Dedicated to skyaxx19 thank you so much for the cover at the top💗
For Lucas and Joey I have a question who should play them: Blake Steven or Jack and Finn Harries?
R.I.P and #NeverForget all those who lost their lives 15 years ago today.
Chapter Thirty Five: "Potato."
HERE IS HOW I managed to go on my date with Lucas.
With a mother like mine who like me, believed that education was important, she gets happy when I go to the library. The length from library to our apartment was literally a walking distance and with the light snow on the ground it wasn't a problem at all. She didn't find that a problem either for me to go.
What also helped was that she had work from ten to six that day so luck was on my side. Lucas was going to pick me up at eleven and I was in the middle of crisis and Wesley wasn't helping at the moment.
"Wear that one." He told me through the screen.
I stared at him and looked down at the shirt. "Are you actually serious? I think I had this when I was eleven. I'm not even sure why it's still in my closet."
"Okay, then what about the one that's hanging? Farthest on the left." He directed me.
"No," I cringed. "In case you haven't noticed, it's cold outside."
"Okay, what about that turtleneck you have? You know the dark purple one? Wear that."
I quickly went over to my closet, practically throwing my clothes behind me like a maniac before I found what Wesley was talking about. "This, this is good."
Wesley sighed in relief, spinning in the chair in his room. "Finally. Are you done now?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I didn't even care that Wesley was looking at me through the screen. I threw on jeans and the turtleneck, turning around for Wesley to look at me. "What do you think?"
"Doesn't matter what I think. What matters is what Lucas thinks. And if he doesn't think you look great then he needs to get his eyes checked."
Not even mentioning how Lucas had an optometrist appointment yesterday, my phone buzzed and I could see the text message. "Okay, he's here."
"Calm down. He's your boyfriend not Batman."
I rolled my eyes at Wesley, throwing on my jacket. "Excuse me for being nervous."
"Okay, okay. But seriously Sydney if your mom finds out-"
"She won't." I assured him. "I just have to be home by five thirty, six the latest. She already thinks I'm going to the library doing something for English so there's a proper reason as to why my boots will leave a puddle of water when I get back. I'm covered."
"Let's hope," He said. "Now, go, leave. Have fun but not too much fun-"
"Who are you, my mother?"
Wesley scowled. "Bitch."
"Love you."
"Love you too." He said with a grin before signing off. I grabbed my keys, leaving my room and the quiet apartment before making my way out. When I had gotten out of the building, I saw Lucas leaning against the car.
A smile came to his face when he spotted me. "I see you're wearing the beanie I gave you."
"I saw it and figured why not."
Lucas nodded, looking at me right in the eyes. "I was right. You do look much better than I do." He opened the door and I went inside the passenger seat.
He closed it and started to jog to the other side of the car. Because Lucas was Lucas he also must have forgotten that considering there was snow on the ground, there must be ice too because he slipped and fell. And it looked pretty painful.
I immediately got out of the car, hearing him groan. I helped him up, wiping the snow off. "Oh my gosh, are you okay?"
Lucas let out a breath, his face pinching in pain as he rolled his shoulders. "Let's never speak about that."
"Agreed." I smiled as we both entered the car.
Once he started driving, I looked over at him. "Okay," Lucas said, glancing at me before looking back at the road. "I'll let you know what we're doing first."
"Which is?"
"Movies. Because I know how much you love them."
"What kind?"
"The scary kind. I want to see if you're actually brave enough to watch them."
"I told you. I love horror movies. They don't scare me but if I laugh at them don't be surprised."
Lucas chuckled before he frowned. "Um...does your mom know about this date?"
She doesn't even know you're my boyfriend. I wanted to say but held back because my next answer probably confirmed everything.
"Not exactly."
"Okay, where does she think you are?"
"At the library."
"For the entire day?"
"I just have to be home by five thirty or six to make it seem like I didn't do anything wrong and technically I didn't do anything wrong." I tried to reason lamely. Lucas shot me a look, taking a left. "I didn't! I told her I was going to the library. Technically that's me going outside. I'm going outside and I just so happen to be with you. Will it make it better if I told her that you just so happened to be at the library and you helped me with English or something?"
Lucas sighed, stopping at a red light. "Sydney, I just don't want to be caught up in a lie."
"She doesn't know I'm dating you either." I blurted out.
"I kind of figured." He said, pressing the gas and the car started to move again.
There was a moment of silence between us and I pressed a hand to my temple, looking out the window at the frost covering the front lawn of the house passing by. "I like you okay? And telling my mom now would just ruin everything that happened between us. I don't like keeping things from her but just this? Okay? For now."
Lucas licked his lips, making a lane change. He gave me a small smile, the kind where his dimples still showed. "I like you too. Probably a lot more than I should. I mean, did you see me just wipeout in front of you?"
I laughed and Lucas took one hand off of the wheel encasing, his glove covered hand with mine. "But you're going to tell her one day right?"
"Yeah, yeah, I will." Hopefully when I graduate if Lucas and I are still together by then.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back row.
Popcorn in my hand.
Lucas had a package of Twizzlers in his hand.
There was some girl screaming on the screen when some demon thing popped out at her. I held back laughter not only at the stupid scene on the screen but at Lucas. He was wide eyed behind his glasses, chewing on the Twizzlers like it was his last meal and flinched ever so slightly.
Plus, every time the girl or someone screamed on the screen he squeezed my hand a little too tightly.
I'm pretty sure Lucas had no idea what the hell he was doing especially when he put an arm around me so now when he flinched my entire body felt it. I leaned into his body, the armrest and cup holder connecting our chairs the only uncomfortable barrier. I let go of his hand to grab the drink between us, taking a sip of the Coke as I kept my eyes on the screen.
The demon thing popped out on the screen, scaring two of the girls. They shrieked loudly, trying to run away while I in reality was failing to hold in my laughter.
Lucas looked down at me bewildered. "Are you actually laughing?" he whispered.
"Yeah," I let out quiet laughter again, bringing my feet up on the back of chair in the row below. "I don't understand this. You play the most graphic and violent video games I have ever seen in my life but you actually get scared at horror movies?"
"That's different," Lucas tried to argue with me in hushed tones. "You flinch whenever you see what I'm playing yet you're laughing when a girl is...getting her head chopped off. What the hell did I pick?"
"It's so predictable," I whispered to him. "Look, any second now the stupid demon is not going to appear in that closet but he's going to stab the guy in the back once the camera turns to the angle of the guy's face. Watch okay?"
Lucas focused on the screen and I didn't even look at it. I was looking at him, waiting for his reaction. When the suspenseful music started up again (for the 100th times) and exactly what I had said played out, Lucas almost dropped his bag of Twizzlers, inhaling sharply.
I held a hand to my mouth trying to stop my laughter even when we were exiting the movie theater at the mall they had in this town. Lucas was pouting, his hand in mine. "Stop laughing. You're making me feel embarrassed."
"Why?"
"Because you were so calm and collected during the entire movie and-"
"You almost pissed your pants?" I suggested, laughing really hard.
I could hear Lucas mutter a 'be quiet' as I shrugged my jacket back on when we headed outside. "Where to next?"
Lucas shivered. "I'm still recovering from that movie."
I rolled my eyes, stepping to the side so I could cup his face with my hands. "Okay, look at me."
"Uh-huh." Lucas blinked, staring right at me with his wide eyes.
"What you saw on there was not real. Repeat after me: It was not real."
"It was not real." Lucas imitated slowly.
I let go of his face. "Good. Whatever we're doing next, I'm paying."
"No, I absolutely refuse for you to do that."
"Why not?" I asked when we entered his car in the parking lot. Lucas exited the mall, getting back on the road. "You paid for the movie and the popcorn. Let me pay for whatever we're doing next."
"Okay, two choices. It's almost one and you have to be home before six. So, do you want to eat first or go to the next place?"
"Next place." I instantly said.
"Okay, it's going to take twenty or thirty minutes-depending on snow and traffic to get there since it's in the town over but we'll be back for the third thing. By the way, neither of us have to pay, okay?"
"Okay." I said slowly, while grabbing the aux cord.
Lucas snatched it out of my hand, laughing as he made his way onto another road. "Nope, nope I had to bear your music on the wedding day. You get to bear mine today."
I huffed. "Fine."
Lucas grinned and handed me his phone. I hooked it up to the core, scrolling through his songs. "What the hell?" I exclaimed when I saw something.
"What?" He glanced at me quickly before focusing on the road.
"I remember a couple months ago when you told me you liked listening to songs that don't just talk about love, sex or drugs."
"And?"
"You see this song, by the 1975 is LITERALLY CALLED 'SEX'." I told him, practically shoving the phone in his face.
Lucas moved my hand down, accelerating the car a little faster. He scratched the back of his neck, keeping his eyes on the road. "That's an exception."
"Of many." I muttered, looking down at the list of songs on his phone. "Were you trying to act 'fake deep' with me when you were telling me things that day?"
Lucas put a hand over his chest. "I don't think as an artist I can be 'fake deep."
I scoffed. "Excuse me? These songs are a perfect example of you being fake deep." I looked through more of his list and almost dropped his phone, laughing. "You have the song I was playing the other day."
He sighed, leaning back in his seat but I could see the corners of his lips tugging up in a smile. "Don't."
"Why not? I swear you told me this song was garbage, you hypocrite." I dragged out the last word of sentence, taunting him to a point where his cheeks turned red.
"It wasn't that bad." Lucas mumbled and I instantly put it on, singing really badly and loudly. I was so sure that at the amplitude I was going at, the people in the cars that passed by us could hear us.
But when I saw Lucas mumbling the words under his breath like I couldn't hear. I don't know why, but something in me got really excited when I noticed that and shook his arm. "Holy shit, you know the words!"
Lucas laughed, a sound I liked a lot as we both sang the entire song, him drumming his fingers against the steering wheel as he drove and me half laughing because him actually singing a song I liked was unbelievable.
The entire ride consisted of this until we pulled up to church like building. When we got out of the car he pulled me along to the entrance, opening the door to the building. There was a small amount of people scattered along the huge place where walls were put up everywhere, connecting to different corridors.
When Lucas was talking to someone I figured was the manager of the place, it was then I noticed where we actually were. "You took me to an art museum?"
Lucas nodded, taking my hand. "It's just a small one with replicas of art wonders in the world and some others. They took the art students here in grade nine and for some reason I keep finding my way back. The supervisor of the place lets me come in for free sometimes."
"Wow. I could see why you like it here." I told him, glancing up at the patterns on the ceilings and the different chandeliers in every corridor.
He pulled us over to one section. "This here is the abstract part of the museum." We walked over to one of the paintings, standing behind a velvet line. I looked at the painting as close as I could, confused about what it truly was.
"What is it?"
"It's a replica of a self portrait. Pablo Picasso, who is seen as a dominant figure in the art world, made this self portrait of himself at 90."
"It's so complex." I said quietly.
My head turned to Lucas whose own head was tilted to the side. "Why do you do that?"
"Sometimes you need to change your angle to see things at a different point of view." He gave me a small smile, grabbing my hand as we moved onto many other art pieces.
And I listened to Lucas tell me all he could tell me about most of the paintings in the museum and it was incredible. The way he spoke about each painting and the admiration in his eyes made me smile more than I probably should've and he noticed.
"Why are you smiling?" He asked.
I didn't answer. Instead I looked at where we were near the exit the led to another part of the building. "Maybe one day your paintings will be hung here or even a huge museum in another part of the world."
"Maybe I'll draw you. And you'll have a section of your own in the midst of all this." He gave me a small smile and I froze not expecting him to say that. Once I had regained the words out of my mouth, I coughed awkwardly and Lucas laughed, squeezing my hand in his grip gently. "C'mon, let's get something to eat."
It took quiet arguments at the counter over who would pay and after I had almost snatched the money out of Lucas' hand and replaced it with my own, I won. I don't think it's fully got into my head that Lucas actually likes me and is actually what Greg had once told me over text that Lucas is 'smitten' with me.
"You know something?" I asked Lucas, putting my jacket on the chair I was sitting on.
"What?" He put his own jacket on his seat, showing the plaid blue shirt he was wearing underneath.
"We always talk about where I want to go in the future as a dancer but I haven't heard where you want to go in the future...as an artist."
Lucas cupped his hands over his latte where I could see the heart in the middle of the drink almost identical to one in my own. He took a careful sip and when he put the cup down I could see the milk-coffee mustache above his upper lip. "I have different options."
"Like?" I urged him to explain, grabbing a napkin and handing it to him.
Lucas looked at me confused and I laughed, wiping the skin above his upper lip and he grinned. "Thanks. Um...there's a lot. There are these art schools in different parts of the world. Some here in Canada that I could take with great programs, great places to intern or just work at to expand my knowledge about other great artists. I was considering some in America and started applying. And there's others in Asia and Europe that look really good to me but I'm just applying, it's not like I got in yet. Don't want to get my hopes up."
"I know what you mean." I said quietly and moment of silenced passed through us. It was then I realized that Lucas and I could possibly go separate ways whether we're together in the future or not.
I let out a breath, trying not to get caught up in that thought when Lucas stretched his hand over to me and encased my hand with his. "Forget about the future for five seconds and let's talk about never watching a horror movie as a date again."
"But I love horror movies." I complained, laughing as I remember the frightened look on his face.
"But I don't," Lucas whined, eating a part of his sandwich like it was dirt. He looked outside and I did too. It was snowing. Light flaky snowflakes outside the window where they stuck to the ground and melted only to be piled with another snowflake. "I can't believe its December in two days."
"Same." I murmured, looking at the ground.
Tearing my eyes from outside I looked over at Lucas as he was chewing frantically on a piece of his sandwich. He was drawing on a napkin quickly and I stared at him in confusion. "Where did the pencil come from?"
Lucas glanced up at me, giving me a small smile. "I always carry one."
"What are you drawing?"
"Sketching," He corrected, keeping his eyes down on the napkin that he was quickly outlining on. "I'm sketching you."
"What?" My heart pounded against my chest hard at what he said like what's been doing for the entire day.
"Yeah," He almost whispered and I could barely hear him through the buzz of conversation around the place, people coming in from the small museum. "Here."
He slid the napkin over to me and I looked down at the sketch of myself. That beanie on my head, my thick curly hair around me and ending almost at the middle of my back. There was a smile on my face as my gaze was on the window and even though Lucas did this in a couple of minutes, I could see the little details he paid attention to on my face. He even managed to add the beauty mark I had on my cheek.
"Wow. How did you manage to do this so quickly?"
"It's just a rough draft," Lucas tried to explain.
"Yeah but still." I mumbled, looking down at the napkin again. It's as if he's done it before over and over again.
Lucas laughed nervously, rolling up the sleeves of his plaid shirt. "I'll explain it to you another day."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Where are we going?" I asked Lucas, watching as he drove on a bridge.
"Just wait, okay? Devin and Jane know about this but you can't tell anyone got it?"
"I won't tell anyone if you won't tell me where we're going."
"Canada girl have some patience."
"I'm in a car with a guy I call Turtle. I think I have enough patience." I told him and he laughed and the second he was off the bridge he went off to another road connected to the one under the bridge.
"We're not that far from your apartment actually. It's not far from school."
I stared ahead, watching the snow that had been falling all day finally stop as Lucas went along the road if the bridge before stopping at a local store. When he parked the car in the parking lot, we both got out and he came over to my side, grabbing my hand. "You took me to Wal-mart?"
"No." He laughed.
"Because I remember Devin saying that you don't even go into-"
"I go to Wal-mart. I know they have things for low prices," Lucas defended himself, almost pouting. "We're just not going today, alright? I'm taking you somewhere else. C'mon."
He pulled me along, away from the crowded parking lot at Walmart and instead off towards the direction of the long bridge where trees were by the road. Maneuvering through the woods, he stopped at a snow covered old metal door but I couldn't find the handle to open it.
He glanced at me, smiling big and I looked back at him before turning back to the door. "Okay..."
Lucas scoffed stepping forward and kneeling, digging his hand in a pile of snow and he pulled, the metal door opening with a creak. I stared at it as it opened, looking at the dim lighting and the wide set of stairs that led to the bottom. "A door with a knob at the bottom of it. How efficient."
"C'mon." He led me down the dark stairs and I slowly walked down them as he moved ahead, closing the door behind us.
As the dim lighting got brighter in a familiar looking hallway once the stairs ended I looked around. "Is this a subway?"
"Yeah," Lucas answered. "It used to be around when the town used to be much bigger. Now it isn't used and it's been forgotten about but some people still use it."
"For what?" I asked just when we were about to turn and I heard voices, people singing softly and some other people talking and the sound of laughter.
"For this. They call it the art tunnel." He said quietly as I finally got to see what was happening.
"Whoa." I said under my breath. People, most of them teenagers and one or two teenagers I recognize from school were around. Most of them stood on the upper platform, painting random things on the walls where tunnels stretched farther than I could even see. I watched a guy jump down into the ditch where I knew subway trains would usually go and sit down with a bunch of other people who were sitting down the midst of it, laughing , some eating and some drinking.
The walls were amazing though. I could see different murals and even caricatures on the ceiling expressing different things. Although the lighting was practically falling off of the ceiling and the tiles on some of the walls were chipped away, I could tell that the people down here treated it like a type of home to them.
"I know." Lucas mumbled to me, as a random guy came up to us.
"Hey Lucas," The guy said before glancing down at me. "Who's this?"
"Sydney. This is Sydney."
The guy eyed me. "Girlfriend?" Lucas nodded and the guy grinned. "Cool. Cool. Sydney, what do you think about society?"
"Um," I was probably looking at the guy wide eyed and nervous because I swallowed really hard at that bizarre question. "Society...is, uh, okay?"
I could see the guy think about my answer before he put his hands out as if doing a demonstration. "Think about this. Society is like a potato."
"A potato." Lucas repeated like the guy was an idiot and I was starting to think he was.
"Yes, a potato. And you can do many things to a potato. You can make fries out of it and with those fries, you can add salt. But adding too much salt can hurt your cholesterol levels and hurt your body. Like our society. Too much salt can hurt our society. You know what I mean man?"
Lucas slowly put his arm around me, pulling me towards him as he nodded to the guy. "Yeah, yeah we know what you mean. See you later."
The guy grinned, giving us thumbs up before he jumped off the platform, joining the people below.
"Interesting people down here." I said, looking up at Lucas.
"Yeah interesting acquaintances." He agreed as we walked past a couple of people. Some of them said hey to Lucas and he nodded towards them in acknowledgment.
"You don't consider them your friends?"
Lucas shook his head. "No, you said it before and I realized what you meant. I'm not open. I'm reserved. And I think I do that these days because I realized that having smaller friends means there are less trust issues. You know? Like how they say it's good to keep your circle small."
I nodded, understanding. "What about when you lived in England? Back in Bath? Did you have a small group of friends back then?"
Lucas scoffed, moving us past another group of people along the long abandoned subway. "Um...no. It was always Joey and I but we had even not our friends together but separately we had a lot of friends or other kids we called friends. I think it took me a while when I moved here to realize that they weren't really friends. I learned that it takes a lot for me to call someone my friend."
"Wow as a friend I take that as a compliment."
"You're no longer just a friend Canada girl," He said stopping in front of a empty paint less part of a wall where the tiles were gone and I could see just bricks or some type of building material underneath. "You're more than that."
I smiled, trying to hide the huge grin on my face and glancing down at the cans on the ground and the people around us, blasting music. I picked one up, looking at the graffiti walls around here. "This is so cool. How did you find it?"
"In ninth grade. There was this grade twelve artist and he kind of took me on as a protégée. Take in that I didn't know anyone at Hamilton and specific people got in and other people from different parts of Canada come to our town just to let their kid get a grasp of art in any shape. Anyway, he showed me this place and I come here all the time and get to talk to strangers about different things, you know? Some of the people here aren't even from our town. They just come because the vibe this place brings."
I looked around, hearing the echoing sound of a group of people laughing and in the ditch below there were a group of people singing really badly but laughing as they did so letting everyone know they were joking. Behind Lucas I watched two guys spray paint words in a sick formation, talking to one another as if they've known each other forever.
"This place makes anyone feel like-like they belong."
Lucas nodded in certainty. "Exactly. It makes you feel like you're in the same zone as everyone else here. Some people from Hamilton know about this place but no else ever checks in here. You could be a dancer or singer but trust me when I say that you'll find your place here."
"Why do you I have a feeling like you aren't just talking about this art tunnel?"
"Because I'm not. Because I know that even after spending some months at Hamilton, you still believe that you don't belong there. But you do. You really do. If anything you don't just belong. You're more than that."
When he said that I believed it. I really did. And it made me step forward and kiss him softly on the lips, not holding back. Lucas froze before he relaxed his arms wrapping around my body as he pulled me closer to him.
And I was happy no one paid us any attention as I held his hands around his neck. He tasted like coffee that he had drank before we got here but also like juicy fruit the gum I knew he was obsessed with chewing and always had handy.
With my heart beating so fast Lucas pulled away, his cheeks red and I knew it wasn't from the cold. "I really..."
"Really what?" I asked with narrow eyes.
"Want to do that a lot." He finished and the both of us laughed loudly as he rubbed a hand over his eyes, looking embarrassed by his confession.
"Same." I blurted out quickly, rolling my lips into my mouth.
"Wow," Lucas took a deep breath. "We really are awkward."
"We are." I agreed and we made eye contact, the both of us laughing again.
"Lucas c'mon man. Graffiti with me," The guy from before came over to us, breaking us apart as he picked up a can. "You too Sydney. You can start on this. I have an idea. Let's make a potato. It can represent our sick and twisted society and then we could add the salt for effect."
Even though I had just met this guy and had no idea what his name was I couldn't help but laugh loudly at how weird his metaphor was. I locked eyes with Lucas as he tossed a can at me and I caught it, the both of us grinning at each other.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Wow so many pictures of today." I looked down at my iPhone camera roll . "Who knew potato guy could take pictures?"
Lucas laughed, turning onto the street of where I lived. "Are you going to send them to me so I could post them on Instagram like I know you are going to?"
I rolled my eyes at that. Mary Anne made me an account days ago and I remember myself looking through Lucas' feed a lot.
"Yeah," I mocked. "And you can tag me on your pictures and put the caption as something as cheesy like-"
"She thought the art was pretty but I thought she was prettier." Lucas said dramatically and we both started laughing.
"Yeah like that."
"I might actually put that though." He teased and my jaw almost fell open at that sentence.
Through the entire day I saw the Lucas I saw more of without people around. How he actually acted when he was comfortable with people. Awkward but playful and funny and a whole bunch of other things I had figured out over the time I had met him.
"Next thing you know we'll be changing our bios to the day we got together." I said.
"You mean when people put that date with a lock making others think that they put their locker combo on their bios?"
"Yeah." We laughed again as he pulled over to the side of my apartment.
"I had fun today. A lot." I said to him when we were out of the car, him leaning against it.
"Good," He grinned, turning to me. "That was my intentions even though you kissed me before I could kiss you today."
"I haven't left. You still have a chance."
"Always making me feel like idiot Canada girl."
"Not intentionally." I tried to defend but that slipped my mind when Lucas kissed me.
And this. Him kissing me even if it was just for a second was something I could never get used to and I was suddenly really hot underneath the jacket I was wearing.
When Lucas pulled away trying to catch his breath, I could see him grin. "Well...does that mean I'll be able to put my locker combination on my Instagram bio?"
"Bye Turtle." I smiled.
"Bye Canada girl." He said.
When I got upstairs, taking my boots off and putting them at the corner just as I expected my mom wasn't home yet and I let out a huge breath happy that she only called once today to check up on me and that was when I went to the bathroom at the art museum.
I quickly went over to my room, heading over to my window as I waved at Lucas to let him know I was upstairs. I could see him wave back before getting in his car and driving off.
My mom had come home, asking me about the library while I was making dinner, I knew I was good. But after all that and I was almost heading to bed, feeling a little tired, Wesley called me.
"What?" I asked him once I had answered the call.
"I see that your lover boy has tagged you in a picture. He took you to an art museum? Did you see the caption by the way? It says he thought you were prettier than the art. You're boyfriend's so corny it disgusts me but I'm happy for you. And there's another picture where you guys are like standing in front of graffiti. Is that a potato? Where the fuck did he take you? Sydney bro you're-"
"Wesley, calm down." I told him, lying down on my bed. "I'll tell you everything."
"Okay good," He said. "But besides the picture, did you see his bio?"