Tear In My Heart ✔️

X. Date Night (edited)

"Babe, where are we going?" I whined for about the tenth time since we'd left my house. I'd been staring outside of the window for almost an hour and I was getting antsy.

"Hon, if I tell you it won't be a surprise," he said with a small smile as he brought our intertwined hands up to his lips. "Pratica un po 'di pazienza, hm? (Practice a little patience, hm?)" He suggested before he kissed the back of my hand. He knew it drove me crazy when he spoke my language, so he strategically used it against me. That boy...

"Fine," I huffed, tugging my hand from his and crossed my arms before I leaned against the window.

"Babe," he whined as he fruitlessly grabbed for my hand, though he knew my childish antics. "Come on, babe. We're almost there. Less than five minutes okay?" He said, offering me his hand. I glanced at him and saw him giving me puppy dog eyes. "Please?"

I looked at his hand then his face then his hand again. I sighed before I reluctantly took his hand. I honestly hated him sometimes. After a few more minutes of driving, he pulled into the parking lot of a park that was mostly empty except for a few people here and there. "Where are we?" I asked as I followed Madison.

"Three towns over," he said, "where no one knows us. Our names. Our lives. Our secrets. It's a blank canvas waiting to be painted on and I've got a rainbow in mind."

"Woah," was all I could say. He planned this out so that we could be ourselves in public without having to worry about who saw us. It was...perfect. "So, if I decided to do this," he said putting his hand in mine, "it wouldn't be such a big deal, would it?" I looked around in order to verify that no one I knew was around before I slowly shook my head. He gave me a reassuring squeeze.

"And what about this?" he asked before his lips met mine in a chaste kiss. As he pulled away my eyes grew wide before they automatically started darting around to make sure that no one saw, surprise still rushing through my system at his sudden action. He chuckled. His dimples were so cute. "Un passo alla volta. Capisco. (One step at a time. I understand.)"

"Don't spring stuff like that on me, Mads," I groaned causing him to laugh once more.

"Come on, we still have much to do," he said before he gently dragged me along. As we walked hand and hand, most people didn't spare us a second glance, but if they did, they either didn't care or didn't show that they did. But I didn't really care about what these people thought.

As Mads led me deeper and deeper through the trees that made up the park, the more I realized that the only reason I didn't show Madison off to my friends like I wanted to was that I was worried about losing them. And even though I knew that if they were truly my friends they wouldn't care, I was too scared to take that risk, as cowardly as it was. But these people meant nothing to me and no matter what they thought, it was easy to be myself around them which felt kind of odd but comforting nonetheless.

After a few moments, we ended up at a frozen yogurt place where we could mix and match our own flavors and toppings. Despite my protests, Madison insisted on paying before walking me over to a bench that overlooked a beautiful pond filled with various fish, ducks, and geese. "How is it?" Madison asked as he slung his arm around my shoulders and moved closer to me.

"Amazing," I gushed. I'd mixed every chocolate option they had and put gummy worms on top. "It tastes like heaven in my mouth. How's yours?" I asked noticing he'd barely had more than two scoops of his.

"I found out the hard way that salted caramel and pistachio frozen yogurt was never meant to be together," he admitted woefully looking at his failed experiment.

"No, it was not," I laughed as I playfully cringed. "Whoever said it was lied to your face."

He frowned. "Can I at least have some of yours?"