Love Among the Pizza Boxes

Crap.
My smile. She commented on my smile.
Now I’m gonna feel self-conscious and I’m never going to smile again.
Constance doesn’t like the sound of that.
It was a positive comment. One that was made to make you feel good about yourself, Riku. So stop being a dweeb and a senseless moron and smile and thank her and tell her how pretty her eyes are in the moonlight.
Woah. No.
You suck, Constance. You suck eggs. Chicken eggs. Because the shells don’t taste good.
So I stop making that retarded face and smile my retarded crooked smile and feel retarded.
Ode to a retard.
That was awkward – that little meeting with Kairi and Sora. Kairi is really desperate to get some action. I mean, every last one of her really close friends has.
Besides me and Sora.
Ah, yes. I remember it like it was yesterday – the day I heard what Selphie and Tidus had done.
In the school gym. Er, the janitor’s closet in the gym.
The night of Junior Prom.
Since then Kairi’s been dropping subtle hints. Subtle hints towards Sora like sticking her butt in his face and sitting on his lap and straddling his hips and hugging him around his neck.
You know, things that normal people do in public all the time.
I remember when Selphie and I used to be going out.
It was an interesting time in my life.
She and I would always go on dates to watch Tidus play basketball.
I was pissed. So I broke up with her and her bounce-back boy was Tidus.
Another one of my close friends. He’s not so close anymore though.
Anyway. Let’s go back to the present, shall we?
I like the present.
Shayla’s in the present.
I can think about past girlfriends while angsting in my shower tonight.
I’ve been quiet for a really long time now. Malibu Barbie’s car is in sight now.
“Riku,” Shayla says suddenly.
“Yup,” I say just as suddenly; an instinct reaction to a sudden noise.
“Can I ask you a favor?”
Okay.
Favors are cool.
“Of course,” I say.
Now, what could she be asking me about?
Last time a girl asked me to do them a favor was when I was dating Selphie.
Most frightening time of my life.
I’m not going to go there now.
It’s gonna ruin the moment.
So no Selphie. Just Shayla. No Kairi. Just Shayla. Not even Bethany. Just. Shayla.
“Hold my hand.”
You know that feeling you get when someone says something, and your heartbeat can be heard through space? And you get really warm, and then you can’t really see straight? And then you shiver and butterflies colonize in your stomach and blood is pounding through your ears?
Yup. That’s how I feel right now.
I do what I was asked. I hold both her hands in mine. My hands are like twice the size of hers. I trace little circles on the back of her hands again.
And she smiles.