"Wait you're from New York?"
Her question took me off guard. She really doesn't know who I am?
I look her in the eyes waiting for her to realize that I'm Hiccup Haddock. My name is lighted up on Times Squares, how does she not know who I am.
"Yeah I moved to New York" I say carefully still waiting for her to realize that I'm not just some normal guy.
"Well..." she does that again. Starts a sentence and then takes a long break before continuing, making me anxiously wait for her to finish.
"You do look familiar" with her comment my body freeze. I look at her with my nervous and tense eyes. I look at the ground feeling kinda down that she noticed who I was. I should never have told her I am from New York.
The sad feeling of her finding out my true identity was so odd, everyone knows who I am so why am I disappointed?
"You look like one of those "ey I'm walking here" she moves her shoulders and hands as she's doing her impression of a stereotypical New Yorker. I laugh at her impression. I can't help but feel relieved that she doesn't know who I am. This means I can for once be normal?
"Waow that's how you see us New Yorkers" I laugh eyeing her picking up a blood red apple.
"Not just me, the world" she chuckles throwing me the apple. I luckily catch it with both my hands. It would have been so embarrassing if I'd dropped it.
She walked ahead of me, down the lit up street from the beaming sun. Her hair shining from the touch of the sun.
I don't know why I smiled but I didn't want to stop it.
"Come along" she says breaking me out of my zone.
"Right"
I follow her to a cozy ice cream store.
It's a very small shop on the street with a glass door giving the people a glance of what's inside. I follow Astrid inside, looking around taking it all in.
Rows of ice cream in a glass mounter I front of us. Chocolate, pistachio, vanilla, strawberry and so many other flavors is making me slightly drool.
"Do you like ice cream?" Astrid blueberry eyes meets mine and I smile.
"Never tried it. We don't have ice cream in New York" I smirk playfully looking at the ice cream again pretending I've never seen it before.
"Ha ha ha, very funny Hiccup" she says sarcastically rolling her eyes at me making me laugh.
"May I have a cone with pistachio and for you?" Astrid blue eyes looks at me again waiting impatiently for me to answer her. My stomach fills with butterflies as I consider what flavor to have. I love ice cream.
I look back at Astrid before answering her:
"Blueberry, please"
"And one with blueberry" she tells the man on the other side of the desk. I see a smile on his lips under his thick beard.
"Here you go" the man hands Astrid her's and me mine.
"Thank you" I say reaching for my wallet but before I can pull it out of my pocket Astrid cuts me off.
"No no, this is my town, my treat" she says sweetly but firm. Honestly she keeps taking my breath away. No girl has ever payed for me not even my friends pays for themselves when we go out. I felt bubbles of happiness forming in my heart.
"N-n-no let me" I try to protest but ends up in an awkward stutter.
"Too late" Astrid says handing the man 10 dollars.
I laugh at her childish but very kind action.
We walk out of the shop into the warm weather. The heat embracing us.
Laughter fills the street.
"So what do you do?" She asks "what do you do in New York?"
My world stopped in that moment. Infront of me was this wonderful girl who couldn't be more clueless about my life, my family nor my money. For almost an hour have we had a Normal conversation. This feels too precious, too pure to give up.
It had been silent for too long and Astrid looked at me in a suspicious way.
My head was racing faster than my mind. Maybe I should just tell the truth, but it feels like my whole body is fighting against that. My mouth won't let me tell her about my real profession so why not tell her something a little off to throw her off guard.
"I'm a teacher"
"A teacher?" She doesn't sound convinced almost like she knows I'm lying. But her next comment makes my tense shoulders relax.
"Waow teaching the future, I like that" her comment made me feel relieved yet a bit guilty.
"So do you teach college or high school?"
I feel like I'm sinking deeper and deeper into the lie but I'm just going with it. There's no turning back. Feels like I already hit the books point of no return, oops did I just break the fourth wall? Well moving on I answer her with yet another lie.
"College... economic, yeah. Enough about me what do you do?" My awkwardness is making me blush and I can't help but stumble over the words.
"I'm actually in college, and working as a corista at a café" she says almost embarrassed.
"What year are you in college?" I continue asking.
"My fourth and last" she smiles.
"That's the best and saddest year" I say finally not telling a lie.
"Where did you go to college?" She asks.
"Ehm Columbia"I said quickly. Truth be told I went to Harvard but scared she might find out who I am I lied. I hate lying but I like this. What we have I feel like this is what my 20's should be like. She tells me something about Columbia university making me feel worse for lying but I wasn't planing on telling the truth anytime soon.
We continued walking, stoping every now and then to look at something. Tons of baskets with fresh roses surrounded us. As I told her about my fake life I couldn't help but like it just a little bit. In my fake New Yorker life I was a fun economic teacher with an artist background, I was the typical nerdy geek who graduated high school early, I was just Hiccup.
"And now I'm one of the youngest teacher there" I add on a detail to my lie, something my cousin taught me.
"Waow that's impressive" Astrid says sweetly. Her kindness makes me feel mad about lying to her but the way she was treating me made me not wanting to stop.
Our conversation ended with the street. In front of me is no longer the fun and festive Maria St instead there's just normal LA. If there is such a thing.
"Well that was it" Astrid says putting her hands in her pockets.
"Yeah you're right" I say my eyes walks from the ground up to her blue eyes. As I finished talking there was a half awkward silence, but it was soon broken by Astrid.
"Pleasure to meet you Hiccup from New York" she says playfully doing her New Yorker accent.
"The pleasure is all mine, Astrid" I say taking one final deep look into her eyes.
She turns around and walks back down the street where I am still just standing here with my eyes following her every move.
I turn around ready to walk back towards the main road. For some ridiculous reason Astrid is still in my head.
My hands falls in my pockets. I still have my wallet and phone, yet there's some paper in there too. I pull it out and take a good look at it; it's the brochure from the café.
I notice a trash can close by where I throw the brochure in. I won't be needing that any more, I have my own personal tour guide.
Or wait... no I don't... I didn't get her number.
Let this be a lesson. Always. Get. Their. Number. Btw I've been watching too much Netflix these days. So there may come up some scenes inspired from Netflix movies and series.
Spoiler for next chapter:
"I need it today or you're out"