Drown

4. Missing Innocence

"No asking about my past."

Vince considers this for a moment, his eyes trailing over my face. And then he half smiles, rolling a piece of grass between his fingers. "Fair enough," he says, straightening his baseball cap on his head. A drop of sweat rolls down his forehead and he swipes it away impatiently.

"Anything else?" he inquires, dipping his head.

"If I start, um, puking again, like ever," I say and he raises an eyebrow, amused, but doesn't look at me. "Leave. Like seriously, just get right out of there."

A bark of laughter leaves his lips, and it's this excited, unhidden peal of laughter that I can't help but want to make it happen again. It's an unsettling feeling so I shove it down, far enough that I forget about it. He grins down at me. "Alright. I'll give you some privacy to chuck your guts everywhere. Scouts honor, and all that." He holds up a hand to his heart and my eyebrows raise.

"You were in the boy scouts?"

He laughs. "I was until I became too shitty at it. I couldn't tie knots for shit," he says. 

I can't help the smile, or the warmth pooling in my gut because for a second I'm happy. "Can't all be perfect," I say and his smile is appreciative and soft, and it's too much so I look away.

We walk in quiet silence, his shoes making the sidewalk pavement crunch underneath his feet.

"Damn," he says as he lights a smoke with a purple lighter that has the words fucker written hastily on it in permanent marker. "Nasty habit," he says on an exhale and a stream of smoke follows. I shrug.

He grins down at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling, the sun making his brown eyes look golden around the edges. And then he chews his lip, turns his head like the sun behind my head hurt his eyes, and stands up straighter.

"We're here," he announces.

Here, turns out to be an abandoned house. I stare at the looming white house in front of me, shrubbery and long grass covering the front yard. The staircase leading up to the door is crumbling, the pavement old and worn down from years. "You're kidding."

"No way!" he says. "Come on."

I follow and wonder again, for like the ninth time how I got here, to this place, with this boy leading me into an abandoned house. But then I figure there's nothing else I could do other than this, nothing I really want to do anyways, so I follow after him. 

I walk cautiously while he carelessly lumbers through the threshold, his cigarette burning brightly. He holds it between his index and middle fingers, and turns to me, holding out his arms in a behold manner.

"Nice place," I say sarcastically and he laughs in that pleased, surprised way again that I'm beginning to think I'll never quite get used to. He laughs like he'll never stop, like he never wants to stop. 

"I swear I didn't take you here for no reason other than to show you a dump of a house," he says. "C'mon," he says and jogs up the steps.

I follow slowly, cautiously, and then halfway through my tiptoeing, I figure I don't give a shit if I fall through, and I sprint the rest of the way to catch up. He steadies me when I reach the top, puts his hands on shoulders firmly, and then exhales a bunch of smoke into my face. I cough as he grins apologetically.

"Sorry miss—" he catches himself, winking at me, his grin still in place.

"Okay," he says and puts his smoke out on the ground, clapping his hands together to dust off any possible ash. "I just figured, Caroline, that since you aren't into sharing the past, I could show you some of mine, right?"