AN: I'm really not feeling the best about this part, so I hope you like it and maybe leave me a review with your thoughts? Thanks.
I sigh and look to my fingernails that I pick at as the hum of several conversations flutter around the free air of this restaurant that smells of greasy burgers, soda, and fried doughnuts.
"I don't know where to start." I admit in a quiet voice as I'm lost in my clutter of thoughts inside of my head.
"Why are you so sad, love? What happened to that lively girl I got to know over this last day who smiled and laughed?" he seems to ignore my question and asks me this instead.
"You hardly even know me." I mutter and I look up to meet his deep eyes that lay on me.
"I know that your name is Courtney Oakes, that you're 19, and that you're going to college to be an art teacher but you're doubting your decision. I know that you have pretty red hair, and round brown eyes. I know that you're an only child and that you're favorite color is green. I know that we have a lot in common, such as that we enjoy the same hobbies like reading and listening to music. I also have figured out that you're a Beatles fan and that you're a lovely girl." he replies with this lengthy list.
"It sounds like you do you know me, but.." I trail off and I huff and glance out the window where a few happy girls walk in a huddle down the sidewalk with grins on their faces.
"But what?" he questions and the waitress then returns with our malts in tall glasses with a straw and whip cream on the top, it looks like how it does in movies or pictures.
I take a drink from the beverage and I actually smile at the divine taste, and how smooth and creamy it is. The restaurants back home had malts where they tried to duplicate the good old malt from this time, to have the epitome of this, but they never succeeded and my how this is so yummy. I swallow and set the glass down to glance to Paul who drinks from his and he notices me looking at him and he makes eye contact.
"Why'd you decide to leave out of nowhere this morning without telling any of us?" he questions a silent minute later and the ding of the front door is heard as a pile of customers enter through the door.
"I didn't not tell any of you, Ringo knew and I uh left a note on your bed." I find the courage to use my voice more and I slowly work on the delicious chocolate malt in front of me.
"Okay, but why didn't you straight out tell me or any of the others?"
"Because you would've stopped me from leaving." I reply with the obvious answer and he nods his raven haired head in a vertical motion slowly.
"I left because I was just pestering you guys and giving you troubles, and I hate troubling you. I was more of a problem than any help." I reveal and I cross my legs.
"You weren't giving us any troubles." he disagrees.
"Yeah right! What do you call getting into a fight over me staying with you all?" I retort and he runs a hand through his disheveled hair.
"John can just be stubborn sometimes and it's take a lot for him to trust somebody. Just come back to the flat with me please?" he requests and I shake my head 'no'.
The older waitress exits the back of the counter with our tray of food to set down on our table in front of us and it both looks and smells delicious. We both pull our own basket towards us with the burger wrapped in paper and what I call fries sit next to the burger on the layer of paper that's draped in the basket, and I pop one of the hot fries into my waiting mouth. People surely don't know what they're missing out in 2012, with these fantastic fries that are perfectly crispy and that have the right amount of salt on them. Our ideal cuisine 49 years into the future is full of fat, empty calories and sugary foods that do nothing but bad things to our bodies. Not that food from this time is perfectly healthy, but hey it tastes ten times better.
I bite from the buttery burger after putting ketchup under the bun and I think I just tasted heaven, or so it seems, with the soft bun, the juicy burger and the melted cheese. I smile and Paul looks at me with a raised eyebrow and with a very weird expression on his face.
"What, you've never had a burger before?" he inquires and I can't help but to laugh and his hearty one joins the volume of mine.
"Yes, just not one this good." I reply after our short spout of laughing dries up and he snickers with a grin before popping a fry in between his pink lips.
"Well they say that they have the best burgers in London, and I'm a firm believer of that." he comments and I sense that there's still some tension or maybe awkwardness between us since some questions sit unanswered for us.
"I second that." I remark and I take a few gulps from my shrinking malt.
We eat our greasy but filling meals in mostly silence as British voices surround us in mostly incoherent talk while the radio from behind the counter finishes what I think to be a Little Richard song and the commentator comes on to speak. I eat one last salty fry before pushing my basket away with a full stomach and I sip from my malt one last time. Paul shortly finishes after me and the the nice lady named Pearl comes by to take our plates and she leaves the check for Paul.
"I'm sorry I can't help with it." I mumble as he gets his wallet out to find the right bills and he sets them on the table and replaces his wallet in his pocket.
"Don't apologize love, it's perfectly alright." he replies with a reassuring smile and I smile back at him, I don't even have a penny on me.
Pearl comes back to pick the check and the money up and she gives us a nice farewell and have a nice day before tending to a new bout of customers at the door.
I sigh and crack my knuckles and Paul makes a disgusted face and I rest my hands in my lap.
"Ew, that sounds so gross." he comments and I shrug silently.
"Paul-." I begin after pondering the thought for a moment.
"You don't have anywhere to stay, huh?" he suspects and I shake my head side to side with a blank face.
"But you don't want to stay at our flat." he remarks, but he's wrong.
"I do, but I don't want to bug you, or heck make you guys fight." I correct him and he folds his hand to rest on the table.
"We fight without you being there love, and actually I think you level us out some, and some of us think before we speak when you're there surprisingly."
I simply nod my head because I don't know what else to do and he looks around the area dense with young people, and he gets up and nods for me to follow. We leave the loud restaurant to encounter the not so warm fall air where cars honking their horns at each other fill the streets air, bright advertisements sit on the walls of brick buildings for all to see and a Beatle stands next to me with his hand in his pocket. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes from that pocket of his and as much as I probably shouldn't I accept when he offers me one and he kindly lights it for me.
"Lets go somewhere to talk then, I still wanna hear that story. I think there's a nice park up a block or two." he states and I walk after him once he starts and I blow out the puff of cigarette smoke into the London air.
He treads in front of me with a hand in his pocket and his hand dangles to his side after he takes a drag from the cancer stick that ends up getting him into several other drugs in the coming years, I wonder if he ever regrets it. Women clad in long dresses, with their hair in curls or having their bangs pulled back with a clip, walk by us silently. I feel like such an outsider, but that's what I am, being from another time. I don't even look like people from this day, with my dated clothes that don't nearly resemble theirs and the knowledge I have that they don't. These teenage guys sitting on a bench in tight jeans and a t shirt don't know that the sticks of nicotine they suck on and inhale, are slowly killing them with each cheek full of smoke they take in. I cough and toss mine on the ground to stamp it out with the heel of my foot, what was I thinking? I gain back my steps to be behind Paul again who walks kind of fast and we cross a street to find a park with a tall fountain, a few benches and a swing set in our view.
Paul goes for the left swing on the set that only has two swings and i take the other, and I start to pump my legs.
"I had a great childhood, but my parents started fighting more than usual a couple of years ago and then my dad discovered my mom cheating on him. The papers for their divorce were finalized the other day." I begin into the autumn air where the sounds of birds chirping flows into my ears and I'm lifted off of the leaf strewn ground.
"I never had divorced parents, so I can't say that I know what you're experiencing, but I've gone through the step parent phase and it's not a whole lotta fun." he comments and I cock my head to my right to see him swinging and he gives me an encouraging smile.
"But if your parents didn't-?" I know the whole story about his mom passing, but I can't let him know that so I play along.
"Mum died of cancer when I was 14, and dad remarried 3 years ago to a lady who has a young daughter of her own." he informs me.
"Speaking of cancer my aunt has it, this rare kind, and they don't know if she'll make it. I was so surprised when I found out, and I'm scared if she will make it or not," I remark and I look to him with forming tears in my brown eyes. "How do you deal with it?" I ask him and a sad look comes onto his face.
"There's no real way to deal with it, Court. I wish I had a better answer for you, but you just have to take it day by day really." he mumbles and a tear falls onto my cheek.
"What if she doesn't make it, Paul? How do you handle it?" I ask the unavoidable question with my voice that threatens to break.
He exhales a sad sigh and gets off to his swing and I do too and he envelopes me in his arms.
"The only thing you can do is to face it and grieve. It's going to be one of the hardest things you'll do, love, but you'll heal. I know how it seems like time doesn't really heal wounds, but it actually does." he hugs me and says against my hair.
"Do you miss her often?" I mutter into his chest while once again I'm drenching his shirt with my tears, I feel like a cry baby.
"Every day." his simple answer speaks for itself along with his serious tone of voice and I sniffle.
"How do you stop it from breaking apart your family?" I mutter into his soft shirt while my head lays on his chest.
"You don't, because you can't. My mum passing like she did changed my family, and even though we're still rather close today, there's still that thing missing, that closeness I don't think we'll ever have again." he answers my question and he runs his hand up and down my back in a comforting way.
"Do you believe in God?"
"Not really, I've been kind of mad at him for the past 7 years," he remarks. "Do you?"
"Yeah I suppose, but I don't understand how he can let things like this happen." I comment and I let out a shaky sigh.
"I reckon it's all apart of life, as crappy as it is to endure." he says slowly as he seems to be struggling with an answer to give me.
I pull away from the hug and we walk back to our swings to swing more and I wipe my wet cheeks to stare up at the blue sky with the soft clouds that are scattered across it.
"If you ever go back home are you gonna switch from parent to parents house, or just stay with one?" Paul's soft voice interrupts the balanced silence and I look to my floating feet while I sway in the swing.
"My mom wants me to stay with her and her new boyfriend, but I really wanna stay with my dad. My mom is such a bad mom." I speak into the afternoon air.
"She's your mum, Court." he appears to disagree, and I shake my head.
"I know, but she's hurt me so many times over the years with the decisions she's made over the years that have impacted me. She always thinks about herself, and I'm sure she regrets having me. I was just some oops baby my parents didn't plan on having. I'm the reason they had a courthouse wedding and now are divorced."
"Don't say that, it's not true. I'm sure a parent could never regret their own child, and it's not your fault that they ended up where they are." he comments after I finish and I click the heels of my shoes together to make a sound.
"You should meet my mother." I reply with a sarcastic tone.
I shake my head with a doubting feeling and a boy on a bicycle flies by on the sidewalk.
"Why are you so mad at her?" he questions randomly, as if its theoretical almost.
"Because she's always been focused on herself since I could remember. She's never been there for me, because her work and habits came before me. When I needed new clothes for school, she would instead buy expensive clothes to fill her growing closet when mine was empty. I know I might be sounding selfish, but it's the truth."
"You don't sound selfish." his quiet voice utters and I look to his soft face that is plastered on my bedroom walls back home in magazine excerpts, on book covers as well as magazines, on paintings and drawings of mine, on posters and in the pictures on my cell phone.
I've never felt this comfortable around somebody who isn't judging every word I say or reading into the sentences I speak. For once somebody is actually listening to me, and I can't express how great it feels. I don't know how I'm not still shocked to speak to him and to have his flawless face before me with his lovely voice flowing from his lips as he speaks directly to me, and cares about me, but I enjoy the wonders and craziness of whatever the hell this journey is supposed to be.
AN: I'm sorry to leave it kind of sappy and all, but I hope to turn that around in the next few chapters.