Winter
“She smacked him across the face and everything,” Grace relayed to me. I hadn’t personally been present at the Luke/Piper break up, but Grace’s retelling of it was sufficient enough. We seemed to share the immense joy in laughing at Luke’s failed relationships, only due to the fact that usually we were on the girl’s side of things.
We were walking through the park after school, our bags abandoned in Grace’s car. The leaves had mostly fallen off the trees and the air bit at the tips of my fingers and the end of my nose. Grace didn’t seemed as bothered by the cold as I was, but that might have had something to do with the fact that she was wearing a jumper, a coat over the top, gloves and had a hat pulled over her hair, which was loose over her shoulders, bouncing slightly against her back as she walked.
“What did he do?” I asked, tucking my hands further into my coat pockets, as if there was more warmth the further into the pockets they were.
“Nothing, he just stood there looking shocked as she walked away, talking very loudly about how she had never loved him anyway,” she said, kicking at a pebble, which clattered along the path in front of us. When we caught up with it, she kicked it again, missing and scuffing her shoe. She stopped dead in her tracks and I stopped as well, a few steps ahead of her, watching as she kicked at the pebble again, determined to hit it. She did so on the third try, although she claimed that she second try didn’t count because the breeze had distracted her.
The pebble clattered along the path and Grace started walking again. I joined her, keeping my eyes on the pebble as we approached it again, stopping to let Grace kick it before we walked after it.
“Do you ever wonder if you matured past the age of ten?” I asked and she turned to face me, a look of disbelief on her face as I grinned.
“I will pummel you with the rock,” she threatened as I grinned, a smile forcing its way onto her face, despite her attempts to purse her lips to hold it back. “The fact that you insulted me means that you didn’t either,” she said, walking forward and leaning over to pick up the pebble. I ran towards her, wrapping my arms around her middle, pinning her arms to her sides and she shrieked as I spun her around.
“I dropped it!” She exclaimed and I gasped into her hair, which was very much in my face.
“Oh no, not the stone! Whatever will you pummel me with now?” I asked sarcastically and she giggled as I set her back down on the floor.
“Oh, there it is,” she said and made to move forwards, but I tightened my hold on her.
“Why on earth would I let you get it?” I asked as she tried to wriggle her way out of my grasp.
“What about on Mars?” She asked and I frowned against her hair.
“What?”
“You said ‘why on earth’. Would you let me get it if we were on Mars?” she asked and I blinked in confusion.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” I said, realising too late that she was just trying to distract me. She had loosened my hold in my distraction and had pushed my arms further up her body, so they weren’t around her middle anymore, but around her shoulders instead. Before I could even think, she had ducked out, under my arms, and lunged for the pebble.
Deciding it was stupid at this point to try and stop her, I turned and ran instead, leaving the path and sprinting across the grass, my footsteps crunching on the frozen grass, knowing, from experience, that she couldn’t catch up to me.
“James! That’s not fair!” she yelled, her footsteps behind me slowing to a stop.
“Why not?” I stopped and turned to yell back.
She stuck her tongue out at me in response, sitting down on the floor and folding her arms. I started walking back towards her, stopping just out of her reach.
“Show me your hands,” I said and she shook her head, keeping her arms folded, a grin trying to force its way onto her face. “Do you actually still have the stone?” I asked in disbelief and the smile broke out on her face as she unfolded her arms and held out her hand, the pebble resting in her palm.
“It’s so smooth!” She told me, holding it between her hands and examining it. “I’m going to paint it to look like a bee and call it Jerome,” she told me, her expression turning serious, and I frowned through my laughter.
“Why Jerome?”
“Because it’s a funny name,” she looked up at me. “It’s not a silly thing to do, is it?” I raised an eyebrow at her sudden self-consciousness.
“It’s only silly if you don’t let me nickname it Jerry,” I told her and she gasped.
“Jerome is a he, James, don’t call him an it!” she exclaimed and I laughed as she held out a hand for me to pull her to her feet, tucking Jerome into her pocket. I took her hand and she did absolutely nothing to help me pull her up, hanging like a dead weight on the end of my arm.
“Grace, I’m not pulling you up if you’re going to do that,” I told her, trying to free my hand, but she was holding on with a mischievous grin on her face.
“Fine by me,” she grabbed my hand with both of hers and tugged, trying to pull me to the floor. Unfortunately for her, I had predicted this attack and had rooted my feet into the floor. “That’s not fair, you used to fall,” she complained, letting go and crossing her arms again.
“But I have since learnt your ways and refuse to be embarrassed so easily anymore,” I told her, holding out my hand to her. “Come on, help me find my own Jerome to paint,” she grinned, taking me hand and actually standing up this time, complaining about how the grass had made her jeans wet.
“You’re not calling him Jerome,” she said as we walked back towards the path, neither of us letting go of the other’s hand.
“I wasn’t going to,” I told her, “mine is going to be called Layla.”
“Layla the bee?” she asked. “That name doesn’t really roll off the tongue.”
“Oh, and Jerome the bee does?” I asked sarcastically and she leant into me, trying to knock me off balance for laughing at her. “Besides, mine isn’t going to be a bee, it’s going to be a ladybird.” I continued after we had walked on a bit.
“Layla the ladybird?” she asked, looking up at me.
“Hey, keep looking!” I exclaimed, gesturing to the floor. “We might have just walked past the perfect pebble!”
“Well you weren’t looking either!” She pointed out and I shrugged, realising that there was an elderly woman looking at us from a bench by the path.
“Could you be quiet, people are looking at us,” I told her, my voice dropping in volume after I had realised we were being watched.
“WHO DID YOU SAY WAS LOOKING AT US?” She yelled, looking around as she grinned, and I cringed inwardly as I dragged her away.
“Why are you like this?” I asked as I took her further away from the path and away from human civilisation.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she grinned innocently, batting her eyelids at me. “I’ve never done anything remotely annoying in my life.”
“Sure, go and find me a rock to paint,” I told her and she grinned before running towards the park’s pond. I walked after her, watching as she reached the pond and her eyes dropped to the floor, circumnavigating the pond with her head bowed. I stopped by one of the benches near the pond, leaning down and resting my arms on it as I watched Grace do a second lap of the pond, in case she missed something, occasionally bending over to pick something up.
“I have a selection,” she said as she approached, holding out her hands to show that they were both packed with pebbles, some marginally cleaner than others. She sat on the bench and dropped them all on the floor, leaning over as she arranged them in some sort of order that only made sense to her. I sat down next to her, watching in amusement as she counted them and picked out half of them, putting them in her pockets. “Those ones are for you,” she gestured to the ones she had left on the floor.
“Wow, thanks,” I leant over to pick them up. “Why, exactly, did you pick up the cleanest ones and leave the very dirtiest for me?” I asked, looking down at the rocks in my hands,
“Because I collected them, so I get first pick,” she stated, pulling one of them out of her pocket. “I still feel more connected to Jerome than the others, though.”
“You do realise it’s a rock, right?”
“Don’t talk like that! He can hear you!” she shoved me and I reached up and pulled her hat off her head, dropping my rocks into it. “James! Those are dirty!”
“I know, that’s why I don’t want to hold them,” I told her, grinning, but also feeling a little regretful at the same time.
“You’re going to pay for that!” she grabbed my arm and stood up, trying to pull me off the bench, but when that didn’t work, she opted to stand on the bench and then to walk onto my legs.
“Grace, your shoes!” I glared up at her as she stepped back off me, using my head for support, leaving muddy footprints on my jeans.
“Now we’re even,” she said and jumped off the bench. She turned and looked at it, looking at the mud she had tracked over, not only me, but also her seat.
“Where are you planning on sitting now?” I asked and she stuck her tongue out, walking over to me and perching on the arm of the bench, next to me. The opportunity was too perfect – I grabbed her arm and pulled her across my lap.
“James! I don’t want mud in my hair!” she exclaimed, pushing herself up so she was sat across my lap, glaring at me. Our noses were so close, if either of us moved forwards they would be touching. The glare slipped off her face and her eyes flicked down to my lips, her breath warm against my frozen face. I leaned forward, my eyes slipping closed as our lips touched, my hand coming up to hold her cup the back of her neck, her hair tangling around my hand as a single word came into my head.
Finally.
And done!
There are only four chapters in this short story, so this is technically the half-way point... keep an eye out for chapter three next week!
Anyway, that's all for now...
Bye!
