He stands outside Buckner and waits, watching the uniformed kids pour out of the school in small groups now, after the initial avalanche. He had to skip last period because he was pretty sure she was getting out earlier than him on Fridays, but this was a special circumstance, right? Afraid he might have missed her, he keeps turning left and right to see if she is catching a ride with some school friend or Toby. Finally he sees her, she is walking slowly, immersed in thoughts, not really taking in a whole lot of her surroundings. He watches her for a few seconds, she is very pretty, even in that ugly uniform, with her hair tied back yet parts of it refusing to fully stay in the ponytail. He is a photographer, used to catching beauty on film and he wishes he was close enough to catch the way that rebellious curl keeps jumping out from behind her ear.
He waves at her and she looks up, her face lighting up as she sees him, making him smile almost involuntarily (how come she has this effect on him? He has never been a smiler and now he can't stop smiling constantly in her presence). She starts walking faster, skipping almost until she is right in front of him; he can smell his own shampoo in her hair as she leans forward and softly puts her lips on his.
She is so glad to see him, the whole day she has kept hearing Regina's words over and over in her head, and, unable to keep her attention on any subject, been told off twice for daydreaming, once in French and once in math. She wasn't sure what she was going to do after school, home did not feel like an option, with her parents, all 3 of them, possibly there. And of course Daphne. Everybody loves Daphne, everybody prefers her to me, she is thinking when she sees him, standing there, waving. Well, maybe not everybody! She kisses him and then asks, signing haphazardly the few words she knows "What are you doing here? Or rather what are we doing NOW?"
He keeps grinning at her (he must have the sweetest smile ever, how did she not notice how sweet his smile was until recently?) and he signs "Something special"; she doesn't catch the second word and looks confused so he quickly thinks of a word he knows she understands, "something cool".
He hands her the extra helmet and she gets on, her arms tightly wrapped around his middle, as he revs the bike. He loves the power of the bike, the vibration of its noise going through his body and, he won't lie, he doesn't exactly mind female arms tucked around him. Though it was a bit unexpected that he would enjoy these particular female arms so much, when since he was 8 years old, he had been positive he would only ever love one (strawberry blonde) girl in his whole life. So sure had he been of this, that when he had dated a girl last summer, he ended up thinking of it as practice. Was Bay also practice? He wasn't trying to be mean, he didn't mean to hurt her, but he was not sure what he was feeling. He only knew he felt great with her, he liked her a whole lot, but could he like two girls at once? In very different but very real ways?
All of this had been going around his head as he tried to sleep on that couch last night, yet when today he could chose between staying in English lit and then going for a ride with Daphne or skipping and making Bay smile, he had no trouble choosing. Then again Daphne had not spent an hour crying herself into sleepy oblivion last night and this morning she had not looked happy but not really all that depressed either when he had seen her across the hallway.
The place he is taking Bay is not exactly close by, it takes them nearly 45 minutes to get there with the afternoon traffic slowing them down considerably but once he is there and he quickly turns to see her face when she realizes where they are, he knows it was worth the ride.
"A fun fair?" she exclaims. How does he know she loves fun fairs? She looks at him and he nods, then makes signs she is not sure are actual signs or "charade signs" to make her understand him, imitating a Ferris wheel with his fingers and pretending to eat candy floss, all the while lifting up his eyebrows repeatedly, clearly meaning "how awesome is that?". She grabs his hand and entwines her fingers with his, "Let's go in!".
It is still early and there are not that many people there, a few middle-school kids shooting cans, a few toddlers on the carrousel and a couple or two strolling along just like them. She chatters at him, remembering a sign here and there, telling him all about how when she was little she had a calendar to cross out the days until the big state fair came into town. How she would dream with caramel apples and bumper cars and how she once won 12 gold fish in one evening, which were gone by next morning except for one, who she called Robinson and who lived in a bowl by her bed for 4 years until he died. He signs for her to slow down a couple of times and she does for a sentence or two but then gathers speed again until he slows her down again. She tries not to get frustrated with this and without a Daphne shrine in her immediate vicinity she finds it a lot easier. "What should we do first? The Ferris wheel is off I think, maybe bumper cars? Or could we eat something… I am starving!". He nods and points at a hot dog cart just as her phone starts ringing in her bag. She takes it out and sees that it is her mom, she signs "mom" at him with an eye-roll and then picks up.
While she talks to her mother on the phone he checks his and sees that he has a couple of messages, both from Daphne. "Hey, you skipped lit, what's up? You sick?" and the second one "Toby thinks he saw you at Buckner, you with Bay again?". He sighs and types "yes, feeling sick, Toby is crazy". Then he deletes it and types "feeling fine, spending some time with Bay, she needed cheering up". Then deletes it again and types "not sick, not with Bay" and thinks before pressing send. She might see him when he drives her home, and then she will be mad at him for being with Bay AND for lying. So he deletes that last text again and just pops the phone back into his pocket.
It is getting dark when they have finally finished their hotdogs and candy floss, Emmett won her an ugly keychain at the can shooting and they rode the carrousel once and the bumper cars twice. Her face is aching from laughing so hard, it really has been the perfect afternoon.
Finally the Ferris wheel starts turning and he pulls her towards it. She always thought it was kind of corny to ride the wheel as a couple, kissing at the top like they do in every romantic comedy she has ever watched, but clearly he doesn't think so and she is secretly glad he doesn't. They get into the little compartment and he immediately pulls her close to kiss her and though she loves kissing him there is something bugging her now. She pushes him a little bit back and signs "Daphne… we have to talk to her… about you and me". He looks confused and signs and mouths "why? This is just between us, it has nothing to do with Daphne". She understands every word and they each hurt. "It does! She is your friend and my… I don't know, she has to know. She will get angry. At both of us, but she will forgive you and stay angry with me." Her eyes are tearing up a little bit, not so much at the idea of Daphne upset with her, but because Emmett not wanting to tell her clearly means this is not real to him, she was right, this is just some game.
He sees her, eyes glassy, biting her lip to stop herself from crying, and he just wants to make it all better. She is of course right, if he wants to continue doing this, he has to talk to Daphne, and it really should be him, since he started it all.
As one big beautiful tear runs over and rolls down her cheek, he reaches out with his left and catches it with his thumb, carefully wiping it away and signs with the other hand "Ok, I will talk to her. Tomorrow."