As Harriette and Tamarai talked about DaeRi, Collin was watching Amado who was heading this way then. Collin wondered what his reaction should be to seeing him here all of a sudden.
Amado had moved to Mexico after Bentley graduated, he said his aunt who he was living with didn’t want him anymore and sent him away to his oldest sister in Mexico. Collin had assumed he would never be back.
“Surprise,” Amado said, suddenly right in front of him. He looked different, but the same. His once red hair was now purple and was a floppy mohawk. He had a new piercing in his cheek that Collin wondered why would anyone want. And he was taller, Collin could tell even sitting down that Amado had at least grown three more inches since he had last seen him. But his smile was the same big friendly grin.
“Oh,” Collin said. Beside him Harriette stopped talking and turned to look at Amado.
“Hi,” she said, looking a tad a bit confused.
“Hello,” Amado said in his thick accent.
“Hey,” Collin said.
“We have to catch up,” Amado said, “How about we hang out after school?”
Collin nodded, “sure.”
Amado grinned, “That’s great, I will see you then!”
And with that Amado turned and walked right out of the lunch room and Collin laughed. Amado was so weird.
“He’s so weird,” Harriette said, “is he your friend?”
“We hung out a bit with Bentley,” Collin said.
Harriette wrinkled her nose, “why would Bentley hang out with someone like that?”
Collin shrugged, ignoring Harriette’s harsh judgement.
Luckily Tamarai was obviously determined to get Harriette to forgive DaeRi and she brought up the fact that now DaeRi was sitting with two other girls, which distracted Harriette from her thoughts on Amado.
Admittedly Amado was out there, with his purple hair, plenty of piercings and tattoos. Not to mention his colorful choice of clothing. But still Collin didn’t like it when Harriette started acting all judgemental, which was really all the time. She wasn’t that accepting, sadly.
Collin hadn’t liked Amado much anyway, he was mostly Bentley’s friend. But Collin got the feeling that Amado liked him alot.
--
After school Collin waited on the steps for AeGuk, after parting from a whining Harriette who wanted him to come home with her because she didn’t want to spend all afternoon listening to Tamarai try to make her forgive DaeRi.
Finally she left with Tamarai when Collin explained that he had said he would hang out with Amado after school so he couldn’t just ditch Amado.
“Hola!,” Amado said, appearing behind Collin.
“Oh, hi,” Collin said, suddenly feeling awkward. They had never hung out without Bentley before.
“Do you want to eat?” Amado asked, “I am very hungry. Starving.”
Collin shrugged, “sure.”
Amado grinned and led the way to the deli, which wasn’t far from the school since the whole town seemed to surround the school. The deli was also a cafe/bakery. It was the only good place to eat in town.
“I have missed you alot,” Amado said.
“Yeah,” Collin said, not really agreeing because he hadn’t really thought of Amado since he left.
“Are you wondering what I am doing here?” Amado asked as he opened the door for Collin and then followed him in.
Collin shrugged, “I’m a little curious.”
Amado grinned, he did that a lot, “After we get some food, I will tell you.”
“Okay,” Collin said.
Amado grinned and ordered a chocolate croissant and a cup of iced chai, then looked at Collin and told him to order whatever he wanted.
“I will pay,” Amado said, “My treat.”
“Thanks,” Collin said, and he got a muffin and a iced tea with lemon. Then they brought their food to the table and Amado stared at Collin expectantly.
“Uhm,” Collin said, “wasn’t it you who said you’ll tell me why you’re here?”
“Yes, I was waiting for you to bring it up,” Amado said, grinning.
“Alright, I’m all ears,” Collin said.
Amado leaned in, “My sister didn’t really care much for me, she let me do whatever I want. Wanted. It was fun except you weren’t there. I wanted to spend my senior year here, so I told my sister and she said I could do whatever I wanted. She did not care at all. So I called my aunt and told her I was coming back, that my sister did not want me and she was the last person I could call. She didn’t want me back though, she said that I should call my parents and have them relocate me.”
Collin wondered then why Amado didn’t live with his parents anyway, but he didn’t ask because it might be too personal or something.
“I told her I wanted to live with her. She was shocked, she thought I didn’t like her. Which is true, but she does not need to know. So she said that I could come back if I behaved, and since I am not sure why she kicked me out last time anyway, I agreed. And now I am here!”
Collin nodded, “well then.”
Amado grinned, “Are you happy to see me?”
Collin shrugged, “sure.”
Amado frowned, “You are not? Why?”
“I said sure,” Collin said. He finished off his drink and he had already eaten his muffin while Amado was talking.
Amado saw that he was done with his food and laughed, “look at that! I still have all my food and you have none.”
Amado laughed and Collin just stared. It wasn’t that funny.
Then Amado stopped laughing abruptly and stared back, “You do not like me?”
Collin smiled and shook his head, “No, I like you fine enough.”
Amado smiled, looking kind of shy, “Thank you. Now enough of me and let’s talk about you. How has your year been?”
“Good,” Collin said, which wasn’t entirely true. It was probably one of his worst years, it was a lot of spending time alone and dealing with Harriette dragging him to all of these popular functions. But he didn’t want to talk about that, so it was “good”.
“Good,” Amado said, “Anything exciting happen at the school?”
Collin shrugged, “Not really.”
“You are still popular,” Amado said, “I noticed in lunch. And the hallways, people follow you and Harriette everywhere.”
Collin nodded, “Yeah, unfortunately.”
Oops, he forgot he didn’t want to talk about that.
“Not that it’s bad exactly,” Collin said, trying to backtrack. “It’s just having people following you around is strange.”
“It is like being famous,” Amado said, “But teenagers instead of paparazzi.”
Collin laughed, “Yes.”
Amado grinned, “But at least they do not follow you home.”
“Counting my blessings,” Collin said, holding up his fingers and counting down.
“But Harriette likes it, yes?” Amado asked.
“She lives for it,” Collin said.
Amado nodded, “she always looks so happy.”
Collin nodded, smiling. She did always look happy, which is why Collin dealt with all the popular stuff with her.
“You are happy?” Amado asked.
Collin didn’t know what to say, that was a weird question.
“Yeah,” He said, bewildered.
“Good!,” Amado said, grinning. “As long as you both are happy all is good.”
Collin nodded.
“Oh, I have no more food,” Amado said, looking at his empty cup in what could be faux shock but Collin wouldn’t be surprised if it was real.
“Yep,” Collin said.
“I guess you want to go home and be with Harriette,” Amado said, “Gossip about the first day.”
Collin laughed, “yeah I guess. But we don’t gossip.”
“You do,” Amado said with a completely straight face, “Popular people gossip. It is true.”
Collin laughed and stood up, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You too,” Amado said, now grinning. “Thank you for coming with me.’
“You’re welcome,” Collin said.
Amado really wasn’t that bad, once you got past the piercings, tattoos, purple mohawk, choppy english, and strong accent, he was just a bit overly eccentric. But nice, and that was all that was important really.
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