Right Into Place

Thirty-Four

She fixed her hair, not that it helped but it was a nice sight. The excitement on her face never disappeared. "What are you doing here?!"

"It's a nice night for a drive around," I replied. I unlocked the door easily simply by reaching for it with my hand behind my back. "Would have loved to show up with some flowers but —"

Taylor kissed me, taking me by surprise because for some reasons, there was no sign she would. I was simply talking and she was smiling yet here we are. I licked my lips the moment she pulled away, a bright, branded question mark entirely on my face. "Right, so, um. . . inside?"

"Course."

We both went inside the car, Taylor deliberately telling me not to turn the radio on as she might fall asleep with just one melodic song so I didn't. As I slightly expected traffic was there but it wasn't as much of a wreck, in fact it was moving at a considerate pace.

"We have to make a stop though, you know that," said Taylor and I nodded.

Unfortunately for today, she has decided to bring her camera to work and so the rest of the ride consisted of her taking pictures. She asked me if we could go to some mall that had just opened. She wasn't interested in the whole sales, as she said, there was a butterfly garden within and free for entrance and since it's a busy day, it won't be too crowded. Of course, we could go so after taking a quick stop to her apartment where she had changed her clothes.

It was a brief moment of argument about whether or not she would bring her camera to the mall. . . I told her not to but of course, she won again.

"Honestly, if it's up to me we'd be heading down your place," Taylor said, looking through the pictures in her camera while I continued driving.

"You chose the mall," I reminded her, it really was up to her.

"It would be such a long drive and staying in your place overnight?" She paused and right after said, "Okay, that would be a great idea. Would you rather go to your place?"

"We can go to the mall and then my place," I said.

"Okay, that's a better idea."

It was a bit easy to take a new parking spot. I let Taylor lead the way as we talked about her excitement with the butterfly garden and my father's journals.

"He seemed to be really in love with that girl in blue eyes though," Taylor pointed out, probably forgetting the fact that she is blue-eyed as well.

"Yeah, well, him and me both," I mumbled underneath my breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." I acted out innocently as we kept walking. I noticed then that Taylor's hand was holding my arm and I figured, it would have been entirely awful of me to leave her hanging like that. I didn't hold her hand though, not yet.

We separated a bit because of the security as we walked into the mall and when I was already beside her, I didn't let her hold my arm like that. I reached for her hand first, intertwining my fingers with hers and I could swear I saw her smiling.

The butterfly garden she was talking about was unmistakably easy to find as it is in centre of the mall, surrounded by glass that goes up until the ceiling where a green house is at the rooftop. There were various plants and flowers beautifully landscaped like a paradise in the middle of the modern world. There were a fair number of people inside the garden so Taylor told me that we should go to the second floor and we did.

At the second floor, there was an even nicer view of the garden. It has tiny benches fit for children, water falls leading to a tiny river around it with a bridge over for the entrance. I was slightly taken aback by Taylor who hasn't had the thought to take pictures and instead, just watched.