"Echoes of the Past"
Chapter 3: "Cristina"
He turned around at the painfully familiar words spoken by a voice so familiar to him. Was it really her..?
— Ronnie-Anne? — he asked, not quite realizing what had happened.
— How are you doing? — Ronnie-Anne answered in the same cocky voice she'd had since they first met. But when he came closer, and then, recognizing his childhood friend, ran straight to her, she, like him, was moved to tears.
— Ronnie-Anne! Come here! — he said and hugged her tightly, still not believing his ears, his eyes, and even his consciousness, — But how did you find me here..?
— Lori, — she answered him, slightly calmed down, — She told me once where you people had moved to, and I decided to surprise you like this, without seeing how far away this place might be. So, how's it going?
— It's good. Let's drop at my place so we don't have to stand in the cold!
— Let's go. Why, did you get away from your folks already?
— Yes. To be more precise, it was them leaving me, — Lincoln answered, smiling, — they went to Toronto, because they couldn't stand the local harsh climate. Lucy is the oldest now, and the other sisters are not so young anymore. I remember well when…
— Well, we'll talk about nostalgia later. Let's go now, or else I'll catch the cold! — She interrupted him and took him under her arm and quickly walked in some unknown direction.
Yeah, there she is, good old Ronnie, Lincoln thought. There was still that brutal bully part of her that had terrorized him more than once and more than twice at school in elementary school. Then it turned out that she was just showing her feelings for him in a non-trivial way, with all her pranks and jokes. Her feelings never went away, by the way.
— Where are we going? — Lincoln asked, when they had walked a few meters.
— Really, where are we going! — Ronnie-Anne said mockingly and stopped, — You live here, so show us where we're going!
Soon they reached a residential neighborhood and then the apartment building where Lincoln was living for the second year of his three years of schooling. Why three and not four, and how that happened will be told later, in another story.
Once inside the building, they met Lincoln's building-neighbor who was studying in the same university with him. After saying hello to him and introducing his childhood friend, they then walked up the stairs to the fourth floor.
— Come on in and make yourself at home, — Lincoln said as he let Ronnie come in.
— Come on, I'm only here for a couple days. I have nothing to do in such a cold! — she joked as she went inside.
He turned on the light and helped her take off her jacket. She walked down a small corridor to Lincoln's room and looked around. The room was a spacious living room. Next to the wall on the left side was the couch he slept on, and above the couch hung a large family painting he had brought with him from Royal Woods. In the corner was a huge closet with his belongings, clothes and bedding inside.
On the right side, however, was an empty desk. In the evening, after studying, it was where Lincoln had his laptop, where he worked on his projects, as well as his term papers. The big window's curtains had been open since morning, and Lincoln had to curtain the window back so that people on streets wouldn't see what was happening inside.
With a whistle of surprise, Ronnie-Anne said:
— You've got yourself a nice place! I'm jealous, — her stomach suddenly rumbled, — Listen, do you have anything to eat?
— Something to eat? There must have been something left in the fridge.
Lincoln peered into the small kitchen with a sink, a stove, and a small refrigerator and opened the refrigerator door.
— Yep, nothing much, — he thought. He didn't really need to keep a lot of extra food in it when the university had a cafeteria where he had already paid for his meals in advance.
— There are eggs and tomatoes left, — he shouted to her from the kitchen, — I can make an omelet. You want one?
— Of course! Hurry up, I'm starving.
— I'll be right back.
After frying the omelet, Lincoln set the table and called Ronnie to the table.
— Well, it hasn't even been a century, — she joked again and began to eat. She hadn't changed a bit since childhood, and continued to tease Lincoln as best as she could.
After putting away the dishes used for the omelet, he soon sat down at the table.
— You know, Bobby and your sister Lori often tell me that you and I are a good match, — Ronnie-Anne said, and they laughed together, — Do they really think I'd marry such a jerk? — She added, jokingly of course, and punched Lincoln in the tendon.
Yes! The members of both the Loud and the Casagrande families said that Lincoln and Ronnie-Anne were a real couple in love, and that they were just right for each other! To which, of course, both Linc and Ronnie objected as much as they could. But when they were alone (with themselves, not with each other), they thought about it from time to time, and Ronnie even thought about it seriously.
Eventually, she came to the conclusion that they were a couple… of best friends and it was better for them to stay that way. Lincoln, on the other hand, had never thought of Ronnie-Anne as a love interest, but had shown her very warm feelings for her, as far as a best friend could show them.
After finishing the omelet, Ronnie-Anne suggested that Lincoln talk. They went back into the living room and talked about things happening in life and future plans. After a few hours, Ronnie began to feel sleepy and Lincoln offered her a place on his couch while he slept on the floor, which she did not agree to. After some fierce arguments, however, she reluctantly gave in to him.
When all the lights were off in the apartment and Ronnie-Anne was asleep, Lincoln went into the kitchen. In the bright moonlight, he could see almost everything. He sat down on a chair near the window and, gazing out at the view of the city at night, resumed his thinking process.
His first memory was of the day he'd gone on a double date to save Lori's relationship with Ronnie-Anne's older brother Bobby. That was when he took the opportunity to apologize to Ronnie and kissed her in front of everyone, including Lori and Bobby. Just thinking about it made him laugh. He smiled involuntarily. The incident had seemed to him to be just a childish prank. But it had meant a great deal to Ronnie-Anne. She couldn't forget that kiss, and even months later she thought about it every day.
She was thinking about how Lincoln realized his mistake when he called her all kinds of hurtful words to «prove» the fact that they weren't dating to the guys who laughed at him because they looked like a couple, even though they weren't. She was thinking about how he had found the strength to admit the mistake and apologize to her sincerely. About, and what she thought about most of all, was the way Lincoln had kissed her. He'd understandably forgotten about it almost immediately upon arriving home. But she...
Then, a different but traumatizing memory suddenly popped into Lincoln's head. He tried to push it away and not think about it anymore as hard as he could, but it never left his mind. Even though he had moved from Royal Woods, even though he had gone to the University of the Yukon, and his whole head was occupied with studies and household matters, it still occasionally made itself known, but he did not know how to get rid of it, even though he wanted to. That memory was connected with his school years, but it had a direct connection with his first crush and a very sad experience with the opposite sex.
He remembered how he once wanted to win that ill-fated school contest for the most viral video that would get the most likes. After asking his sister Luan what to do and not heeding her final advice that he should never post a video online without the permission of those participating in the video, he did the exact opposite. He had resorted to this extreme measure and posted a staple of embarrassing videos of his sisters, which had been laughed at by the whole school, and then the sisters started hating Linc.
Lincoln couldn't forgive himself for this and corrected his mistake by erasing that video and replacing it with an even more embarrassing video of him. In one of those moments, Lincoln was pictured holding a pillow with a picture of Cristina, a classmate he had been in love with since second grade. He started kissing the pillow and when Cristina saw this, she felt extremely uncomfortable and then asked her parents to change schools.
When Lincoln learned about it from his classmates, who casually mentioned Cristina's desire to change schools, he decided to apologize to her for the incident and to confess his feelings to her, which he had been hiding for so long.
Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to do it right away, because as soon as he thought about it, the break was over and he had to go to his math class with the rest of the kids.
Instead of the math class, Lincoln was focused on what he was going to say to Cristina and how he was going to approach the matter. First and foremost, he still had to find her before she left school and probably never went back there again. The class finished and Lincoln walked out of the classroom. Two feelings mixed in his heart: first and foremost, shame that Cristina had seen that video. He couldn't imagine what she thought about it and, just as importantly, about Lincoln and how she would feel about him now. Second, he felt fear, specifically fear of failure. What if she rejected him, didn't want to hang out with him anymore, or worse, hated him?
Finally, when he went down to the first floor and walked around a couple or three corridors, he saw Cristina, who was chatting with her friend. At that moment he felt that very fear. An internal conflict arose in his head that he couldn't resolve for a whole minute, but only then, taking a deep breath and getting more oxygen into his lungs, he called out to her:
— Cristina!
She and her friend turned around. Cristina's friend laughed when she saw Lincoln, but Cristina was not laughing. It was quite the opposite, she felt confused and stared at the floor. When he noticed that Cristina wasn't laughing at him (he wasn't paying any attention to his friend), he became more confident and came closer.
— Hi! Do you have some time to talk? — he asked her.
— Sure... — Cristina answered quietly, without looking at him, and then she was silent again.
— I want to tell you something.
— Oh-oh, that'll be a lot of fun! — gloatingly said her friend, interfering in the conversation, and took out her phone to catch it on camera.
— Hey, put that away! — Lincoln said in a serious tone, and the next thought that flashed through his mind was, «How I understand my sisters now...», — I just want to talk to Cristina, and don't you dare record us!
— Or what? — She asked dismissively and with a nasty smirk.
— Please, don't... — Cristina said.
— Well, suit yourself! — She put the phone away and walked away. As she rounded the corner, Lincoln began his tirade:
— Cristina, I, — Lincoln barely started, sighing as he was still having a bit of a hard time due to his mixed feelings, — I just wanted to apologize for that video. I hope you aren't mad at me for it, I really did such a stupid thing back then. I'm sorry! But you're really cool. And also smart, beautiful and I really like you! — he said, and these words only made Cristina more embarrassed and blushed.
No, she wasn't mad at him for that video, and she realized it herself. She was just embarrassed and a little ashamed, that's all. She didn't really care about Lincoln, and now that he was apologizing to her for that awkward moment, she was gladly willing to forgive him. But still, she still had her doubts, and instinctively she wasn't ready to keep talking to him. Just not ready.
And Lincoln continued:
— You and I only saw each other in second grade and didn't cross paths very often after that, but I haven't forgotten you! I really haven't! — Then he caught Cristina's gaze and began to realize that he had nothing more to say, mostly because of the excitement that made him forget all the thoughts he wanted to tell her.
And how coolly he had imagined it in his head! But, alas, in reality it turned out quite differently, as it usually does. So he decided to end it all with one phrase:
— I hope you'll understand. Please forgive me.
When it was clear that Lincoln had finished his thought, Cristina, after a short pause, spoke, rather timidly:
— It's okay! I've almost forgotten... I forgive you.
— You do?
— Yes. About what you said. I'm sorry, Lincoln, but I don't think that's gonna work.
That pretty much said it all. Lincoln hurried back to class, but he didn't think about anything else that day. She had forgiven him, but now she would try to avoid his company wherever she could, he thought. And so she did. He never saw Cristina at school ever again.
He did his best to forget this story forever, never discussing it when talking to anyone, only mentioning that Cristina «just changed schools». It was only several years later, when he started attending High School and he and Ronnie-Anne played Truth or Dare during a video-call when he first shared his story with her.
— Sorry to hear this whole thing with Cristina happened to you, — she said.
— Thanks, Ronnie-Anne.
— Don't worry much about it, she herself is just a weirdo. She's always so withdrawn, — she added to cheer Lincoln up, — imagine how stupid it is — not talking to you just because of that silly story from childhood!
Her words were true. Indeed — that was only a silly thing that happened in childhood, such things happen with pretty much everyone! But the things done in the past couldn't be undone now. Anyway, at least he was able to apologize before her, and she heard him say that!
Lincoln spent some more time in the kitchen just staring at the moon, one could see how sad he suddenly got. As soon as he came back to his room, he took the other bedsheet, blanket and pillow from the closet (he kept those there for different life occasions such as the one that happened that day), made himself a comfy bed on the floor and tried to fall asleep.
He was staring at the ceiling for some time, then took a glance at already sleeping Ronnie-Anne and after that, making a sigh, turned to the other side and shut his eyes. Soon he fell asleep too.