Strings Attached

Chapter Six

After climbing the tree and being on its top for about ten minutes, Theodore and I finally decided to walk back home.

We talked about how college would be very different from high school, and Theodore told me that college girls would probably be a thousand times more interesting than high school girls.

"Seriously, all girls talk about at this age is makeup and boys," he said, shaking his head disapprovingly.

I scoffed. "It's not like boys are that different. All they talk about is who has more muscles and sex."

"Not all of us are that way," Theodore said. "Nice guys always finish last because girls like jerks, but that doesn't mean that all guys are jerks."

"Well, not all girls are shallow, either," I said as I took a right turn.

"I guess not," he said.

We arrived at the house and entered it slowly.

"I don't really want to study anymore," he said.

"Me neither," I admitted.

Theodore sighed. "Maybe we should do something else."

I turned to see my watch. "What do you have in mind? The night is young, and so are we."

Theodore raised one of his eyebrows. "Well, there are a million things we could do, but I don't think you'd be up to any of them."

I shrugged. "As long as no crimes are involved, I guess I'm up to anything tonight."

Theodore grinned. "How about a picnic?" he offered.

"What? A picnic at this time?" I asked, perplexed.

"Unless you have anything better to do..."

"I don't," I confessed.

I did not have anything to do. I had completed my homework since the day before, and I never had any plans in weekends. I was a loner, I know, but you cannot really blame me. You can only blame the assholes I had for classmates. They made it very hard for anyone to be their friend.

"Okay, then we've nothing to lose, do we?"

I stared at Theodore carefully. His green hair was shining with the light of the house, and his grey eyes were pleading. He looked really innocent and cute, and that made it very hard for me to say no. That guy could get away with almost everything.

I sighed. "Fine."

Theodore grinned from ear to ear—not literally, of course, because that would be weird and cartoonish—and walked inside the kitchen. He started looking for meals to take with him, but he could only find ham, cheese, and bread, so he settled with sandwiches.

He prepared a couple of sandwiches and took two small juices from out of the fridge. I handed him one of Mom's baskets, which she often took to the market, and he grabbed it and placed our food inside it.

I had never done anything like that before. I had never randomly left my house at eight P.M. with a guy to have a picnic.

In fact, I had never randomly left my house at night with a guy. Call me boring if you wish, but it certainly was new for me.

I still could not believe that Theodore had managed to convince me to climb that tree, let alone convinced me to have a picnic. The thing was... I did not really like to do random stuff, but Theodore made it kind of fun. He made everything exciting, as though he had a power of persuasion or something.

"The basket is ready for the picnic," Theodore said proudly as he closed the basket and smiled. "The question here is: are you ready for some fun?"