Smoke Break /Georgenotfound/

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When I got to their door, I could hear that the music they were playing. It's just a tiny bit cute how they didn't turn the volume all the way up this time, and I could only hear it from behind their door.

I held the bowl between my arm and my torso and knocked loudly. Then I heard the familiar hurried footsteps, and the door opened.

It's the tall guy.

"Hi- uhm, I'll turn it off in a second, sorry."

I parted my mouth to speak, but he spoke so quickly that I didn't even get the chance to say hi. And it took me extra few seconds to understand that he was talking about the music.

"Oh- noo- hi," I didn't know which part of his sentence to address first, "It's not about that this time- I actually made cookies and thought I'd bring you some."

I smiled at him widely and held the bowl up proudly. He looked back and forth between me and the bowl and momentarily beamed with joy, "Wait, no way! Really?"

He excitedly took the bowl from my hands, and I felt a rush of satisfaction, "Yeah! They're peanut butter cookies, fresh from the oven," I grinned at the sparkle in his eyes when he heard the word peanut butter and had to remind myself that he's a grown man that I don't even know the name of, and I shouldn't be this excited over seeing him happy.

"Oh my god, we hate you way less now, thank you!" He started off serious but then broke into a laughter after seeing how devastated my face looked, "I'm just kidding, we still hate you."

I put my hand on my chest dramatically and gasped, "You'rr making me wish I poisoned your cookies," I narrowed my eyes and shook my head, not being able to keep it serious for too long cause he started laughing.

"Too late, I guess. I'm Clay, by the way," he held the bowl with one hand and extended the other one for me to shake it.

"I'm Aria," I smiled, shaking his hand. And then I saw someone in the background.

A very certain someone.

It's like he spawned out of nowhere after hearing my name. Clay turned around immediately and acknowledged his presence.

"George!" He exclaimed joyfully as the brunette came closer to us, "This is Aria. Aria, this is George."

He put so much effort into introducing us to each other as if we didn't already know. And I was waiting for George to tell him that we knew each other, but instead, he longed his hand for me to shake it.

"Pleasure to meet you, Aria," the knowing smile on his face said it all.

He's just so... weird. All I could do was play along.

"Pleasure to meet you too, George," I barely touched his hand in a brief handshake. But I swear I felt him gripping my fingers gently and letting them slide away when we pulled away.

"She brought us cookies!" The blonde, Clay, sounded and looked beyond cute.

"Wow.." and I couldn't say the same thing about George, "Thanks, Aria."

I was about to say you're welcome when Clay started talking again. He talks so much, he's like a machine.

"You should come in and meet Nick as well-"

"Oh, no no, another time," I quickly cut him off, "my kitchen's a mess after the cookies, gotta do some cleaning," smiling, I took a step back as a sign of leaving already.

"Ah, okay! Thanks again, I'll go enjoy the cookies then," the bowl of sunshine left with the bowl of cookies, leaving me and George taking hesitant steps back - farther away from each other.

And once my back was already close to hitting the door of my apartment, he spoke, the corner of his mouth slightly lifted, "See you soon, I guess."

I just knew he was talking about the balcony.

"Try the cookies first," I smiled, opening the door and getting in, "waiting for the reviews."

Him finally giving me a genuine smile was the last thing I saw before we both closed the doors. And his image faded. My smile, however, didn't have any intentions to fade. Even when I was washing the dishes. And I hate washing the dishes.

I decided to go to the balcony only after I'm finished cleaning the kitchen cause the way it looked like a school cafeteria after a food fight made me feel like a pig.

And I was so excited for whatever reason, that I didn't notice the time flying.

Thirty minutes passed by and my plans changed drastically from the sudden noise I heard. And because I was already a little too familiar with the voices, I identified them immediately.

They were calling George's name - almost screaming in panic.

I froze in my spot, turning the water off and trying to pick up more from what they were saying. I couldn't tell if it was one of their animalistic stupid fights again or something serious until I heard Clay's voice.

"Call the ambulance, hurry!"

I stood there frozen, eyes wide before gaining enough consciousness to react. Quickly, I removed my cleaning gloves and ran to the door, struggling to open it because the panicking sounds from the next door were getting louder and scaring me more and more.

Without bothering to close mine, I banged on their door, foot jittering like crazy while I was waiting for someone to open it. The third guy, Nick, hurriedly fiddled with the lock for a few seconds and forcefully pulled the door open.

"He- you're not the ambulance-"

Was the first thing he said after seeing me.

"What's going on? Is everything okay?" I was kinda stupid for asking that cause whatever was happening, clearly sounded like an emergency.

"He's fucking dying!" The panic in his voice was enough for me to run inside.

Nobody questioned my presence, cause everybody was equally scared. Except for George, cause it looked like he was unconscious on the floor, back leaning against the couch as his friend was knelt next to him, repeatedly slapping his face.

Talking about his face - it was swelling up quickly.

I ran, falling to my knees next to both of them, "Holy- what happened?"

I grabbed George's wrist and tried to look for a pulse cause that's what they taught us to do in college, but I was panicking too much and didn't realize I was failing because of the watch on his wrist.

"I don't know! He's probably choking on a cookie- he was eating and then- and then he started coughing and - I don't know, do something!"

I ignored the pressure and took a deep breath, realizing that I've been studying medicine for three years now yet I was being even more useless than Clay who was convinced that his friend was choking, yet proceeded to slap him repeatedly.

Then I took a good look at George - or whatever was infront of me that slightly resembled George. His lips and undereyes were swelling rapidly, and the first thing that came to my mind was-

"He's not choking- does he have allergies?"