My Blossoming Redemption

NINETEEN

I snort. "You mean the Disney film Tangled?" He nods. "Oh, my... I love that film!"

"Not shocking?" he asks, and I shake my head. "Damn, I was trying for the shock factor. I love that film, all right?"

"I will never judge anyone for loving that film, that bit where they see the lights... it's the best," I offer and start on the second half of my sandwich.

"I applied to be on the X-Factor once. Thought I could sing, and I tried to learn guitar. Both failed miserably. My mum told me to stick to nursing," he says. I swear a bit of chicken gets stuck in the back of my throat as the laughter erupts. "It's not funny – I tried really hard!"

"It's hilarious, Nick—"

"You called me Nick," he points out. "It's because you now know embarrassing facts about me. Your turn, Miss Perfect."

I finish my food and smile. "Well, my name is Aspen. I'm twenty, still a student, and that's about it."

"Touché," he teases. "But now you have to produce two embarrassing facts."

I snort. "I don't have any. They brought me up in a perfect Christian family who doesn't do embarrassing."

"You have nothing embarrassing from your student life? I fail to believe you haven't done anything out of the ordinary."

I arch an eyebrow. "My first week of university, I got hideously drunk. I don't remember what happened, but I woke up with dried puke all over the bed, and in my hair. I'd forgotten my parents were coming to visit, and well, drinking is a sin. So, in my frantic rush to shower, get dressed and hide the evidence, I lied and told them I had food poisoning and didn't make it to the loo. Joel didn't know what to do, so he just went and hid in his room so he didn't have to deal with it."

Nicholas snorts. "I mean, for you, that's embarrassing."

"For me? I'm offended!" I joke, and he laughs. "Okay, one more. The first time I met Joel's mum. It was just after my parents started saying we needed to get married... I had awful, awful morning sickness. I kind of... puked up on Monica's shoes."

He snorts and laughs. "One way to meet the parents, huh?"

I cringe and put my empty sandwich box in the carrier bag. "Safe to say that didn't help her impression of me. But we get on all right now, I suppose. That's it, that's all the embarrassing stories I have."

"Aspen... you're twenty years old. You need to live." He sighs wistfully.

"You're twenty-one. Don't tell me to live like you're double my age, Mr Knight," I tease.

"I say it as someone who's done a lot more living than you have. As an outsider, as a... friend, you seem stuck in the life of someone double your age. Tragic situation aside, you need to work out what life you want to lead," he says.

I look down at the orange brick of the wall we're both sitting on; his pinkie finger inches closer to mine. My heart lurches when he goes for it and holds my hand in his.

My eyes meet his, and I realise now that they're not just like shining gems, they're liquid gold. They say money doesn't equate to happiness, but his liquid gold eyes are happiness at this moment.

"Did you know aspen trees never usually grow in one—"

"Nicholas, are you really going with the aspen metaphors again?"

"I'm trying to be nice here," he responds, and I squeeze his hand.

I glance down and notice how comfortable it feels – his fingers laced with mine like shoelaces double-tied for security, our hands entangled with the other. This is more than friends holding hands. Friends don't hold hands like this – unless they're four or five years old and are innocent in the world.