A/N: I don´t feel like I have that many things to say in this one... except that I have been worried about this part for quite a while... well, this part and the whole coming part because I was thinking that maybe Nic was talking too much and not being who she normally is but last night I felt like she´s been talking more and more and after the days at the Arlingtons it seems like something changed and also going back to prior posts, it seems a certain guy makes her talk hahaha
*
During the first week of school, on
Wednesday afternoon Nichole´s phone vibrated. She was laying down by the stone
wall, sketching birds and cats and a face that she hadn´t drawn in a while.
“Hello! How´s your first week of classes
going?” Natasha had her motherly voice, one that Nichole dreaded
“What do you want?”
“Whoa! What´s with that mood, I´m just
checking on you”
“You never check on me”
“This time you’re right… I still owe you
your birthday gift and I am calling to confirm. Sunday´s doable… your father´s
out of town and mrs. Duchenne´s going for a spa day and your step-sisters won´t
mind if Camille is not there but out with me, meaning you”
“Oh” the girl said. Nat chuckled on the other
side of the line
“Yeah, I thought you´d like that”
“Mh”
“Why don´t you sound excited, baby?”
“I’m not your baby. Where?”
“You´ll have to help me on that one…
-there´s the ´but´part Nichole thought- if I ask permission for home leave for
you it´ll be registered, the same if you go out on your own and I can´t have
that, specially since you saw Camille the day before school started… I need you
to go to the park that is close to the hotel where you spent your vacation, can
you do that?”
“It´ll take a lot if I take a cab, can
you bring her closer?”
“No, baby… if I take her closer to
Burgeoys, it´ll be suspicious…”
“How about Crystals house?”
“Your sisters will be there… but we can
postpone it or cancel”
“I´ll be there”
“Great! I won´t tell Camille until you´re
there, is that ok?”
“Yeah”
“Ok, have a nice day!” Nat said
chirpily, the girl ended the call.
Nichole stayed there, where she was
until the sun set and even a little after.
**
“Are my birds around?” Nichole asked
with a soft s mile as she and Josh got closer to her dorm
“Sort of” Josh returned the s mile. She
raised her eyebrows to enquire “I have them at the vet´s in the closest town to
school”
“Woodhills?” she sounded surprised. That
had been Ash´s town; his aunt and cousins still lived there.
She and Josh had
never visited there, she was almost sure the boy hadn´t gone either, there
weren´t that many places there to interest Josh or so she´d thought.
“Yeah. Ever gone there? It seems like
you´d like it better than Greenvalley”
“Mhh” she did like it better than the
town in which she and Josh had gone together. Ash´s town was a bit more rural
but nicer and closer, greener.
“We could go this Saturday since it´s
the first one out we have” he offered
“What about Kate?”
“She said her family´s taking her to her
aunt´s wedding”
“Saturday, then” she said glancing back
to him before getting in the glass doors of her dorm.
“What
time´s good for you tomorrow?” Nichole read the text. It was already Friday night.
She had erased the caller id but she knew the number.
“Early” she texted back
“I´ll ask the car to come by eight.
Breakfast there?”
“I kinda wanted to show you the way from
school… sort of a long walk though so it´s up to you” she texted back, he
smiled when he saw it
“Jumping the wall? You like being a
rebel, huh?” he texted and she laughed
“What´s life without breaking a few
rules?” she teased and he laughed. Another text came after that one “go to
sleep. I´ll wake you up before the sunrise :p”
He´d thought she´d been joking but at
five o´clock she was calling him
“Wake up sunshine! –She chuckled- you
better get ready. Be there in fifteen”
“What time is it?” he squinted his eyes
to look at his clock
“See you in fifteen” she chuckled and
hung up
“Why do you get up so early?” he grumbled
once he met her outside his dorm building
“You´re grumpy in the morning” Nichole
gave him a one-arm hug “hiking´s better in the morning and sneaking out is
better in the dark” she winked as they started to walk towards the orchard and
then to the stone wall. This time she led them to the old iron locked door. As
an agile cat she climbed it in two strides and from the top she jumped landing
on her feet.
“Show off” he said from the other side,
she grinned turned his way and winked “hurry” she said and he climbed as well,
not as gracefully as her but pretty easily. They walked along the stone wall,
she had detoured from the usual way she took when she went down there but if she
hadn´t done it, they would´ve had to climb in the exact same place where she
saved his life the afternoon she considered was the one he´d become her friend.
This time she hadn´t wanted to risk something like that happening again, she
avoided the river but she got closer, only enough for it to be seen, not enough
for him to fall or slip in it.
“Do you mind?” she asked nonchalantly
but there was nothing nonchalant about it since she was actually worried about
it
“Ah, no, I’m fine” he said smiling at
her concern though it always made him feel bad that she knew he was scared and
though she didn´t made him uncomfortable about it, he still felt that way.
The morning was cold and quiet. The
sounds of their when they stepped on the moist ground melted with the sounds of
the river and the birds that at times sung louder, but even this felt quiet.
They seemed to be walking towards the
sun, the soft sun beans peered between the trees, it made Nichole remember the
last time she had walked that path with someone, back then she´d been walking very
close to the boy. He´d been wearing a denim jacket with his loose untied hair,
he was humming a song, he was always humming a song, they were quiet besides
that, they were only walking next to the other, they didn´t need to talk only
to walk, similar to what she and Josh were doing but so different. Ashley and
Joshua were nothing alike yet in a way so similar, Nichole thought.
There was no time to think about Ash,
Nichole didn´t want to think about Ash right now, she knew she´d be thinking a
lot about him though, not only because of the path she was following but
because she was following it with someone else, a new friend, it felt to her
like she was walking over her steps and Joshua´s steps were now on top of
Ashley´s, maybe erasing them, maybe just being there, new steps, that would be
lost but never forgotten.
Nichole sighed and Josh glanced her way
a little worry in his eyes, she´d sounded sad. He wanted to ask if she was ok
but somehow it felt like she didn´t want to be asked that. It seemed like she
was walking in a different time but she was here so he stayed quiet wondering
what he should do.
At some point she stopped and sat, she
looked up at him with a very tiny smile; from her bag she produced a thermo
“Do you want some cocoa? Or would you
prefer tea?”
“Oh –he said shifting on his feet- what
do you want?” he said, she looked at him as if saying “if I asked you I wanted
an answer” so he ended up replying “cocoa´s fine”, he gave hi m the thermo and
then she gave him a box with a cupcake
“Where do you get these?” he asked, they
were not the kind they made at Burgeoy´s cafeteria.
“I feel that is a must to have a cupcake
whenever I walk this path” she explained with a little melancholic smile he
furrowed his eyebrows a little
“And why is that? Or is it a secret?”
She inhaled deeply and stared in the
river direction, she pulled a necklace where she had his guitar pick, there was
the cat he´d seen before, she caressed the pendant between her index and thumb.
“I had a friend…who… gave me cupcakes
whenever we walked this path” she said
“Oh” Josh exclaimed not knowing what to
say
“Yeah… we had a little joke. He had
wanted me to meet his grandma and the day he asked me to go –she said with a
little smile on her face- he brought me cupcakes and somehow I ended up saying
that if I found a cupcake line I might follow it –she said with humor- after
that every time we met he always had a cupcake for me and I don’t know every time
I come here I just have to have one… it´s silly, I know” she smiled.
Josh stared at her for a moment, almost never she showed that side of her, she was always so private, so secretive and
now, almost as if it was from nowhere, she was, she was
talking about someone she´d been flirting with, a friend like she kept calling
him. Something told him this was the same friend that she said she´d visited a
while ago. He pretty much had to keep biting his tongue to be patient and wait for
what she wanted to share. He felt a little scared, on how to go about things, he´d
been thinking a lot about her after the last time they were together back in
the woods when they were camping.
“Well… -he ended up saying- it sounds
like a good tradition”
“Yeah, it´s silly –she said again- but
yeah…it´s nice… I think”
“Sounds like you were very close”
“Yeah, we were” she replied and closed
her eyes leaning back until her back touched the ground. Silence stretched
between them.
“Im going to drink some water” she
announced lightly pointing to the river. They had been walking for a while calmly
in silence next to the other.
“I brought water” Josh was about to open
his backpack
“I did too. I just want to take a sip of
that water” again, she motioned towards the river
“Is that water even good to drink?”
there was some concern in the boy´s voice. She laughed quietly
“I won´t die if I drink it”
“But…” he started and she held up her
hand to stop him
“Whenever I go through this spot I take
a sip of water here” she explained, she knew he wouldn´t let it go other wise
“Why?”
“In memory of my friend. The first time
we met, he was drinking water there” a small smile graced the girl´s lips
“He wasn´t from Burgeoys” Josh stated making
her laugh
“No, Josh, he wasn´t” she said as if the
idea of it could be impossible, then, with a tiny smile still on her lips she
walked towards the river.
“Hello, Kitten” she murmured crossing
the river using the rocks in it that made some kind of bridge. Once she got to
the other side, she knelt down one knee on the ground and then she looked down
and with one hand she reached and drank twice.
“When did you start liking this place, the forest?”
Josh asked, they had started to walk down again
“I think we´ve talked of this before,
have you forgotten?” she was serious, his eyes widened
“I…” he started but stopped when he
noticed the soft gaze in her chocolate eyes
“I started to like it this one time that
I ran away from Natasha… They couldn´t find me for a while… whenever I wanted
to be at peace I went there, it was nice to have the illusion that I could
scape”
“What were you escaping of?”
“Training”
“Like the one you left on vacation?”
“Oh… well… kinda”
“That´s child abuse” he said serious,
she pursed her lips
“It´s over… I can do pretty cool stuff
because of it…”
“Are you justifying it?”
“No, Josh but there is no need to wallow
in misery… no once can touch me now, I’m safe here, now”
“I think you should go to the
authorities… don´t let them harm you anymore”
“Oh, don´t worry, that won´t happen
again. Now, tell me, do you mind the long walk?” she bumped her shoulder with
his, he stared at her for a second and decided to follow her lead in changing
the subject
“No, not really but I’m thinking on the
way up”
“We can take a cab up to Burgeoys” she
offered, he nodded.
“Where´s that vet´s shop?” Nichole asked
once they reached the street that cut the woods. He looked around
“From this road we have to go left on it
until we find the town”
“Is the one across the flag square?”
“Yeah”
“Ok, let´s take a short cut” she took him
though empty stone-made streets, all surrounded by many wooden house with big
gardens and backyards that made it seem like the woods kept going
“Do you know it here?”
“I do. Would you mind if we go somewhere
first?” Nichole asked, he smiled
There's a mixture of sadness and joy inside me after this one.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a terrible sadness but like a lonely one for Josh. He's standing in someone else's place and he must feel uncomfortable doing it now that he knows. But then again because he's Josh his inquisitive side ALWAYS takes over his emotional side so he didn't(or I think he didn't) mind being there as much as he would have if he was another guy. He's always wanting to ask questions, which is what makes him so attractive I think. He's tough with it. But then again(here I go with theories) he's matured since what happened over the break I think. Seeing the bruises on her at his house and somewhat facing his past seems to have made him rethink his approach to her, I don't know if I'm explaining coherently enough...? I just feel like he's grown as a friend. Like he's transcended observer territory and is on a different level. It's like he's gathering pieces of her puzzle but he's not letting her know he is. It's like he's asking the questions he's always asked but because the wording is different she's answering different but she doesn't seek to realize she's answering different until she notices she's talking a lot. Something like that but more thinky like and I'm babbling so I'll stop there.
Nic was kinda defensive of that area despite being open to him being there. Lol it was very cute(though sad for Josh) and it was good of her to tell him as honestly as she could about why it was an important place.
The part of her wondering about the new footprints erasing the old ones was so beautiful. I stopped and took in that part because it was really something else. It was like I felt how worried she was about whether it was the right thing to do to walk that way. But it was nice that she wanted to share that part of herself with him. It was like major progress!!
I think she was kind of "happy" in this one because(and I'm dying inside typing this) of Nat's birthday gift. If you read all the ones prior to when she meets up with Mii she's like a different person. So in response to your A/N, I think she's not behaving strangely at all. I think she's her usual excited self when she knows she's going to see her sister. ;)
I know I went on and on about it earlier but Josh in this one was just as amazing as usual! Sigh. He really makes me question stuff about his nature and how his mind works. Sigh.....