Double Life: Caged Birds

*A/N: I changed that tittle 3 times, I´m still not happy about it... *

“Cousins, this is Nichole –Josh motioned to the girl- Nic, Helen, Will and Bob” the boy motioned to each of them

“We just had to see who made the twins stay home!” Helen smiled

“That´d be me” Nichole said and the girl laughed

“Movies?” Bob said, he looked like the youngest of them

“Let´s do karaoke!” Helen clapped her hands. Will groaned

“Movies, Helen!”

“Let´s vote!” she smiled

“What are we voting for?” a girl in fitted jeans and a black cardigan over a blue shirt said as she came towards them

“Sarah?” Josh´s eyes widened and quickly looked at his twin who shrugged and then to Helen

“Hello, Josh” she kissed his cheek

“Helen?” the boy addressed his cousin

“She came to visit me when we were leaving… I couldn´t just leave her…” she sounded apologetic

“Josh, I´ve said I´m sorry many times…”

Nichole who was sitting next to Josh looked behind him to Aaron who was next to Josh. “Josh’ ex” he mouthed, she said a soundless “oh”

“Look, I can leave if you want” Sarah said some annoyance in her voice but pleading eyes. Josh looked to a side not replying. “Come on! Don´t be like that, you have to talk to me” she squatted in front of him. He stared at her with anger, she flinched. “Josh, tell me how to make it better” she pleaded.

“You said you were leaving” the melted emeralds became cold jade. Sarah stood up and stayed frozen in place, everybody else was silent.

“I´m not going until you talk to me” Sarah´s brow was slightly knitted

“Keep waiting” he stood up taking Nichole´s hand with him, he walked away with the girl who glanced Sarah her eyes had unshed tears.

Josh and Nichole ended up in the basement, it was completely decorated, it had a few spaces that seemed to be work places, and there was a drawing space, musical instruments on another space and one more space with couches and a TV. Josh paced the place, behind the couch that Nichole had taken.

“The nicest guy on Earth just left a girl crying. I think the world as we know it will end up tonight” Nichole said after a while, she was watching Josh who stopped as she finished speaking he stared at her and without wanting he laughed

“I think I got the gist of what was going on but you could explain why you made the hottie up there cry”

“I told you what happened with Sarah”

“You just said she was scandalous”

“Sure, when they shout at you in the middle of the cafeteria it´s considered that way”

“I am not Sarah” Nichole didn´t like his voice filled with sarcasm, she´d never heard it

“You´re right –he breathed in and let out the air through his mouth- I´m sorry” he sat next to Nichole

“You seem to dislike her quite a lot”

“I didn´t think she´d come here as if nothing happened”

“She seemed to want to apologize”

“Are you on her side?”

“I´ve got no sides but I´ve never seen you this mad, I wanna know what she did to you”

“Nichole is curious” he had a crooked smile on his mouth

“Cats are often curious” she lifted her eyebrow

“Ok, but you´re telling me about the jerk who hit you” he lifted his eyebrow. She wrinkled her nose

“I don´t need to know about Sarah”

“Too late, you´re not getting out of this one” he narrowed his eyes, she pursed her lips

“I see it was wrong to come to the lion´s den” she grinned, he chuckled

“You don´t have to tell me” he said after a while

“I know… He was just some jerk that refused Rox, the girl I met, get her inhaler, I told him he was a jerk, he didn´t like it and tried to hit me, I ran but I had to slow down when I got close to Rox or I could´ve hurt her and then he pulled me by my hair –he winced- and he hit me –she explained quickly- don´t be mad, I´m fine” she said touching his arm when his eyes became cold jade again

“Why were you even there? Are you sure you´re ok?”

“It´s your turn now –she poked her tongue out- but these just look worse than what they are” she looked at her shoulder

“Ok. So she dumped me in the middle of the cafeteria, she wouldn´t listen to my reasons, a week later she was dating someone else and she was a witness against me and Aaron and she hadn´t even seen!”

“Wow, that´s mean. Aaron seems fine with her”

“He doesn´t hold grudges for too long…”

“But you do? Remind me not to make you mad” she joked

“I tried to talk to her, she wouldn´t let me explain, it was not nice, if anyone still believed us she made sure to say bad things” he sighed

“Your cousin, Helen, seems fine with her”

“They´ve always been friends, I assume she forgave her or whatever”

“You really liked this girl…”

“Yeah, I did” he blew air through the corner of his mouth

“You´re a good guy, you´ll find another one”

“A good guy” he laughed

“What?! Wanted me to go on and on about how cute you are?”

“How cute I am…” he repeated her words

“So very hot, Josh” she put both her hands on his chest and leaned forward to whisper

“Err… Your turn”

She laughed “I win” she winked and sat back, he shook his head

“Why were you in that place?”

“I told you , I went there to train”

“But the other girl didn´t sound so good at it, had you meet her before?”

“You´re a good listener, boy –she shook her head- she wasn´t used at all at that kind of exercise”

“Why was she there then?”

“Many, if not all of the kids there were there were trouble-makers, the kind that their parents can´t handle anymore… we were supposed to learn discipline” she rolled her eyes

“But you´re not trouble makers…”

“I miss classes, and skip some others, I go out of school without permission, I bring up boys to my room, oh and I never give my phone before classes… I think that makes me a trouble-maker”

“You are at the top ten, you´re a great artist, your phone never rings during class…”

“You´re doing good defending me… but I was just sent there to train. Rox just happened to be there as a punishment but she was ok”

“You made a friend” melted emeralds was what she saw, she pursed her lips

“One more slave for eternity” she said, he chuckled

“Now, you´re responsible for her forever” he reminded the other argument of the conversation they had have when she saved his life

“It´s a good change” a small smile spread across her lips

“So, we´re just staying here?” she said as he was going to say something else

“Oh… we can go up if you want”

“Let´s watch some TV”

After a while of them watching TV making random comments, Aaron and the twin´s cousins came down. Helen apologized to both Josh and Nichole. They all stayed quietly watching TV until they started to go over the lines of the characters making them into funny and mostly silly remarks. They all laughed.

At some point they changed the channel to a music one and they ended up doing karaoke until after midnight when the cousins left.

“Not inappropriate things, kids!” Aaron pointed a finger to his twin and Nichole as he left

“Like you´re one to talk!” Josh threw a cushion at him

“I still can´t believe you´re here” Josh said softly watching the TV screen

“But here I am”

“Are you sure those bruises are ok, I mean, where else do you have them?”

“What? Do you want me to show you? Do you want to make me take my top off?” she smirked

“Don´t do that, Nic” he glanced her way

“What?”

“I meant what I said, I don´t want you to get undressed” his voice was gentle but firm. She closed her eyes

“They´re there, looking at them won´t make them better” she opened her eyes, emotion drained of her brown eyes

“Some ice and maybe some ointment might make it better”

“I’m taking care of them, don´t worry about it, you´ve seen me worse. I´ll live” she winked, her face a mask.

“That doesn´t make it better, you about to bleed or you feverish is not to make bruised you look like nothing” his brow was knitted, she inhaled deeply and let the air out through her mouth

“I know… I´d be so much easier if you were planning to undress me instead of you being worried about me…”

“How come?”

“I could beat you up to make you stop and you would but what do I do with you being… nice?” she seemed at a loss, he smiled

“You do nothing, except tell me where it hurts so I don´t accidentally hurt you” he said and she made a face as if she was pondering this, she ended up sighing.

“You saw the ones here –she pointed at her shoulder and arm- here –she put her palm over her ribs and closed an eye –here- she pointed to the middle of her chest –there- she motioned for her ankle –here too- she moved forward closing both her eyes tight and pointing the middle of her back –and that´s it” she looked at him, he seemed an odd combination of angry and concern

“You have to tell me who was this jerk” cold stones looked at her

“Are you going to save the damsel in distress?” she raised both her eyebrows. He closed her eyes

“You can´t allow him treating you like that and let him walk away as if nothing happened!” he had gritted teeth

“Hey, hey, calm down –she touched his arm- I´m ok. I´m here and if it makes you feel better, he isn´t just walking as if nothing, he got his fingers broken, a broken nose, kicks in his stomach and in places that´d made a guy cry. I can fend for myself. Don´t worry, please”

“Why would you even have to fend for yourself?” he took her hand

“Some things just happen, Josh” her voice sounded tired and melancholic

“I´m sorry” he said above a whisper, the corner of her mouth shot up

“Stop apologizing for what you didn´t do”

“Alright… it´s just… you´re such a nice person” he said and she chuckled

“You don´t know me, Josh” she bumped her shoulder against his

“You saved my life and it sounds that you saved that girl you met” he smiled and his green eyes were smiling too

“Not enough to balance …but it was good”

“Balance…?”

“Darkness”

“Haven´t you heard that light shines brighter when it´s surrounded by darkness?”

“Where do you get those things from?” she chuckled

“Actually, Sarah told me that one” he grumbled, Nic laughed

“You still like her, don´t you?”

“I liked her a lot. I got over that. I´m still mad though”

“Because she didn’t believe in your innocence?”

“No, if she didn´t that was ok but one thing was her not believing and something completely different was to make sure no one believed in us anymore”

“Ok”

“Childish of me, huh?”

“Those words never came out of my mouth”

“Sure, sure. Let´s go up, I got something for you” he turned off the TV

“What is it?” she followed him up the stairs

“Did you send Christmas presents for us?” Josh asked as they crossed the living room and turned to a side, he opened the glass doors in front of them

“Well… yeah” they walked in the yard

“It was a few days ago but I got something for you too. Did you spend Christmas at school?” he asked, she pulled him closer and they stumbled a little

“Dog toy in the way” she said

“Did you see that? It´s pretty dark”

“I ate my veggies”

“Christmas at school?” he reminded her of his prior question

“No, I just sent them there so that they sent di to you since I didn´t know your address”

“I should´ve thought of that” they slowly walked on the grass towards the end of the garden

“They didn´t have my address. I wasn´t at home” she said and he stopped

“You spent Christmas alone?”

“There were a lot of kids where I was” she explained. He hugged her, her hands on her sides. She opened her mouth to talk but a dog bark interrupted her

“Your dog doesn´t like me” she chuckled, he let go

“Paisley!” Josh shushed the dog “he´s usually very friendly” he turned on the lights, there was a dog house, a golden retriever looked at Nichole, he looked angry.

“Some animals react to me that way, it´s ok”

“Oh” his mood looked deflated

“What is it?”

“Bad gift, let´s go back”

“Come on! I want my gift now” she bumped shoulders with him

“I didn´t think you disliked animals” he glanced to the end of the garden where there was a big cage inside it had a tree and several birds chirping

“You got me birds?” she seemed both amused and surprised

“Sort of” he touched the back of his neck

“You know pets are not allowed at Burgeoys and I told you how I can´t pet animals… they die” they both sighed. His cheeks were pink

“When we went to swim, as we walked you stopped briefly, closed your eyes and smiled at the sounds of birds” he chuckled nervously

“How do you know I smiled at that and not at something else?” she inquired with a tiny smile

“Your eyes closed and your tilted head towards the chirping of the birds…?” he ended up with less confidence. She smiled and then started laughing with joy.

“You give the most thoughtful gifts” she hugged him still smiling, it was a quick hug “not all of those are mine, are they?” she asked. There were many birds, he shook his head

“Three of them are yours”

“Where am I going to keep them?”

“The idea was to set them free in the woods, close to Burgeoys or around your house if you preferred” he was pensive

“Thank you… really” she said above a whisper as she looked at the birds that once again went quiet and closed their eyes