*Extra update because the Blue Jackets dominated the Penguins earlier today :D
“So do you want to talk about Monday?” Niles asks me as he’s driving us in Sophie’s car to wherever it is that he’s taking us.
“No,” I say quickly, blushing at the awful memory and I look out the window to hide my face from him. I’ve had time to recover from Monday though, so I’m not still bent up about it but I’d like to not rethink all of it because I might lose my good mood if I start thinking about what had happened then and I don’t want that.
“Ana, you know that you can tell me anything,” He says in a small, assuring voice as he looks over at me when we’re stopped at a red light and he offers me a smile with his eyes boring into me. He’s giving me that stare that usually makes me want to spill my guts to him but I look away before it really works.
With a side smile, I turn to look at him but avoid eye contact. “You’re beautiful eye-stare thing won’t work this time.”
“My what?” He chuckles, starting to drive again when the light flicks green in front of us.
“That thing that you do with your eyes,” I remind him. “And you just kind of stare at me until I answer your question or spill my guts. I don’t like it, really, and you should stop doing it.”
“I don’t think I have an eye thing,” Niles denies. “I think that you’re talking about when I look at you. No eye trick or special stare, I’m just looking at you, Ana.”
“I don’t think so,” I shake my head. “Because other people look at me too but I don’t tell them anything personal but you have some kind of super power and it’s not fair. I think it should actually be illegal, really.”
“Nope. You’re just weird,” He teases as he pulls up to a small building and around the small building, there’s a bunch of picnic tables with people sitting down. Most of them are families but others are groups of teen friends and they’re all eating ice cream, which makes sense because the sign in front of the building reads “Tammy’s Ice Cream Shop”. “Do you like ice cream? I guess I should have asked you that before I brought you here.”
“Is that even a real question?” I scoff. “Of course I like ice cream.”
“Good,” He smiles as we both get out of the car and start to head toward the window where there’s a lady standing, taking the orders of the people in line. “The menu is up by the window if you want to look at it.”
Standing at the back of the line, I can see the menu and if I squint, I can read the small letters and I immediately know what I want. Even though the list of different flavors of ice cream is incredibly long and detailed, I know exactly which one I want without even thinking about it. “Cake batter. That’s my favorite. Definitely that one. But… I don’t have any money.”
“I’ll pay for it, Ana,” Niles tells me with a small grin as if I should have already just assumed that part of the deal, which I didn’t but I guess it’s the only way that it would get paid for considering all I have to my name is this pair of jeans, this black shirt, and the underwear underneath of them. And I’m not about to sell my clothes for ice cream, that’s for sure.
“Okay then,” I sigh. “If I ever get money, I’ll buy you food then, so that we’re even.”
“Don’t worry about it. Really,” He assures me as we move up in the line. I guess summer is the busy season for ice cream, so the line is pretty long and the picnic tables are all occupied so I wonder where we’re going to go to eat this ice cream but I don’t bring it up yet.
“Whatever you say,” I sing. “What flavor are you getting?”
“Coffee and donuts,” He tells me and when he sees me giving him a weird look, he laughs. “It’s really good- it pretty much just tastes like chocolate coffee.”
“Sure. I won’t judge you for that,” I shrug although ‘coffee and donuts’ is more of a breakfast than an ice cream flavor to me. “You go ahead and do you.”
“I will. Oh, and this is completely random but I want to tell you before I forget,” Niles says. “I won’t be around on Mondays or Fridays anymore. We’ll probably only get to hang out on Sundays after today, really.”
“Do elaborate,” I say in response.
“Classes are starting on Monday and I’ll have practice every day after school and games on Fridays and Saturdays so I’ll really only be free on Sundays probably,” He explains.
“Oh. I didn’t realize that summer was already ending,” I tell him honestly and we get to the front of the line, standing at the window now. Niles orders both of our ice creams- the largest size they have- and then pays for them before the lady walks away from the window to retrieve our ice creams.
“Yeah, it went by pretty quickly, huh?” He wonders. “But anyway, I’m not going away completely, I’ll just be a lot busier.”
“Right, I understand,” I nod. “It’s just hard to believe that a whole summer has passed since I’ve been here. It feels like just last week, I was at my graduation party, ready to move on with the next chapter of my life and leave everything behind. I was going to go to Italy or something after high school.”
“Why Italy?” He asks me.
I just shrug as the lady hands us our humongous plastic containers of ice cream with spoons and then I follow Niles back to the car but instead of actually getting into the car, he just hops onto the hood, so I do the same and we just sit on top of the car and eat our ice cream. “It just seems like a nice place, doesn’t it? Italy. I don’t know. I love my family to death but they’re incredibly smothering. I get that they’re just trying to protect me but I’m still not three years old and they don’t understand that. But it’s not just to escape them, I also want to see the world. I feel like if I get around to see what the world has to offer, it’ll be easier to stay grounded. I think that I could find myself, you know? After everything that’s happened, I honestly have no idea who I am. I used to think that it was useless for me, that I would just live my whole life without actually feeling alive but being here, I guess it changed my perspective on things. So I want to go to Italy. And France and Germany and Japan and I want to travel. I want to find little pieces of myself on along the Great Wall of China and catch my soul falling from the Eiffel Tower.”
After my long rant about the globe, I take a bite of my ice cream and it’s seriously the best cake batter ice cream that I have ever tasted in my entire life. It’s creamy and it tastes exactly like cake batter ice cream should taste. I have to remember the name of this place so that I can come back here over and over again for the rest of my life.
“Anyway,” I add when Niles doesn’t say anything. “I know that it sounds super cheesy but don’t laugh.”
“I’m not going to laugh,” He says abruptly with a mouthful of his light brown (almost tan) ice cream, which kind of makes me laugh, and then he swallows it and starts talking again. “I think it’s cool that you want to travel. I would too, but I don’t do planes.”
“Really? You’re afraid of heights?”
“No, not heights. Just planes,” He corrects me, scooping another bite of ice cream onto his spoon as I do the same.
“But didn’t you suggest that we go sky diving? You do know that you’d be required to get on a plane to go skydiving, right?”
“Well, yeah, but I could handle it just to go skydiving because that’d be so awesome that I’d get over it. But going over an ocean? No way. There’s no way that that can go well.”
“It goes well every single day,” I tell him with a small laugh. “Planes fly over oceans without incident like, every day.”
“Don’t laugh at me,” Niles says defensively but he’s obviously not actually upset that I’m teasing him because he’s laughing with ice cream dripping off of his lower lip. “I can’t help that I’m afraid of flying, I just am.”
“I’m not laughing. I think that it’s adorable,” I say, teasing him again. I guess that’s kind of hypocritical of me because I get so defensive when people make fun of me for my fears but he doesn’t seem bothered by it and I think that it’s because my fears hold a deep psychological torture for me but Niles’ fear is just irrational and random. If he was in a traumatizing plane crash when he was little or something, that’s when it isn’t funny. When there’s reason behind the fear, making fun of the fear loses all of its humor. “But okay. So if you don’t want to fly, there still has to be someplace that you want to travel to?”
“Sure,” He nods. “I’ve always kind of wanted to see the Grand Canyon.”
“That would be cool,” I agree with him, trying to eat the ice cream at a slower pace to avoid brain freeze and a stomach ache. “I’ve always thought that the Grand Canyon was extremely hot and just too much physical work for me.”
“Way to kill my dream,” Niles says sarcastically, wiping his mouth with a napkin that he’d grabbed while we were up at the window, which was smart because he’s a very messy ice cream eater.
With a small laugh, I roll my eyes at him and shake my head, causing my dark pony tail to swing behind me. “I’m not saying that it’s too much for you. It’d probably be a walk in the park for you since you’re an athlete and you do physical things all of the time. On the other hand, I’m about as active as a sack of potatoes. There’s not much exercise you can get done at the center unless I wanted to run around the courtyard and that’s just not an option. Especially not in scrubs.”
“If you wanted to go to the gym or something, I could take you sometime,” Niles offers.
“Thanks,” I say with a side smile. “But I’m alright for now. My brother is an athlete and after I got better- physically, I mean- he kind of forced me to work out with him for a while and he taught me how to defend myself and everything. After I got back from Alaska, that is. It was exhausting but hey, at least I know how to throat punch somebody now.”
“That’s terrifying,” He says.
“I highly doubt that you’ll ever upset me enough to make me want to punch you in your throat, Niles,” I say with a quiet laugh as I put another spoonful of the ice cream in my mouth.
“I hope so,” He takes another bite of his ice cream as he’s giving me a sheepish smile. “Anyway, have you talked to Dr. Lombardi about coming to one of the games?”
I nod, moving some of my stray hairs out of my face to make sure that they don’t get covered in ice cream. “She said that she’ll think about it, which is a better response than I was expecting.”
“Listen, Ana, I know that it’d be really awesome for you to come see me play but it’s not worth it if it’s going to make you feel bad,” He tells me in all seriousness. “It’s okay if you can’t make it. They film all of the games so I can get a copy of one and we can watch it in the common room and everything. It’s not worth risking your health if your doctor isn’t absolutely sure about it.”
“It’s fine, Niles,” I assure him, trying to hide the humiliated blush that creeps onto my cheeks because I feel so ridiculous, having to worry about something that’s so arbitrary to most people. I just want to go to a hockey game and it’s so ridiculous that so much thought and worry has to be put into this one completely normal thing. “She said that she’d think about it for the future but maybe not anytime soon. You said that you have a long season, right? So I have some time to get better at my crowd-handling skills before I go.”
“Okay,” He appeases me. “I just want to make sure that you’re alright. I don’t want you to get hurt just because of me.”
“I’m fine,” I repeat for his benefit. “If I ever ‘get hurt’ I promise that it won’t be because of you. It’s never because of anything except for myself.”
“Ana, that’s not-“
“So, this ice scream is really delicious,” I interrupt his serious talk with something a lot easier to talk about because I don’t want to talk about that anymore. It makes me feel so little… so inadequate to talk about all of the basic things that I can’t do just because my brain doesn’t think right. “I can’t believe that you’ve waited so long to bring me here.”
He frowns at me, obviously not wanting to change the subject so quickly, but he sighs and then takes another bite of his ice cream before saying, “I didn’t think about it until a few days ago. I’m glad that you like it. We can come back sometime.”
“Good,” I say with a small smile. “Because this is fabulous.”
“I can tell,” Niles laughs as he hands me a napkin from his small stack. “You have it all over your face. You’re supposed to eat it, you know, not wear it.”
I shrug sheepishly and then wipe my mouth with the napkin. “Did I get it all?”
“No,” He grins at me, apparently forgetting about the serious conversation that I had diverted us from. “Here, I’ll get it.”
I stay still as he leans forward and wipes the napkin around my jaw bone and I start to wonder how on earth I got ice cream all the way down there without even feeling it. That thought is only brief though, because then I notice that Niles is kind of close to me and those goddamn blue eyes are boring into me like he’s trying to see into my soul and I’m a little bit persuaded that he can and that terrifies me. I start to think that this is the point and time in a romantic story where the boy and the girl kiss and then I think that I wouldn’t mind kissing Niles. He’s the most amazing person that I’ve talked to in almost forever and he has those blue eyes that can almost drive me crazy and if I wasn’t already crazy enough, I’d kiss him right now. Or maybe he’d kiss me. Who knows? But the thing is that this isn’t a romantic story and I’m insane and Niles doesn’t like commitment, so he clears his throat and sits up straight, keeping the distance between us and breaking our eye contact.
Before I can stop myself, I start to voice my thoughts, “I wish that we could go on real dates,” I admit softly, causing my cheeks to heat up and I’m sure that he can tell that I’m blushing. “You know, with like, giggling and kissing and holding hands and everything. I wish that we could do that.”
He’s quiet for a very long time. So long, in fact, that I start to worry that I’ve said too much this time. It freaks him out and this will be the last time that he ever takes me anywhere. Maybe he’ll only contact me over the phone now so that he doesn’t think that he’s leading me on or anything. I’ve crossed a line. I shouldn’t have said that. My mind is going crazy with panic when he finally turns to look at me and surprises the crap out of me by saying, “Me too, Ana.”
“But you don’t like commitment,” I remind him, melting some delicious ice cream on my tongue. “Would you break that rule for me?”
He shrugs, absentmindedly stirring his spoon through his half-full container of coffee-flavored ice cream. “I don’t know. Probably. But, I thought that-“
“I know,” I interrupt him, already able to tell exactly what he’s about to say. “I can’t handle it because my brain isn’t very good at… you know, thinking right. It’s a pretty stupid brain if you ask me. I just wish that we could though. And I’m sorry that we can’t. You deserve better than that.”
“Ana, don’t do that,” Niles tells me stubbornly, looking up at me and away from his ice cream.
“Do what? Say that I’m sorry? Because I am. I’m so sorry that I’m a mess. I wish that I didn’t have these demons in my head. I’m so sorry that I’m not this girl that’s put together and normal and I wish that I could just laugh at funny things and hug you and kiss you. I try so hard to be that girl. I try so hard. I want to be that girl for you- for everybody, really- but I… I just can’t be. And I’m so sorry.”
“I did not become your friend because I thought that you were going to change,” He says with a surprising determination set in his eyes. “Okay? I didn’t look at you and think that you were a work in progress and that I wanted to help build you into the girl that you just described. I wanted to be your friend because I saw something special inside of you. Maybe I just imagined it. Maybe it was just because I thought that you were insanely beautiful. But I was right, no matter what made me lead to the conclusion. There is something magical inside of you and people might think that you’re crazy, sure, but that’s just because they can’t handle your magical-ness. Sure, it’d be awesome if you wouldn’t try to kill yourself again but other than that, there is nothing wrong with you or the way that you think, alright? I understand that there are flaws like with the occasional nightmare and the panic attacks but those aren’t part of you. You do not need to change yourself to be that girl. Especially not for me. If you want to be that girl then fine. Be that girl but you should only do that for you. Not for me or for anybody else. Do you understand that?”
“Wow,” I mumble, completely taken by surprise by his rant but not in a bad way. It was a nice rant. I liked it. “That’s awfully nice of you to say.”
“Well, I mean it,” He tells me and I don’t doubt that for a second, I’m sure that he meant it. I think that’s why the adrenaline starts to make my tummy buzz. Most people will call them butterflies but I know better than that. It’s only adrenaline. I haven’t felt that feeling since freshman year though, and it’s strange. It’s not as pleasant as I remember it feeling, that’s for sure. It makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable but also incredibly content at the same time and I’m not sure how that’s possible.
“I know,” I say quietly and I lean into his side because we’re sitting kind of close together, just not too close, and I think that after telling him my story, I do feel kind of freer from my mind’s constrictions. If not with everybody, then just with Niles, but I don’t feel like he scares me at all anymore. And that absolutely terrifies me. When I lean into him, he instinctively wraps his arm around my waist and unlike the last time, I don’t lose my breath. I don’t feel that shock of fear poke down my spine. I just feel a spike of the adrenaline in my tummy and that’s it. “Thanks.”
“Sure, Ana,” He chuckles but I’m not sure what’s funny. “I gave you this whole speech and you answer with ‘thanks’.”
“It was a nice speech,” I assure him with a smile growing on my face from where my head is resting on his shoulder. “I appreciated it.”
“Good,” Niles says, continuing to eat his ice cream with his other hand.
“I hope that someday, you’ll kiss me,” I admit to him, deciding that it’s because of his magical powers that make me tell him things that I shouldn’t tell him. “Not today. But someday.”
He pulls me tighter into his side and I can’t help but smile. If I was in this position a month ago, I’d be on the floor hyperventilating but now, I’m actually smiling about it. I don’t even have to remind myself to breathe because I’m doing it on my own. No panicking. Not even the thought of the possibility of panicking is even relevant in my mind. And I don’t know if it’s because of all of the time that I’ve spent with Niles and I trust him enough to know that he won’t hurt me or if it’s because of all of the therapy sessions that I’ve had with Dr. Lombardi or if it’s a mix of both of them, but I can feel myself changing for the better. I can feel myself getting better.
“I hope so too, Ana,” Niles tells me softly, stirring his spoon around in his melting ice cream and I’m doing the same in mine. “I really hope so.”
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Song: Somewhere in Neverland by All Time Low
Picture: Fan cover by 123_esther_456
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT
Title: Lost Souls/ BBB
Author: WonderingxSmile
Genre: Teen Fiction/Romance
Summary: Beth Swallow has lately been in the worst of situations. This causes her to run into Aaron Plat, the lead singer of the band Lost Souls, or later, The BBB. After becoming a photographer for the band, she's kidnapped and put to work. Days and days worth of work and beatings last. How will Beth survive the torture and, most importantly, how will the others find her? With a pregnant sister, a new best friend after the last one committed suicide, divorced parents, and more, nothing seems to come together. Will Beth's life ever be normal again?