"How do you do that?" I ask.
He looks at me, confused. "Do what?"
I gesture at him vaguely. "This. All of this. Doing things and acting like nothing touches you."
He raises an eyebrow.
"I feel like my whole world is going to get fucked because of that kiss," I say.
He stares at me for a second.
Then leans forward. "I don't know what kind of world you live in," he says, voice tighter now, "but mine's been fucked since long before that kiss."
He looks down. Picks at the label on his bottle. "And for the record," he adds, not looking at me, "it touched me."
I stay quiet. I think we both need a second. Then he takes a sip, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and speaks again.
"People think I don't care," he says softly. "That I don't feel shit. That I just... float through all of it." He looks up at the sky.
"They look at me like I'm already a warning sign. Like I came broken."
I don't breathe.
"They act like I woke up one day and just decided to be the walking disaster for fun. Like bad shit never happened to me. Like I just vibe my whole life and choose violence as a hobby."
He scoffs, shaking his head again. "No one ever stopped to think maybe I get this way because of things," he says.
"Because people fucked me up. Because adults weren't actually adults. Because I had to grow up way too fast and figure shit out by myself."
I stay quiet. He never talks like this.
Not with me. Not with anyone, I think.
And I'm not about to stop it.
"They look at me and see chaos," Gio says.
"So they decided that's all I can be. The loud one. The crazy one. The one who doesn't care about anything. It's easy. It saves them from asking questions."
He takes another sip, slower this time.
"You know what happens when you try to say something real?" he continues.
"You probably know. They laugh, or they change the subject. Or they go, 'oh, that's just Gio being dramatic.'"
He's not wrong.
"So I stopped," he shrugs. "Stopped telling anyone when shit hurts. Stopped saying when something isn't okay. Just turned it into jokes. Fights. Parties. Easier to be the problem than the person."
"I'm not untouched, Rava," he says quietly. "You're not the only one who's had a rough time. You just... show it different. You go quiet. I go loud. Same crap, different fonts."
He glances at me. I look down.
"It hits me too. I'm not walking out of this spotless. Your dad hates my guts. My family's on my ass. The company will love having another reason to call me unstable. You already know that."
I nod.
"But nobody's going to ask how I feel about it. They're just going to point and go, 'of course it was Gio. He ruins everything.'"
