Smoke Break /Georgenotfound/

՜՞՜6՜՞՜

I expected to wake up from the sound of my alarm, but who needs alarms when you live next to a literal zoo.

Those guys from next door were being so unbelievably loud in the silence of the early morning that I could hear their conversations clearly. I think my room being the closest to their place attributed, but still, I also think it takes serious vocal cords to cause such a strong resonance.

I shouldn't have overheard their conversations, but what could I do? Cover my ears? In my defense, I was half asleep.

And also, it started off innocent and normal.

"Order food," one of them said.

"Why am I always the one ordering?" The other one complained.

Then silence.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I could tell this one was George because I grew somewhat familiar with his voice. And the accent of course.

"Order food, bitch," and it started to go downhill from here.

"We've been eating pizza since we came here, I don't want to order anything anymore," I think that one was George complaining.

"Then order something else, dumbass," I don't know which of them was this, but he was definitely the loudest. And the hungriest.

"You guys don't even like the food I like," George stated.

"Cause you'll eat dog shit as long as it has gold flakes and truffles on it."

I snorted, cause that description matched so well with him, even though I've talked to him only twice.

"Then tell your beloved clam to order something."

Clam? Are they ordering clams? Or did I hear something wrong-

"His beloved Clay has been ordering for 3 days in a row now!"

Oh, Clay. Not clam.

Must be one of them, I guess.

So Clay, George and-

"Beloved Nick is so hungry that he'll eat both of your beloved dicks if you don't get him food."

-and Nick.

"You're all talk and no action," that was the other one, clam- Clay, I mean.

"Yeah do it, no balls," and that's George.

What's this conversation and why am I so invested-

"Once I'm done, you'll be the one with no balls."

How do I unhear this? How do I atleast stop hearing the rest of it?

I got up from my bed and went to make myself coffee, but it felt like the voices were following me. The main reason behind it was probably the fact that they were starting to yell at each other and curse so loudly that I doubt anyone in the building was left unaware of the fact that George is a bitch, Nick is a cunt and Clay's useless.

What a start of a day. I bet I'll nail my exam tomorrow.

Anyway, my daily routine didn't include anything out of the ordinary, except I actually studied decently cause the pressure of the deadline started hitting with a notable intensity.

By 1 a.m. I realized that I still have a long way to go and decided to pull an all nighter. Decided is the key word, cause by 3 a.m. I fell asleep on my book only to wake up at 7.

My exam was at 9.

At that point I had just accepted my destiny, and my only concern was getting ready and leaving the house on time so that I wouldn't be late. And by the time I was finished showering and drying my hair, it was almost 8 a.m., so I shoved some food down my throat so I don't pass out from hunger during the exam, got dressed and left the house.

And as I was walking to my car, I heard a voice.

"Aria!"

I looked behind me, around me, almost everywhere and thought I'm going insane when the voice laughed, "I'm up here."

Only then I looked up and saw George standing in the balcony, grinning, "Good luck, you've got this!"

What.. that's so cute.

The biggest smile appeared on my face. Not only I found the act itself cute, but also the fact that he actually remembered that my exam's today.

"Awh, thanks!" Laughing, I opened my car door, quickly waving goodbye at him as I got in.

I was running late.

That's why I drove fast and almost crashed into a stop sign, but it's not relevant as long as there's "almost" in the sentence.

And now the moment of truth, the exam.

Well.. It was easier than I thought it would be, but there were also things that I had no clue about. Ended up scoring 89% which wasn't too bad, but still, kinda bad compared to my other results.

Honestly, I was just glad it was over. And I was both devastated and happy about the fact that I had one more to go - devasted because I wasn't yet finished, and happy because there was only one more left.

What can I say, I always feel conflicted about the smallest of things.

But you know what I didn't feel conflicted about? Those specific peanut butter cookies my grandma used to make. I've been craving them for days now. And right when I was driving past the grocery store, I made the impulsive decision to stop and get the ingredients for it.

I wasn't even sure if I remembered the recipe correctly, but as long as there's peanut butter in it, I doubt it'll taste bad.

I'll never know the exact recipe anyway, cause my grandma's dead. So I gotta improvise.

I must've improvised the portions wrong cause I kept adding things to make the consistency of the batter right. It was watery at the start, then too dense, then too mushy, then extremely sugary and only then, after using up every single product till the last grain and drop, I managed to fix it.

And now I have way too much batter.

Then 4 hours later I had way too many cookies. Which gave me an idea.

Remembering the conversation of my neighbors from the morning, I figured they'll be happy to accept some food as a welcome gift.

Well, it would've been nicer of me if I planned this initially and didn't decide to do such a thing only after accidentally making way too many cookies.

But it's the act that counts, not the thought behind it.

Or was it the other way around?

Anyway, I got a big bowl out and filled it with a generous amount of cookies. And I made sure to choose the prettiest ones cause I'm a show off. I decorated it with a ribbon bow, cause again, I'm a show off.

And then only I fixed my hair and applied a bit of makeup before opening the front door.