Dedicated to nora_serreqi for her comments, support and her suggestion for a recap. Thank you so much. ♥
There is no recap in this chapter because I didn't need for it in this chapter but I'll include a short recap in the next chapters. =)
Anyway, read and enjoy. I hope you like it!
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Have you ever woken up feeling like you have no idea where you are, who you are or heck which year you are in? I have. I was comprehensively submerged in a dreamless sleep, when something vibrating under my feet woke me up.
Rubbing my eyes, I plucked my phone which was stuck between the fold where the headrest and the seating of the couch met.
It was a text. But as soon as I started to read, the battery went dead.
Just my luck.
I tossed it back, and pulled the blanket closer to me. The concrete driveway was wet indicating that another pour had washed down not long ago but now after a long while, the sky looked free from heavy clouds. There was still no sign of sun but at least the freedom from greyness was a good thing.
"A penny for your thoughts? Five bucks if they are dirty."
"Sorry, my thoughts aren't that cheap," I retorted, twisting my body to face the door of the house, where Daniel was leaning against the frame. His hair was falling on his forehead and his eyes twinkling, making his boyish charm obvious. The white shirt he had yesterday was creased and now he looked much casual than before.
He smirked and wiggled his eyebrows.
"So they were dirty. You dreamed about me, didn't you? I expected more from you, butterfly." He shook his head in disapprobation.
"Just when I think you couldn't get any more cocky, you just glide in and prove me wrong," I countered, clicking my tongue.
"Oh, you poor child, was that a comeback? Have you learned nothing from me?" he answered back, glibly.
I rolled my eyes at him. "I thought you must have left."
"And left you out here? Alone?" He asked incredulously. "By the way, don't make it a habit of sleeping outside. It's not safe."
"I won't," I answered quickly. "So where did you sleep?"
"I didn't. I just sat and stared at you. I like watching you sleep. It's fascinating," he replied, shrugging with mock seriousness.
"So you are finally embracing your Edward Cullen persona," I said, aghast, and it earned a chuckle from him. "No, but seriously. Did you sleep at all?"
"I did. In your room. Right after I looked through all your cabinets," he replied and my eyes went wide. "Oh, and by the way your notebook with Mrs. Norah Cohen scribbled all over is kind of creepy. Don't you think?"
Making a dead pan face, I picked up a cushion from the couch and threw at him but of course he caught it with no problem.
"Is this gonna be your behavior after we get married? Domestic violence?" He questioned, hysterically. "Fine! I'm taking our kids and leaving. They are not going to grow up in a house where their parents fight all the time!"
"You're an idiot, Daniel," I stated, giving him a disapproving look. "And by the way, I don't have any such notebook."
"So you say but I saw what I saw," he nimbly argued.
I scoffed and my eyes fell to his phone lying on the wooden patio chair.
"You slept on that, didn't you?" I pointed towards the chair.
He nodded.
"Your neck must be killing you then," I remarked, feeling a little bad for him.
"Yeah, but you can always give me a massage, you know," he suggested, seriously.
"In your dreams, Chico." I snorted.
"First of all, I am no Chico and second of all, how did you know that's what I dreamed about?" He asked with a bewildered expression.
"I know everything," I gloated, pushing the blanket off me. "Anyway, what time is it?"
"Around eleven."
My body jolted in panic. "What?! Eleven?! I overslept?! I never oversleep! Why didn't you wake me up?"
"I tried to." He held up his hand. "But you threatened to gut me like a fish and then you tried to kiss me like crazy and said some really dirty things."
"If I wasn't already late to school, I would've thought of a nice comeback." I frantically pulled my hair up. Daniel didn't look like he was even slightly in a hurry to go anywhere. "Aren't you supposed to be hurrying up too?"
"Oh, I am suspended for today," he answered easily, not giving a toss. "For you know, beating up your wuss of a boyfriend."
"Just one day?" I repeated.
"You sound disappointed," he noted with a sarcastic smile.
Waving off his expression, I clarified, "I'm not. It's just people get suspended for atleast two days for fighting on school grounds."
"Yes, they do but what they don't have to do is join the freaking stupid Computer club as a punishment too," Daniel complained, groaning. "Damn my father and that stupid Principal."
"Aw, you little geek. Finally getting to hang out with your kind of people," I teased. "However, I didn't know that we had a computer club in our school."
"No one does. And you know you should definitely see the kind of people in the group. They talk about Comic Con and their TI-83s. And that's not even the worst part! What's even more scary is that they do it in Klingon!" He faked a shudder.
"Can't be that bad," I commented and then I remembered that I was supposed to run. "You've distracted me once again! I'm getting late."
In reply, I just got a lazy smirk. "Again? Means I distract you often?"
I crossed my arms with a 'not impressed look' on my face.
"Okay, that's scary," he leaned back with a mortified expression. "So anyway, it's already past eleven. Just skip rest of the day."
"I can't do that," I answered at his absurd suggestion.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't miss school."
"There's always a first time for everything, butterfly," Daniel remarked. "You still look like my dead aunt Joelle. Take a day off, get some rest."
"Have you ever realized you've an unhealthy obsession with dead people and their bodies?" I asked, plopping back on the couch.
His face became grim. "When you have the curse of seeing dead people, you are bound to get obsessed about them."
I rolled my eyes at his stupidity. "So you're into necromancy too?"
He gasped, hurt. "I didn't choose this lifestyle, Norah! I was born this way!"
I didn't know whether he did the Lady Gaga reference deliberately or it was just random, but it still made me laugh.
"You certainly are a piece of work, Daniel."
"Why thank you. I'm glad my problems work as a source of amusement to you." He put a hand on his heart, looking offended. "So you've decided to spend this day with the one and only, amazing me?"
"Eh, I still feel a little sleepy so I could use a day off, I guess," I answered but there was still a guilt nagging in my brain for skipping school.
Nodding, Daniel settled down on one of the chairs and I noticed something in his hand.
"What are you doing with that?" I asked, referring to the box of jigsaw puzzle now lying in his lap.
"Oh there's a really cool recipe I saw on the food network. It's called 'crispy puzzles' and I thought I should try it," he explained and I made an impassive face. "It's a puzzle. What do you think I'm going to do with it?"
"Where did you find it?" I asked, ignoring his sarcasm again.
"It was on your table. I was getting bored seeing you sleep so I went inside to find some coffee and found it," he enthusiastically remarked.
"Dork!" I sang.
"Don't care!" he sang back. "So wanna do it together?"
"Alright." I slid down to the ground to reach on the level of the small wooden table. "I didn't even know I had a puzzle set."
"But as you can see." Taking off the lid from the box, he inverted it making all the pieces to topple one over another on the table.
The picture on the lid was of an English style cottage and we immediately started to assemble it together in silence but after a few minutes, it was beginning to get more confusing to know which part belonged where.
"This is really tough," I complained. "It will take us years to sort these thousand pi-"
My words were barricaded in my mouth as I looked over Daniel's direction and saw that he had already put together a large number of pieces together and judging by the picture, it looked like he was doing it right.
"Nerd!" I reiterated. Shifting his gaze from the puzzle to me, he pouted adorably.
"What? I am good at puzzles," he stated, shrugging and went back to the work in hand.
It was kind of nice to see him engrossed in anything, even if it was just a puzzle.
I was still pretty much staring at him when his voice made me realize me realize what I was doing. "I know that I'm in no position to ask question but I really need to ask you something."
"It's not a give and take thing, Daniel," I clarified. "You can ask what you want to."
He turned his body to face me better. "Why are you always alone? I know that your mom...I mean where's your dad and your..."
He didn't finish his question. He didn't need to. Both of us knew what was being asked.
Chewing my lower lip, I directed my eyes downwards. "My dad is in New York right now and Emma..." I felt my words being blocked but nonetheless, I tried to continue, "um, she...she passed away three years ago."
I wasn't looking at him but yet I can tell the change that had been brought in his demeanor.
"How?" he asked in a whisper.
This was it. Either I could tell him that it was an accident, which was what everybody thought. Or I could tell him the truth, which nobody knew.
And I don't know why but I really wanted to confide in him.
"Deliberately drove her car off a bridge and drowned within ten minutes of it," I explained and felt so foreign to say those words out loud. It was one thing that only I knew about it and it was another to tell someone else. And to my surprise, I actually felt relieved to finally share a little part of the secret with someone.
"And I lied about my mom's death," he muttered more to himself than me. "I'm such an ass!"
I chuckled. "It's okay, you didn't know."
"But I should have! I've known about you for eight years. This is the kind of thing I should have noticed. I always assumed she still lived with your grandparent."
That took me by surprise. "How do you even know that she lived with my grandparents?"
"Eight years is enough to know these kind of things," he answered and then some realization hit his mind and that showed on his face. "That's why you moved away for an year."
I exhaled. "Yep, that's why. We stayed over at my grandpa's for two months after..um..but just after a week of coming back here, my mom moved out so my dad and I moved back to his parent's house. Almost at the end of the tenth grade, my dad got offered a huge job so we finally moved back here again and that's it," I explained trying to explain everything in just one go.
I raised my gaze and found him drowned in his thoughts.
"How come no one knows about this?" He asked, finally breaking the silence.
I shrugged. "I don't know. My parents are very private people, so I guess that's why we didn't tell anybody. Plus, my grandfather didn't want everyone to sensationalize the whole 'why was a fourteen year old allowed to drive on her own' topic so he influenced the local media of his town not to highlight the news much."
I expected him to say he was sorry or something. I mean that was the standard protocol, right? That's what everyone told me at her funeral but instead he picked up my hand and held it up in his.
My heartbeat instantly picked up and dared not to look back in his eyes because I knew they would be boring into mine.
"I really wish I had something to say that can make things right for you," he crooned and a half smile made its way to my face.
"You don't need to. It has been three years. I'm fine now," I assured him and to support it I put up a bright smile and it was a real one.
He nodded with a blue expression, my hand still in his and I mentally prayed that he wouldn't let it go. The warmth was nice, kind and comforting and even though it made me sound a little pathetic, it made my heart twitch in a strange happiness.
"So are you gonna help me with my side?" I groaned, scowling at the jumbled pieces of puzzles. "This is harder than Chinese algebra!"
"I would've made a 'that's what she said' joke but that would just be too easy." He shook his head, smirking.
"Good thing you didn't," I remarked, scrunching up my nose.
He chuckled at my face and then stretched his arm over to my side, and started to compile the pieces for left segment of the picture.
It didn't took us much time to complete the puzzle but it might be due to the fact that he did all the work basically while kept throwing 'nerd' comments at him. He didn't retorted with many comebacks, just a soft glares here and there or a few stern looks.
"I'm really hungry. I will go look for something to eat," Daniel told me, getting up from the floor. "Though there's more chance of finding food on moon than in your kitchen."
I rolled my eyes, which I had been doing a lot lately.
"You make me sound like a hobo." I frowned with narrowed eyes. "I'm sure there's something you can find."
I got up too, straightening my shirt. That made me notified that I was still wearing yesterday's clothes that had a stench of smoke all over them.
"Feel free to explore my fridge. I'll be back in a minute," I told him and before he could even nod as a reply, I was already running up the stairs. My school bag was still lying in the hallway, with my belongings scattered on the floor.
I quickly scooped everything in my arms and opening the door, I threw them on my bed and went inside my bathroom to grab a shower after locking the door of my room from inside.
No need to enact those horrible cliche 'towel' scenes in real life. My personal nightmare.
Even though I had planned for a quick one, it still took me over twenty minutes to shower. I blamed it on my sudden urge to sing in the bathroom.
Putting my wet hair in a really sloppy ponytail, I left my room and the sound of an on going conversation hit my ears.
Curious and a little confused, I peered, leaning, supported by the banister. I noticed that the couch had been moved back inside.
"So I am supposed to believe you?" A voice questioned.
"Yes, sir," Daniel's reply came.
I hurriedly ran towards the kitchen area.
"Dad?"
"Your one and only," he answered back happily and then brought up a pissed off look on his face, however it wasn't aimed towards me, but Daniel who was sitting on the bar stool, looking a little nervous with a bowl of cereal in front of him.
"Were you trying to play cop on him?" I asked, hopping on an empty stool.
"Oh please kid! I haven't even started the third degree yet," he replied, setting another bowl on the counter.
"Thank god, you did grocery!" I exclaimed ,dramatically.
"I did, but that's not the most immediate topic in hand," he said in his stern 'fatherly' tone. "Care to explain why you aren't explain at school?"
I opened my mouth to say something but his inquiry wasn't over yet.
"Do you know what's the first thing that comes to mind when you try to call your teenage daughter but her phone comes switched off, and when you come home you expect her to be at school but instead she's at home, and of course there's a teenage boy with her too?" He asked in just a single breath. Both, Daniel and I, were left speechless. "Do ya?"
"That she is completely fine and you have nothing to worry about?" I offered up an answer.
"No." He shot me an incredulous look. "That's not what a father's mind thinks!"
"Then relax your 'father's mind' cause there is absolutely nil, nada, zero need to worry," I tried to clarify, and filled up my spoon with the honey loops swimming in milk.
"So tell me what exactly was happening here 'cause I am lost." Dad huffed a sigh, rubbing his forehead.
"Nothing happened here. My phone was dead so that's why I didn't see your calls and then nothing we did puzzle," I said, leaving out the events of last night knowing that it would just stress him out.
Daniel shot me side glance and I replied with a 'just stay quiet' look.
"Puzzles?" Dad pondered. "Is it a new slang or something? For doing the deed?"
My eyeballs threatened to pop out of their socket and play bouncy balls on the floor.
Daniel faked a cough but went back to his bowl of cereal, using it as a means of distraction.
"No! Dad, why would you think that?" I asked, my face becoming red as a lava.
But Dad didn't look much bothered so he shrugged. "Cause you know part A goes into part B and-"
Dad didn't get to finish his explanation because Daniel started chocking and coughing on his cereal.
"Are you alright, boy?" dad asked, handing him a glass of water.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Daniel muttered, still coughing, and I couldn't tell whether he was petrified or laughing.
This. Was. So. Embarrassing.
"I really need to figure out this whole emancipation thing," I mumbled, staring at the floor.
"I heard that!" dad sang.
"Good!"
"Um...this has been interesting but now I think it's time for me to leave," Daniel said and stood up from the stool. "It was nice to meet you, sir."
"If we would have met in some other circumstances, I would have said the same thing," dad replied, unaffected by what he had just said.
"I'll see you later. Bye," he said and just waved him weakly.
I heard the door open and then a click signaled its closing.
"Okay, what the hell was that?" I asked, annoyed. "Now he thinks we Bishops are a group of crazies!"
"But we ARE a little crazy," dad proclaimed.
"Ya, but he didn't need to know that!" I asserted, horrified.
"Oh, relax kid. You're going a pop a vein or something," he waved me off. "And you brought this on yourself. You shouldn't have missed school and brought a boy over."
I really wanted to whack my head against the marble counter.
"I was feeling a little off today so I took a day off. And I promise we did nothing. Don't you trust me?"
The change that came on his face was instant. He was probably thinking about yesterday.
"I shouldn't have left you alone, yesterday," dad whispered, a stark contrast to his carefree voice earlier.
"Dad, I'm old enough to take care of myself," I said, lightly. "Anyway, so I was saying that you don't need to worry about...me and Daniel...like ever."
"Good, because I'm not going to be that useless father on '16 and pregnant'," he commented, waving his hands in air dramatically. "And that applies to you and your boyfriend too."
And then an idea popped in my mind.
"Hey, dad can you keep a secret?" I asked, still dubious if I should tell him or not.
"I can keep a secret better than Alison Montgomery," he boasted, puffing out his chest, proudly.
My dad: out of this world.
"A. It's Alison DiLaurentis, B. Your knowledge of that show is quite disturbing and C..." I paused to prepare myself for the disclosure, "Sebastian's gay."
"Umm okay. What?" He nothing but yelled.
"Yeah."
"How long has he known that?"
I sifted through my memory. "For like six years or something."
"So he strung you along and now he has the audacity of telling you this?" He was getting angrier with every second.
"No, I knew about it from the start. We never actually dated," I made an hasty attempt to clear up the confusion. "He already has a boyfriend."
A look of being utter perplexed replaced the anger on his face. "Why?"
"It's a long story," I said. "Come on, let's watch cat videos on Youtube together and I'll explain it to you during that."
"My head hurts," dad mumbled. "I need to sit down."
"Go get some rest on the couch. I'll bring my laptop down," I instructed my dad and walked out of the kitchen, taking the bowl of now soggy honey loops with me.
So that's how we both spent our afternoon. First it was cat videos, then some music videos which we sang along to, horribly of course, and at last somehow we reached a video of Russian version of 'How I met your mother'. That was pretty much the sign that we were too full on videos for today so we both receded back to our rooms.
While dad listened to some old blues song in his room, I sat surrounded by my books, trying to catch up with the work that I had missed during my sulking phase.
I was done by the time the twenty first hour of the day started. Stacking up all my books neatly on my desk, I had just switched on the TV when my phone started flashing on the charging dock.
I rolled off the bed to attend the incoming call.
I felt nervous as soon as I saw the caller ID.
"Tell me you can't be missing me already," I said, without any preamble.
"Oh, butterfly, I started missing you the second I walked out of your door," he replied back.
And there was something in his voice. Something like he was feeling a little down. I didn't know how I sensed it so quickly but I did. And that something immediately made me feel anxious too.
"What's wrong?" I asked, forgetting what he had said.
"Why would you think something is wrong?" he questioned back and that strange thing in his voice returned.
"Something is wrong, isn't it?" I whispered into the phone.
The sound of him sighing met my ear. "Tell you what. Come out of your house. Let's go for a walk."
I didn't expect him too say that. "What now?"
"Yeah, now." His tone was unwavering. "I'll be outside your house in five minutes."
And then the call ended leaving me more confused and anxious than ever.
I had a hunch what was going to happen. He was finally going to tell me his story.
And then a fear started to roll in my veins. Fear of what it was going to be and whether I was ready to know it.
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So the next chapter will be the confession! Finally! =D
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