9 9:Us

I walked first and he followed.

Would Dad be back home by now?

I let out a sigh...I hoped he was.

The icecream shop was only a small distance away but I dreaded every step.

What if he bought something expensive? I shouldn't have agreed to this....

"Everything ok?"

"Huh?"

"Everything O.K?"

"Uh yeah of course",I said nonchalantly.

Tristan sensed something wrong but decided to not push it.

My mind reeled over all the cluttering thoughts until he said,

"We're here"

We went inside and my heart started hammering as I looked through the glass pane for the least expensive ice cream.

"I'll take the chocolate chip icecream with hot fudge topping".

My heart dropped.

"What do you want?"

Tristan turned to me.

"Umm... I'll pass"

"What? I can't eat an icecream with you watching"

"Why not?", I said bitterly.

"I'll pay.."

"There's no need for that"

I side stepped him and walked to the counter.

"I understand what you're going through and I'm not that kind of guy who uses people for my benefit so just relax and eat the ice cream", he said in a low reassuring voice so that nobody in the parlour would hear.

My shoulders slumped and my cheeks grew red.

He knew.

This is not how I want to live my life.. not even having the capacity to buy something for somebody.

It was pathetic and my self esteem took a hard blow.

But that's ok, I told myself, because one year from now I would have gone off to college and Dad would come with me and I wouldn't have to think anout anything not even Tristan.

"There you go", Tristan said and I took the cone from him trying to act like it was not a big deal.

"Thanks"

.....................................................

I leaned against the side walk as we saw the ripples moving in the bridge.

We ate our ice creams a long time ago but I didn't want to go home with a mind full of confusing thoughts.

I don't know why Tristan was following me.

"Hey"

I turned to him,"Yeah"

"I know everything's not alright but do you want to talk about it?"he said in a low voice.

I shook my head, tucking a stray hair behind my ear.

"I think I'll deal with it on my own"

I looked into his chocolate eyes.

He smiled shaking his head.

"You're always like that aren't you ...I can deal with this on my own so that I wouldn't have to talk to the world about it"

The light made gold dust spring to his eyes.

"Its ok to talk", he whispered.

"Its not like that"... I said shaking my head, "Its like ..my thoughts are mine and they don't matter to anybody but me and even when I'm drowning and dying in them they would seem trivial to another person and I don't really want to bother them with my thoughts because what if they judged me?"

"That depends on the person... if its somebody who wants you to open up because they want to help ease your pain then why not just talk?"

"Because it's hard to trust", I said with unshed tears brimming my eyes.

"I.. Its just s-so hard to believe that s-someone's interested in knowing who I am", I shook my head ,"I'm not worth it".

We just looked at each other.

After sometime I wiped my tears away.

"I don't want to bother anyone.. just work hard, help pay the debts and go off to college"

He processed what I said for a while.

"So what if you find someone.... someone who doesn't want you to fight alone, someone who appreciates your strength and wants to be a part of your journey".

I smiled,"Thats stupid, its in fairytales not in real life"

"True", he said and looked into the water.

Some kind of weight settled in my chest.

"Sometimes I feel trapped and the weight hits me like a ton of bricks that maybe I'll never escape from this maybe I'll always wish for a happy life until it becomes a distant dream and that..".

"And that scares you so much that you're afraid to close you're eyes at night"

I nodded my head while looking into his eyes as if I were looking into his soul.

"I'm scared too", a tear slid down my eyes at his confession.

I wiped it off.

"Its funny how we give so much importance to how we look and the way we talk that we forget that deep inside we're all in pain and whatever we do is to blind the world from knowing that inside it bleeds"

We started chuckling like its our inside joke.

And we continued to laugh for a long long while stomach aching from the continuous muscle movement.

Someone walking on the streets would have thought we were crazy.

But to us it made perfect sense.

Author's Note:

STORY TIME:

Tell me a song that holds a special meaning in you because of a certain reason. You don't have to say the reason if you don't want to... just say the song.

I'LL BEGIN: Born to die