11/28 by uliaj06

seventeen

1:00 pm

We get out of that room and for a moment, I forgot what the real world looked like.

It was dark in that room that the light from the sun practically blinds me. My eyes burn from the overwhelming amount of brightness exposed to my eyes.

It takes me minutes to fully adjust and get used to the light. Once well adjusted, I look over to Tate to see how he's doing.

He's wearing sunglasses.

Smartass.

We get outside and I feel the cold breeze on me. It feels amazing. It isn't as cold too since the sun's out today.

"So, where off to now?" I ask Tate by my side.

"Wherever chocolates are." He looks down at me.

I forgot how tall he actually is. He's 6'2 if I remember correctly, making him 8 inches taller than me.

Jesus.

He has good posture, standing straight, looking tall in the crowd of people walking by us.

He had a straight face, as always, and he has sunglasses on, which weirdly makes him more intimidating.

His dark brown hair messy from laying down on the ground back at the room. Black shirt, black jacket, black shoes, and blue jeans. He looks good in it.

We continue aimlessly walking on the sidewalk, passing by people, trying to find a store that has chocolates.

I admire the sky and the shadows of the clouds, the flowers and the newspapers people are selling, shops, stores, boutiques. People that progress by us in a hurry, or taking their time, some in business suits and some walking their dogs, some with children waking by their sides, and others just strolling by themselves listening to music. Things like this make me wonder about the people's lives like where they're off to, or why they're wearing what they're wearing.

Suddenly, I feel a firm hand grip my forearm and pull me.

We're in a store now. It's quieter and we're surrounded by shelves of items. Instead of the loud sound of the city, it's replaced by the subtle radio music playing above us.

Tate guides us as he searches the isles for the chocolate. I don't make an effort to help him look because my focus is on his hands.

Hands that were big and was now holding my wrist. Hands that had a ring and were veiny and gripped me almost carefully.

I see the familiar snake ring from that night we walked around the city on his finger. The ring he let me wear.

When we get in front of the selections of chocolate, he separates his touch from mine and looks at the options.

I went on a search of my own trying to find a perfect assortment of chocolates he'd like. I'll like anything.

My eyes land on this box of twenty-six different chocolates. It has thirteen flavors, two of each.

Perfect.

"Found one." I grab his attention.

He doesn't argue, just goes along with whatever I want.

We get to the counter and he of course pays, grabbing a pack of gum to go along with it.

"Where to now?" He asks me when we get outside.

What I love about this part of town is that everything's together. Shops, parks, stores.

"Birds." I blurt out, remembering the conversation we had at breakfast. I look around for a park or someplace where there's birds. "I want to feed birds."

.

Me and Tate are sitting on a bench.

In front of us is this huge body of water.

I love this spot dearly. I think I'll come here more often.

I love the large lampposts in between the barrier of the water and the pavement. I also love the design and texture of the pavement. It's weird, not something people would usually care to think of, but I love admiring how the road or walkways feel beneath my feet.

I love the people all around us how they're living their own lives.

I wish Aelin was here right now.

She's the type to take a picture of everything.

I find pictures that are caught in unplanned scenarios absolutely beautiful. Like, someone simply reading, or looking at the ocean completely unaware. A photograph unforeseen captures the effortless beauty of merely living.

We decided to "taste test" the chocolates before feeding the birds.

Above us are these trees. These beautiful trees with lights around the branches since it's December, which means Christmas. I'd like to come back here at night and see everything lit up.

The trees are in a line, a row, just like the benches. There weren't any leaves on the trees, leaves that would usually shade us from the sun, but there wasn't much sun for the leaves to shade us from. Making it perfect that there aren't any.

I like it better somehow. Just the bare branches stemming more and more thinner branches from each other. It's quite beautiful.

"Look at the trees." I suddenly speak up. "Do you like it better when there's leaves on them, or when they're bare, like how it is right now?" I question.

"Don't really care." His response was short.

"Just answer the question."

"I really don't know." He's not even trying to look and answer the question.

"That's because you aren't even looking up at the trees." I accuse. "Look up." I remind him when he was just staring at me with a puzzled expression.

I stare at him until he gives in and looks up. Then I do the same.

"What am I looking at?" He asks with his usual bored tone.

"The tree. The branches. Look at every detail of it. It's the small things that matter. There's a beauty in everything."

I feel his stare flit back to me, so I look back down to him.

"I stopped finding things beautiful a long time ago. If you look at this world, everything is grey, moronic, dull." He states blatantly.

"Is that how you perceive everything?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "There's no use. I stopped caring about shit a long time ago."

"So you look at everything without color. Everything is just dull to you?" I look at him deep in the eyes, as he does the same.

I love staring deep into someone's eyes. It intimidates them, making them squirm sometimes because they can't take the pressure of eye contact. I love the feeling of their reactions, it makes me feel powerful.

"Mhm." He stares back at me with bored, lifeless eyes. He doesn't move or give me a reaction at all, just stares back at me like a challenge.

I keep staring at him, deep into his green eyes not breaking eye contact. I study his eyes, looking closer into them, analyzing them. His iris and the different shades of green.

I lean closer to see if he'll give me a reaction. Nothing.

It's frustrating me. I love control, I like things my way, toxic, I know. I try to think of a way to get a reaction from him, to break him. How to win.

I lean in more. "You have really pretty eyes." I whisper.

I lean in closer. Close enough to see a flicker of emotion in his eyes. I grin to myself, an accomplishment to the challenge I made up in my head.

Suddenly, I hit him on the forehead with my hand, just in between his eyebrows.

Not hard, but hard enough to make the sound like you just slapped someone. I'm sure I didn't hit him hard enough for it to actually hurt.

"What the fuck?!" He touches the skin in between his eyebrows, his forehead. He looks at me with confused and his eyebrows furrow.

I can't believe I just did that. I couldn't help but let out a laugh. I bite my lip to try to suppress my smile.

"Why'd you do that for?!" He looks back at me, making eye contact, his eyebrows still furrowed in confusion.

"You're so damn lifeless y'know?" A laugh escapes me, bringing a small onto his lips. "Stop looking at the world like it's grey. It isn't. You just got to-" I touch the spot I hit. "-open your mind up a little." I smile brightly at him, still not over his reaction of me hitting him.

He's so fucking serious all the time, I felt like I needed to hit him to make him relax a little. Not relax – he's always relaxed – but more.. awake. I needed to bring some emotion out of him. I wanted to make him snap out of his 'world of hell' for just a minute, a day actually, since he's with me.

I want to make him feel more comfortable around me. To show me the happy side of him that I miss. Kind of. That I kind of miss.

"And how am I going to do that?" He challenges, my smile rubbing off on him like it's contagious.

"Look back up at the branches." He continues looking at me for a few seconds too long but, eventually does as I say. "Look at the cracks and scars on the bark. Look at the intricate little details and textures all around. It really is pretty, how each branch has its own individual form, and there's so many of them. Everything has its own beauty, it all depends on the perspective. You just have to notice them and take the time to appreciate it."

I look at him, his eyes still up, moving all around the tree, studying it. I wonder what's going on inside his mind as I see his eyes try to see what I'm seeing.

He really had the prettiest eyes.

The color right now against the scenery and the brightness outside. God, I wish I could take a picture.

"Are you seeing it?" I question after a few seconds.

I watch his green eyes look down at me, having a hint of life now. He shrugs his shoulders not revealing anything.

"So, what do you like better? When trees have leaves on them, or when they're bare?" I question again.

"Bare." He answers.

"How do you know if you like that better? You've never seen a tree with leaves in a different perspective."

"Exactly."

"But that's no-"

"Shut up, Ro." He grabs the box of chocolates from my grasp and opens it. "I answered your stupid question, ok?" He opens the top part of the box, revealing the assortment of chocolates. He takes two of the same kind of chocolate, it's square shaped. "Here."

"Don't eat the full thing, we have thirteen flavors to try." I remind him.

I take a small bite of it and taste some strawberry filling. My face scrunches in disgust. "This is disgusting." He says before I did.

We both put the chocolate back to its placement and I pick a circular one. A smooth circular one with no design on top which I'm sure it's just full milk chocolate. I take a small bite, confirming that I was right, just plain milk chocolate and it was delicious. We both nod in agreement that we both liked it.

We talked more while finishing the rest of the flavors. I liked eight out of the thirteen flavors. It was very enjoyable, tasting all the flavors of chocolates, and making conversation about the boats we saw on the ocean in front of us.

I made a comment about always wanting to go on a yacht, he said he owned one. I rolled my eyes in return. I told him I've always wanted to go on a fancy boat, and he told me he owned, or can buy which ever boat I wanted when he fakes his death and we escape.

Then I told him I still have a fear of the ocean to this day, I can't swim. He laughed slightly at how sad that was.

We go over to the man on the side selling cracked corn, deciding we wanted to feed the birds.

There were a few people sitting on the benches feeding the bids too.

While I buy some corn, Tate goes over to a stand and buys us both a bottle of water. I drank some until I wasn't thirsty anymore, then asked Tate for some gum that he bought from the store. We went back to our bench, water bottles and cracked corn in our hands.

I watched until I saw a bird come my way. It was pleasant, the silence between us. It didn't feel awkward or forced, it was just there. It was welcomed, comfortable. The sounds of the city filling as a background noise.

I finally got a bird to head towards me. It was cute until it started to get closer. The closer it got, the more terrifying it got. I threw some corn a little closer than I planned, and the bird jumped closer to us.

The bird fucking terrifies me that I jerk my legs up, sitting crisscrossed on the bench. I didn't want the bird to peck at my leg or shoe. My legs were too close to the creature.

I stare into its beady eyes as it kept creeping closer and closer.

Why are its eyes so fucking creepy?!