Strings Attached

Chapter Six

I stared at him nervously. I was not used to do that kind of stuff. I wondered if he did it very often.

The most random thing I had ever done was leave my house in the middle of the night to push my thoughts away, but I was not sure that counted as being random or just being weird.

"I..." I turned to see the basket and smiled nervously. "Yeah. Why not?"

Theodore smirked. "That's the attitude, Chris."

***

Maybe picnics were not really my thing, or maybe Theodore's idea of having a picnic in the middle of an empty street was simply ridiculous, but whatever it was, I was not really enjoying myself.

Well, we had just arrived, so that might have something to do with it, but still. Sitting on a blanket on an empty street in an abandoned part of the city was not my idea of fun. Theodore had insisted we drove all the way there, and to top it off, he had insisted that we went wearing our pajamas. I told him I could change, but he insisted that pajamas were way more comfortable than any other clothes, and I could not contradict him because I fully agreed.

Perhaps I should have told him that the park would be a better place to go for a picnic, but knowing Theodore, it would have probably made little to no difference at all. He loved to go to places to which not everyone liked to go. It was Theodore's way of outstanding from the crowd.

I folded my legs and stared at my surroundings.

The sky was already dark, and the fact that the streets were deserted made me more nervous than it should. I felt like it was only a matter of minutes before a serial killer found us and made us his next victims.

I seriously needed to stop overthinking stuff, but if you had seen that street, you would understand. The place was full of abandoned houses, for goodness sake! If that does not freak you out, then nothing does.

"I don't think it was a good idea to come here," I muttered.

"Why not?" asked Theodore. He was clearly enjoying himself.

"It's an abandoned street," I said. "Not exactly the best place to have a picnic at night."

Theodore shrugged. "I think it's interesting. People go to the park to have picnics there because it's what they're expected to do. They're expected to follow social norms to still be a part of society, but why would we need to follow those norms? Norms are boring! Following them will not make us any happier, and society will still not accept us, even if we follow them."

I sighed. "It's not that..." Theodore handed me my sandwich, and I grabbed it. "Thank you," I said.

"Then what is it?" he asked, curious.

I sighed. "This place gives me the creeps. I have always been afraid of abandoned places."

"Really?" he asked, raising one of his eyebrows. "Why would you be? There's no one here who could hurt you because everyone who once lived here already left. There's no one left to hurt you anymore. Shouldn't that give you a little bit of relief?"

I shook my head. "I'm not afraid of anyone's coming here and hurting me," I said.

Theodore crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at me, showing me that he did not believe me at all.

"Okay," I admitted. "Maybe a little. But that's not really what scares me the most about this place.

"Then what is it?" he asked with curiosity.

"It's..." I took a deep breath. Talking about my fears was not easy, especially with someone like Theodore, who seemed to be way braver than me. "It's the fact that they were abandoned that scares me. I'm afraid of being left behind like these houses, of being abandoned and spending the rest of my days in loneliness."