What started in Paris

Chapter 8

Chapter 8                                                                                        

I like planes, I like the way they seem so clean, I love the feeling in the pit of my stomach when it lifts off and you're pushed back in your seat. I love turning my iPod on and scooting close to the window so it feels like you're the only person there, flying above the clouds. One with the clouds. But that was coach, with it's glorious children torturing you with their whining and grandmothers playing candy crush; not the unnervingly small private jet I'm in now.

I cross my legs and readjust my skirt, trying to calm down the butterflies in my stomach as I look out the window, attempting to decide where we are but all I can see is large rectangles of land, an occasional town here and there, but it's pretty hard to tell where you are from thirtythousand feet up.

I look back over at Adam, who was reading from a large manila file holder, his hair was all messed up and sticking out at odd angles from his continuous hair pulling. He flips through the file with his eyebrows knitted together tightly until he apparently finds what he was looking for and comes to sit in the cream leather seat across from me, placing the folder down on the small desk between us.  

     "Are you alright? You look especially pale." He asks, his eyebrows knitting together again as he examines my face.

    "I'm just nervous, and I want to know where we're going."  I say, trying my best to keep my voice steady under his stare.

    "Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria Germany." He says calmly, stretching out his long legs.

   "Quite a mouthful." I say, cocking an eyebrow.

   "Very." He says, smiling a bit and I notice for the first time that he has a hit of dimples in his cheeks.

  "So what are we going to do at this 'castle'?' I ask, leaning on the table and crossing my arms.

  "The castle was been made into a hotel a few years ago, but funds are dropping so the curator renovated it into a retreat for the extremely wealthy who want to disappear."  He pauses, taking a breath and flipping through a few more of the papers before continuing. "So we'll stop here for a few days before we have to leave again."

I lean on the table, crossing my arms and letting this information sink in. I didn't like the sound of it, and was still a little jumpy from yesterday's events, but knew that following Adam was my only option. I knew that when I got on this claustrophobic trap of a plane.

     "You okay?" He asks, looking concerned.  

    "I'm...trying." I say after a pause, looking back up at him, his green eyes shining from behind his glasses.

     "I'm going to get you through this." He says earnestly, leaning in the table as well, our knees touching slightly.

    "Thank you." I say, smiling softly, knowing that even though I was falling apart inside he should at least get the praise he deserves.

    "You're welcome." He says, smiling back at me before turning and looking out the window, his fingers slowly sliding to rest on top of mine.

   "O my god." I say slowly, leaning back in the convertible Adam was driving as he parks in the courtyard of a castle. I'm not sure why I thought by 'castle' he meant 'overly large mansion', but I did, so I was fully not prepared by the sheer enormity of the fortress in front of me.

 Neuschwanstein Castle is freakishly large but beautiful, you have to drive up a winding mountainside road to get there and once you have reached it you drive through a tunnel like arch that's formed from a deep read brick that contrasts with the rest of the castle, which is completely white. It was winter so the entire castle was covered in snow, giving it a snow globe like appearance; it has white towers on either side of the tallest portion with bluish grey roof and odd, circular arched openings that must be balconies lumped together in places, yet spread out in others.

   "Welcome to the wealthy man's playhouse." Adam says, opening my door for me and taking my hand to help me out of the car, but being the clutz that I am I nearly fall as my heel gets caught in-between the cobblestone walkway.

   "Whoa, calm down. I don't want you getting any more injuries." He says, placing his other hand on my back to steady me.

   "Well you shouldn't have said that, because now I'm bound to fall on my face before we even get inside this fortress." I say wearily and he laughs softly, calling to one of the uniformed men to bring in our bags.

   "Oh so the plus one doesn't have to bring in the luggage?" I tease as he offers me his arm to keep myself steady as we head for the stairs, which lead to a massive front door.

  "No, the plus ones job is to keep you from falling on your face." He leans down to whisper in my ear and I smack him on the shoulder, making him smile wider.

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I think I could get used to this 'seclusion'. I mean really, having a solid excuse for being antisocial is pretty amazing. So I've spent the last two days hiding out in the huge library, ransacking the poetry section and studying the heavy atlas, trying to learn something I can actually use in my seemingly crazy future.

Adam sometimes joins me with his laptop, reading over case files while I sneak glances at him over the book I happen to be reading, studying how his eyes harden a bit when he looks at the screen, as if it's taking all of his self control not to hurl it at the dusty wood paneled walls around us. Or the way he taps his foot to a beat I can't hear when he's writing, the sharp angles of his tiny letters as he spells out what looks like gibberish to me.

His shy, barely suppressed excitement when he played me his favorite Switchfoot song, how he was afraid I would hate it, so I smiled even wider to ease his worry when the music reverberated from the headphones I had slipped over my ears, feeling the strong beat in my chest, the excitement of listening to something he wanted to share with me making it even more precious.  

     "Do you like it?" He asks once I hand him back his headphones and smooth down my hair, looking at me expectantly.

    "I really did." I say, meaning it and loving that I'm the cause of that big smile on his face that he's failing at containing. Mentally taking a step back to make myself appreciate that he's opening up to me, that we've both, ever so slowly, taking our guard down.

But I'm not sure if that's a good thing or very, very bad.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

      "I mean look at how amazing this is, how much work when into taking this picture, into preserving it- sorry." I cut myself off, realizing that I'm ranting.

   "No, go on." Adam says, smiling and looking back up at the black and white picture in front of us, it's aged, the fraying corners barely hidden by the thin picture frame, the picture itself slightly browning with age.

   "Nothing, it's just..." I trail off, biting my lip and running a hand nervously though my hair. "I sort of have a thing for old photography." I confess, looking up at him apprehensively, hoping he won't laugh in my face.

   "Oh really?" He asks, looking back down at me, a small smile on his thin lips. "Why?"

 I shrug, examining the picture again. "I guess that I just love the thought of the past, at the refined people who seemed so proper. But I love the photography that shows that people weren't like that  even more, that we weren't really so different. That people of the past were just as adventurous and awkward as I am, that I don't have an impossible image to live up to."   

    "I guess I've never really thought about it that way." He says truthfully, "But that makes a lot of sense."

I smile, feeling relived that he didn't think I was completely crazy. Yet.