Terms and Agreements (on hold indefinitely)

The Part with Weird Soul-Baring and Awkward Comfort

                                                                              34

"Turn left." Flynn directed me.

"I wish you would tell me where we're going," I grumbled, switching on my blinker and slowing down.

"But that would ruin the surprise."

"I don't like surprises, they're too..." I searched for the right word, "surprising."

He chuckled. "We're heading out of town, I'll tell you that much."

"You're not leading me away from civilization so you can murder me and hide my body in the woods for it to be found, decades from now, by some campers, are you?" I demanded.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing," He replied in a monotonous voice, "I'm a psychopath."

I rolled my eyes. "You try anything, and I will kill you."

"If anybody's the psychopath, it's you," was all he said in reply.

"Humph."

Eventually, we ended up at some sort of overlook, and it was dark out now, it had been for a while, but the moon shone brightly down, bathing the landscape below us in silver light.

We got out of the car, and I made sure Flynn was always beside or in front of me as we approached the edge. I was suspicious of people, anyway, but I always had this fear of someone jokingly shoving while I was near a drop-off, and clumsy, ungraceful me would just stumble and fall to my death.

Between that and my petrifying fear of balloons, I was pretty irrational.

"Nice, isn't it?" He spoke softly, resting his arms on the wooden railing. I couldn't help but notice how the moonlight shone on his dark hair as it shifted in the slight, cool breeze, and how the pale light made him look like his skin was porcelain. And his eyes, darker than the night around him, reflecting the moon and looking deeper than usual.

"Uh, yeah," I stammered, snapping out of whatever-that-was. An owl hooted somewhere in the distance. Night birds called. The wind sang through the nearly-leafless trees around us. Rolling hills stretched for miles, and fog hung low over them. "So, why did you bring me here?"

He didn't answer for a long minute. The collar of his jacket moved in the wind. He leaned more on his arms, his eyes lowering to his hands.

"My mom and I used to come here a lot," he said finally. His voice was low, hardly above a whisper, and there was the slightest of tremors to it.

"Oh," was all I said. I didn't know what to do when people expressed actual emotions. And I didn't know what he was going to do next. Reminisce about her? Tell me her story? Cry? All of these options were much, much too intimate for me to handle.

"I haven't been here since..." He paused, and I heard him sniff loudly. Oh Merlin's underpants what do I do, what do I do? "Well, the last time I was here, it was a night like this and I guess, in a way, she was with me."

I ventured to speak. Nothing came out. I closed my mouth. I could awkwardly pat his shoulder if I needed to.

He straightened up, and gestured toward the far corner of the lookout. There was no railing, just a rock jutting out over the drop. "I was standing right over there. And I said something — something stupid, probably — and then I let the wind take her ashes away."

So she was dead. I let out a breath. Why was he telling me this stuff? How was it any of my business? I definitely hadn't earned the right to know.