Everyone is laughing at this stupid story Brett is telling.

It's funny, but I this story the day it happened which was like a week ago. So, I'm not laughing too much or consumed by it like everyone else at the table. Morgan pretty much spit out her drink, Nicole is over here almost choking, Chris is letting out the loudest laughs, Brian, too.

But Gabriella?

She's not laughing at all.

I'm not even sure anyone is noticing this since they're busy laughing.

Brett can be a little out there, kind of annoying and in your face, but he's funny. There's no denying he's funny. And this story is fucking hilarious.

I know for sure she'd laugh at it if she was paying attention to it. Which she wasn't. At all.

"I cannot believe you did that," Morgan laughed.

"I know,"Nicole echoed her sentiments through laughs.

God.

I hate that I have no idea what's going through her head. I have no idea why she's not into this. Why she hasn't said much tonight. Why no one at this fucking table has asked her what's wrong. I don't want to be the person to do that. I don't want to call her out on it. I don't need to. But I want to. I want to know what's wrong and if she's okay, if she needs to talk to someone. I feel like something's off and I have no idea what it is.

She's been aloof lately.

And I hate that I don't know why. I wish I could know. I wish I was privy to that.

I'm not even sure if Chris knows if anything's going on because he'd be aware that she's obviously not really enjoying herself tonight.

Fuck.

As soon as Nicole turns to Gabriella, she laughs.

Like clockwork, Gabriella let out a laugh joining Nicole and if Nicole for one second thought something was up, it's all out the window by now.

It's supposed to be a good night.

Brett and Nicole are dating, I think. Or hooking up. I don't know. They've been secretive about it, but you could tell Brett is so into her. She's still rolling her eyes at a lot of the things he says, but she likes him, I can tell. So, good for them. They somehow work.

We're all friends here. We all hang out and have the best time together.

Usually.

Tonight, my head is anywhere but with them.

It's with Gabriella, who's across from me, nowhere near Chris, looking like she wants to be anywhere but here right now.

Are her and Chris fighting?

I have no idea. It didn't seem like it when I picked them both up from her house.

But then we got to the restaurant and we all sat down and I find it kind of odd that Chris decided to sit at the head of the table with Brian and Morgan around him and Gabriella and the end with me. Still, it didn't feel like they were fighting and I know both of them pretty well. So, I have no idea.

It sucks.

When Gabriella looks over at me, I just give her a smile, pretending like I had no idea she wasn't laughing.

Like I had no idea she's been on another planet tonight.

It's easier this way.

"Wanna go kick some balls tomorrow?"

"Sure," I tell Chris as I pull into his driveway, "text me in the morning."

"Will do."

He jumps out of my car and then opens the back and gives Gabriella a kiss goodbye. A quick, barely there kiss.

Almost like it was obligated.

And then he closes the door and heads inside.

Gabriella's house is closer to mine so it makes more sense to drop him off first and her last. And Chris, having no clue that I'm so into his girlfriend, has no fucking problem with us being alone together, hanging out. Which I don't know if it's a good thing or not. Probably not. At all.

"You okay?"

"What?" Gabriella snaps out of her trance, "um, yeah, I'm fine."

"You wanna come sit up here?"

She chuckles, opening the door and then sliding into the front seat, "I wasn't even thinking about it."

I give her a small smile as I pull out of his driveway.

Something's off.

And now that it's just the two of us, I feel like I can ask her. I always feel like I can ask if she's okay. We have that kind of friendship.

"Are you okay?" I ask her, "you seem a little off tonight and I'm not..."

"You notice everything, huh?"

I shrug, "I had already heard Brett's story so I wasn't really paying attention to it. I was mostly looking around the room and while everyone laughed besides you, well, I knew something was off. I don't know. I could be imagining things, maybe you just didn't think it was funny..."

She shakes her head, "I didn't hear it, to be honest."

"Figured."

"I am a little off tonight," she confesses, "but I'm okay. I mean, nothing's... wrong."

I nod, coming to a red stop light.

I don't want to push it. I mean, she says she's okay and nothing's wrong. What else can I say about that? Ask her? No. She would have voluntarily shared the information if she wanted me to know what was wrong with her.

And she didn't.

"Do you ever..." she starts telling me, but then shakes her head, "if you could have anything in the world right now, what would it be?"

You, I want to tell her. But obviously don't.

I think about her question for a moment, wondering what I could possibly want.

"I'm not sure," I decide on, lamely. I have no idea what I could want. "What about you? What do you want?"

"It doesn't matter," she says.

And then she rested her head in the palm of her hand and looked out the window the whole way to her house as if she didn't just ask me this question.

It was the weirdest thing, but I'm not going to push it.

I hate this.

I hate that I can't figure out what's going on in the beautiful mind of hers.

It's making me go crazy.