It was eating me inside. I need to ask the right question, not too direct, not too vague and not too stupid. How do you ask the right question when you don’t know anything about that person, but you know enough to know that the wrong question will scare them away.
“Sweetie you okay over there?” Scott looked at me from across the table, he was Eve’s dad and close to being my dad. I nodded at him slowly still drowning in my own thoughts. Eve kicked me from under the table, throwing her head to the right. That meant she wanted to talk to me in the bathroom.
“Uhm excuse us, I need to ask Eve something.” I said as I shoved the chair, I was just sitting on, away from under me. I grabbed Eve by her wrist and pulled her with me, she let out a soft shriek from shock a weird sound it was. I laughed at our parents as they looked at us confused. Eve looked at them and tried to give them a reassuring smile, but failed at it.
As soon as we walked into the bathroom Eve let out a deep sigh.
“Very subtle, very subtle Belle.” She bended over resting her hands on her knees.
“Oh just shut it.” I walked over to the sink to splash some water in my face, but stopped to look at my exhausted face. I didn’t bothered looking good for this dinner, something was holding me from trying.
“What’s wrong with you?” Eve was standing next to me and looked at me through the mirror. I shook my head and looked down at the broken white sink, I turned the water on and focused on the running water. I laid my right hand in the cold running water for a while before I cupped some water in both my hands to splash some water in my face. Like I had intended to do in the first place.
“I don’t know Eve.” It came out angrier than I was going for. The moment I saw Eve’s face turn from concerned to a sad face I grabbed her and hugged her.
“I don’t know what’s wrong, just hug me will you?” I whispered in her ear and she hugged me back tight. I don’t know how long we stood there but when I opened my eyes I realized I was shaking and tear stains made my face tense up. Eve was also crying in my shoulder and then I saw it, four shadows standing in the doorway. I pushed Eve back and she immediately saw our parents to.
“I’m sorry I uhm.” I didn’t know what to say, but the look on my mom’s face made me even sadder.
“I’m sorry?” My dad asked, his business voice he had most of the time had transformed into a soft, caring voice a dad should have.
“Yeah.” I looked down at my feet as I changed my position.
“I’m sorry for ruining the evening.” I wanted to burry my face in my hands when I heard my dad laugh, not like he was laughing at me, it was a reassuring laugh.
“You’re kidding right? You’re crying and you’re telling us you’re sorry for ruining the evening? Oh sweetie don’t do that ever again.” My dad always thought it was fundamental for a good business man/woman to be strong and never show your weakness. But he still walked up to me and Eve and grabbed the both of us in his big and warm embrace.
“We wanted to talk to you two about something.” He whispered softly, still trying to make us feel better.
“Now clean your sad faces up and meet us at the table.” He said pushing us back lightly and pinched both of our shoulders. I gave him a modest smile and turned to Eve when the four of them had closed the door behind them.
“Take a deep breath.” I said grabbing her by her shoulders just like my dad did. She did as she was told.
“It’s okay, don’t be sad just cause I am. We’re going to New York I’ll make sure of it.” I wiped away her tears and gave a brief hug. Then I pushed her towards the door and she started walking towards the dining room. She held out her hand and I grabbed it, we walked over to our parents hand in hand.
It was silent when we walked in, I walked over to my seat and pulled Eve with me. She sat down as I did, but we didn’t let go of our hands.
“Ahum.” Scott scraped his throat, and looked over at the other three people sitting next to him and then went back to facing us.
“We.” He stopped and pointed at the four of them before turning back to what he was going to say.
“We have talked about this summer vacation.” I pinched Eve’s hand as I realized where this was heading to.
“You know how non off us can take a vacation.” My mom said, continuing the talk. Eve and I both nodded politely.
“But we realized that, that wasn’t fair towards you guys.” My dad said, finishing my mom’s sentence. This was starting to look like a bad movie where they had rehearsed this talk for a long time. They had split up who was going to say what, and they would have rehearsed how they would look when they said their line. Although I highly doubt they would put so much effort in such a little thing, it still looked that way.
“So, we.” Eve’s mom, Stella, said. Looking at her fellow actors.
“Have decided to send you two, to my brother in LA.” My dad said with the biggest smile on his face. I smiled brightly looking at Eve, LA was something we had always wanted to go to but because it was too far away we had settled with New York.
“Are you being serious?” Eve said, almost hysterical. The four of them nodded excitedly and Eve ran over to hug them all. I followed her hugging my dad first telling him that I loved him and how thankful I was, I did the same with the other three taking my time.
Then when I was done I hugged Eve hard, as she jumped up and down. I jumped with her feeling eight again.
“Thank you, so much.” I said looking at the four excited grownups, while holding Eve under my arm.
“Now sit down and let’s eat some pie.” My mom said while standing up from the table ready to get the pie.
“Pie? Oh yes I love pie.” Eve shrieked, I rolled my eyes at the girl acting like a little child. Everybody laughed at my reaction and eventually I laughed along.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Run, run, run, run!” I ran as fast as I could. I felt my heart in my head but I still managed to laugh.
“Run doggie run, catch the rabbit.” The dog in front of me, who was barking with pleasure, started to run harder as he listened to my commands. The dog was now closing up to the rabbit running in front of him, it was trying to get away from me and the dog but running away from a hound was not going well for him.
Then it happened. The dog stopped and started running towards me, he jumped on top of me wheezy. Before I could feel the pain in my arm the dog was dragging me away from the dark forest. The collar of my shirt was clenched between his sharp teeth, and I could hear him pant as he struggled to drag me through the mud. I wanted to stop him but my throat was dried out and no sound was able to come out. I swallowed several times before I felt ready to speak.
“Stop it Lady, stop it. Let me go.” The dog stopped immediately and let go of my collar. She didn’t leave my side though, she started barking loud running around my lifeless body. I sighed feeling the water in my neck from the dew that was already covering the surface.
“I think I scared your dog.” The voice didn’t came as a shock it was more an annoying surprise, but the fact that there was no sign of a human was making it a little bit scary. And Lady barking and growling angrily was making it even worse, the fact that she was trying to protect me was sweet though.
“She has every right to be scared.” I said pushing my head back into the ground letting out a big sigh of annoyance. Why can’t he just leave me alone.
“Can you stop her?” A shim was coming towards me from the dark forest, it wasn’t close but I could still see him. Lady was ready to run towards the shim but stayed to protect me.
“Lady shhst calm, it’s a friend.” She stopped barking and looked at me, I stroked her nose and she licked my cheek. She then laid down next to me totally relaxed.
“You can come out now.” I said stroking my dog behind her ear, she was waggling her tale with pleasure.
“Aren’t you getting wet?” The man said pointing at the water drops on the grass. I rolled my eyes at him, tired.
“Live a little.” I said and he started to laugh. His laugh was pretty cute, by the sound of it.
“Oh I am sorry, maybe you’re right. Maybe I should make sure there is some adventure in my life.” He said when he sat down next to me.
“Why don’t you start with your new life somewhere far away from here.” I said focusing all my attention towards my dog lying next to me.
“Like what? LA maybe?” He grabbed my head and turned it to face him. Something about him was different, something made him look sweeter. I searched his face, trying to find the solution of my problem.
“You know it’s impolite to stare right?” His smile, that was it. He smiled sincerely happy, I couldn’t help it but feel the biggest desire to kiss him right now. I pushed myself from the ground wanting to run away from that feeling but I froze, I was not able to move at all.
“Uh yeah I’m sorry.” I was still lost in my own world, trying to figure out what was wrong with me.
“You don’t have to apologize, I feel kind of flattered that such a beautiful girl like you would stare at me like that.” His face lit up the moment he saw my shocked face.
“Are you saying that you’re like a hideous monster in real life? Because I’m not that beautiful.” Touchy subject, touchy subject, touchy subject. It was all that was going through my mind, but it was also my fault it came up in the conversation.
“I’ll let you be the judge of that. And yes you are.” I tried to ignore his second sentence but it did stay in the back of my mind.
“Does that mean you’re going to show me how you look?” I smirked at him, and immediately felt how much pleasure a little smirk could bring you. It felt pretty great.
“Is this your question of the day, because it’s not a really strong question. You and I both know the answer.” Shit, I still don’t know what I was going to ask him.
“No that’s not my question.” I pulled out my phone to look at the time. 1.12 am it said. That couldn’t be right, have I really been out here for more than two hours?
“So what is your question?” Think Belle think, what is something you really want to know? Oh god why didn’t you prepared again?
“I uh, I-I-I-I-I.” I paused to look up at the sky. Did I just seriously stutter? Oh god what is happening to me, am I still the same person?
“How do you know where to be all the time? I mean you are always right on time even when you’re with me.” I remembered what happened earlier that day, he stayed with me cause nothing happened according to him.
He sighed and grabbed my hand. I looked at our hands intertwined and blushed. It’s a good thing it was dark cause I was blushing when the only thing that happened was that some guy grabbed my hand. How pathetic. All the feelings going through my mind made me feel awkward and confused.
“My dad is police sheriff, I broke into his police radio and now I get all the reports about crimes happening.” He said as sober as possible. I thought about it for a moment, what if I figure out who the police sheriff is. I mean with all the things on the internet lately, I could easily google it or ask my dad for his expertise.
“Don’t worry sexy, it’s not going to be that easy. The police in our little town is pretty big and there are in total 7 police sheriffs and who knows maybe I’m from another town.” He looked me in the eyes and his red eyes lit up due to the moonlight shining in his face.
“Well that still narrows it down to some slightly less possibility’s.” I could never be sure of course, there are always other possibility’s, other explanations.
“So now my question.” He paused looking into my eyes.
“Why do you act like such a bitch, while in reality you’re not.” That hurt, normally that wouldn’t hurt but from him it did.
“Because I have to be strong to survive in this nasty world. I mean everybody knows that the world is one big battlefield, and if you want to survive you have to play hard. It doesn’t necessarily means I’m a bitch.” The way I said it sounded like a bitch, but I was being honest about this. My dad raised me this way, that life is hard and that means that you have to be hard.
“Just like I said I know you’re not a bitch, you just act like one. I know that there’s a sweet and modest girl in there.” He pointed at my heart and before I knew it I leaned in closer, not being able to resist the kissing desire I was having the whole time. But he leaned back and things got awkward from that moment on.
“I’m sorry, I really want to kiss you but I can’t. You won’t understand, but it would only hurt you.” He looked at his feet biting his lips, it obviously hurts his feelings.
“Well maybe it’s something for my next question.” I stood up and signed to Lady to follow me. I walked away from him, without bothering to look behind.
It was bothering me, what could be so painful that I would get hurt from one little kiss.