Boston

By RedRose18

Boston Part III

Serena looked at the stack of brochures in the hotel lobby. 'If I'm stuck in Boston I might as well do the tourist thing,' she thought. She picked up a map and a handful of brochures and walked out the door.

The first order of the day was breakfast. She went to a small café and ordered a tea and a slice of zucchini bread. While she munched on her light breakfast she shuffled through the brochures. A few looked promising, an art museum, a few shopping malls, she paid for her meal and decided to walk around and see where she ended up.

Even though she was sad that Darien had found someone else being her on her own gave her a new sense of freedom. It was a beautiful day and she had nothing to do and no one to have to please, she had the whole entire day to herself to forget everything that was going on in her life. She loved being a scout but sometimes she just got so overwhelmed between school and scout business she barley had time to think. She always felt pressured to do better by her mom, her dad, her teachers, friends and even though he never said anything she felt pressure to do better for Darien.

But she didn't have to worry about that today, there was no chance of an attack here and her parents and teachers were over 1,000 miles away. Serena walked into the cool foyer of the Boston Art Museum, she paid the admission fee and began to explore. She had always loved art museums it was a passion she had that few knew of. She could spend the whole day just walking around drinking in various works of art and often did…with Darien. She took in a shaky breath as she walked around suddenly starting to feel sad and alone without someone to share this with.

She decided to leave the museum earlier than expected and headed to one of the huge malls she had seen in the travel brochures. She needed some serious retail therapy. She went Anthropologie and tried on all sorts of different outfits. She felt a little guilty when she charged the $300 to her parent's charge card she had taken before she left but she hoped her mother would understand.

She looked at her watch and was shocked to find out it was 7:30 at night. Had she really spend four hours at the mall? She took her bags and went out the door. She hadn't realized it but she was absolutely ravenous. All she had eaten, beside breakfast, was an ice cream cone while walking to the mall. In truth she hadn't been eating much lately but the shopping had tired her out and she needed to revive some energy.

Serena walked down the darkening street until she found a small kitschy diner that looked inviting. She was promptly seated by a waitress named Marge who had gray hair wore lipstick three shades two bright.

"I'll be back to take your order, Hon." she said as she walked off to refill another customer's coffee cup.

Serena quickly decided what she wanted and leaned back in to the booth while letting out a small sigh. The door jingled signaling a new arrival. Serena opened her eyes and quickly sank into her booth trying to make herself invisible. It was the last two people she wanted to see Darien and his new girlfriend.

Marge quickly sat them in the booth behind Serena. 'Just perfect,' she thought. Luckily the booth was high and when she slouched down she removed her hair from her customary style to avoid being discovered. She wanted to leave but her sense of morbid curiosity won over, she wanted to find out what that brunette girl had to offer that she didn't. She concentrated on eaves dropping while absentmindedly sipping on her coke.

:-:

Julia was exhausted; Darien had dragged her around the city all day looking for Serena. She had finally convinced him to stop searching and eat around 7:30 that night. Fifteen minutes later they were walking by a diner when she spotted who they had been searching for, Serena.

"Darien, how about we eat here," she said, more of a statement than a question.

"I guess, but it looks like it's kind of slow, I want to keep searching," he said.

"It'll be fine," Julia replied firmly a plan formulating in her head.

Luckily fate decided to help Julia's plan along when Marge sat them in a booth right behind Serena. Darien too exhausted to notice the petite blonde cowering in the booth right behind them sat down with his back facing her.

'It couldn't have turned out better,' thought Julia.

Darien insisted they order right away, Marge took their orders and left for the kitchen. After a few minutes Julia saw a blonde head reappear behind Darien and barely stifled a giggle when the girl attempted to disguise herself by taking her hair down. Quickly composing herself she decided it was time to bring these two back together.

"Darien", she began, "why don't you go home and sleep. We can keep looking for Serena tomorrow." She smiled to herself as the blonde straightened up with rapt attention. "It's not like she'll be leaving anytime soon, this is one of the biggest airline strikes ever."

Darien looked up from his coffee, "But I want to see her again."

"Darien just admit it, you're still in love with her."

Darien put his coffee cup down harshly on the table the steaming dark brown liquid sloshing over the edges, but he didn't answer.

"I know you love her Darien. I don't know what happened in Japan but I know you do and I know she loves you too, she wouldn't have taken a plane here to see you if she didn't. You can deny it all you want but we wouldn't have spent all day going to every tourist attraction and hotel looking for her. Why did you break up with her, why did you come here?"

Darien sat there with his head down refusing to look Julia in the eye fearing that his face would reveal what he really felt for Serena.

"Darien, please, as a friend tell me."

Darien look up at her, he looked like he would finally break, his pain magnified in his tired eyes, "I-I," he began, "I had been dating Serena for awhile and things were going great, we were in love. It was perfect. I started to get these dreams where Serena would die; a voice would warn me to stay away from her or else that would be her future. I ignored it for the first few weeks saying it was just a dream and didn't mean anything but it kept coming back night after night.,." he took in a shaky breath, "After awhile I came to believe the dream, I couldn't stand to see her hurt and know I was the cause. I knew I had to do something."

Julia was shocked she didn't know what to say and she was also scared, scared by the look in Darien's eyes. He looked so scared at the thought of losing Serena, so scared that he separated himself from the woman he loved causing himself unending amounts of pain just so she would be safe.

" I know what you are probably thinking," started Darien, "I was being selfish, just breaking up with her without an explanation but I know she would have told me to ignore all the dreams but I couldn't stand the thought of her getting hurt because of me, I can't stand to lose someone else I love."

"Darien, that's not what I was going to say at all," said Julia as she reached across the table and took his hands in hers, "I think it was absolutely amazing what you did, yes you did go about it the wrong way by lying to Serena but you changed your whole entire life just to save her, although it was a stupid thing you had the correct intentions." Julia crossed her finger under the table before she asked Darien her next question, "Darien, do you still love Serena?"

"I will never stop loving her, she is my life, but do you think she will ever forgive me I broke her heart? And even if she did forgive me she would be in danger again because of me."

"It isn't up to you to decide, if she wants to risk her life for love than she should be the one to decide, not you."

"It doesn't matter anyways," he replied, "I will probably never see her again and even if I do she probably won't forgive me."

"Why don't you turn around and ask her?"

Darien slowly turned around and was shocked to see a beautiful blonde goddess with flowing hair and crystalline tears shining in her eyes.

:-:

So do you like sorry it took so long I wasn't motivated for a while. Please give me your honest opinion on my writing but don't be mean give me criticism in a constructive way, tell me why you don't like it if you don't. Don't just say your story sucks. I apologize for any grammar or spelling errors I wanted to get this out as soon as I finished so I didn't proofread but I will eventually and feel free to point out any errors in reviews.