Some old jazz hit from the thirties was the only noise as the mid afternoon traffic sped around us outside. In front of me sat an untouched, and now cold, cup of what was once hot chocolate. Whoever had said that chocolate cured everything clearly wasn't broken and shattered and mowed over again and again only to be picked up and drop kicked to the streets.
Except it wasn't quite that bad.
My thin, worn leather jacket didn't provide the advertised warmth as it lied around my shoulders. My slim and well-wrung hands clenched the Styrofoam cup that held my cheap drink. Memories about Cal hit me pretty strongly. The first time he saw me sitting there at the kitchen counter. Flipping though my drawings. That time in the mall when I was forced to try that very...vibrant outfit on. Playing his guitar for me when I was sick after that first party. Going to pick up Jessie at the airport. Chasing after me and bringing me back. Staying there with him and our thoughts for an entire day. Going to school and facing the sharks, who were my friends. Him graduating and going off to college. Finishing up high school and seeing him on the weekends. All those quiet pecks that we always shared. Our signature box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts that always came with him. Picking me up from school on that final day. Eating our last box of doughnuts. Dropping me off to hang out with Adria for a few hours. Going to his party for his birthday. Getting locked out by the ever so hotheaded Tarik. Getting slapped by a slightly more than drunk Cal out of anger for not seeing me. And then I left.
That's why I was sitting here. The middle of some small town in the middle of Idaho. Miles, and miles away from home. Wherever home was. College had gotten sick of me and Morgan had gotten divorced, Destiny taking the kids with her. Peter was off in graduate school somewhere. My ever so loving (note sarcasm) parents were probably drunk and hung over somewhere back in Casey, Idaho. Now, up here right next to Canada where I could maybe get a fresh start, I was alone, and I dreadfully knew it.
No one knew my address. No one knew I was here.It had been three years since I had left that night and I hadn't glanced back even once. It was what I was good at, and hopefully I was coming to a stop. I guess with all that running I thought maybe one day I would take off and fly, but apparently that didn't happen.
A tiny bell rang, interrupting my thoughts and the old jazz music that still hadn't had the common sense to stop. Right now it was the classic scene that all cliche love stories seemed to have, or it was beginning to look like it. Standing right in front of the door was Excalibur Cole himself. His blue eyes swept over the bare interior of the dingy little corner cafe. For a second they were on my, but they soon passed over to the counter once more.
After ordering two glazed doughnuts and a cup of some blend of tea I knew he loved, he came and sat down across from me at the tiny booth with it.
"Here," my once trusted more than a friend said, pushing one of the doughnuts towards me. He didn't recognize me. I blamed three years of college and my shorter hair.
"You look like you could use a friend," he told me. I noticed his British accent was just soft background music for the instrument that his voice somehow was. My green-grey eyes were focused on the doughnut. he simple gesture brought back all the memories all over again. I wasn't sure whether to rejoice at somehow seeing him or slap him back, something he long deserved.
"Thanks," I mumbled a little, not moving to take a bite of that or my cold hot chocolate. He offered a smile, but nothing else came out of the lips that I had use to teasingly peck. Three years had done a lot to the both of us.
"Have we met somewhere before?" Cal asked after a few moments of mostly silence.
I nodded.
"Oh. Crap. Ravyn, listen, I was dru-" I didn't let the blonde haired boy-turned-man finish. I was the only person he had ever not used his perfect manners with that he wasn't related to. He had judged me and been jealous of me and had helped me and picked me up and put me back together. Then, with those cruel words and the drunken slap, he had shattered all of my fragility once more. I ran that night, and I was going to run again.
"Shut it, Cal. It was three years ago and it's still that big of a deal and some half-jack excuse and a few mumbled apologies won't do crap. I've been running for years and I thought I was finally going to stop, but apparently I was wrong."
I didn't regret the words once they left my mouth. I didn't regret them as I left him to pay for my hot chocolate. I didn't regret them as the tiny silver bell tinkled when I left the small brick building. I didn't even regret them as I started walking to my hotel room just down the street. Cal deserved to hear them and he knew it. We also both knew that he was going to come chase after me, and he was going to run with me.
My thoughts were proved exactly right as I felt his strong hands turn me around by my now thin not exactly healthily thin shoulders. I didn't even have the chance to open my eyes from a blink as his lips crashed to mine. When he pulled away a few moments later an almost crazy grin had conquered his mouth. His breaths were ragged from sprinting after me and the kiss that had followed, not that the college athlete he was would ever not be fit.
Overall, I knew my expression would not be the same. I knew it would be still and empty, just like I still felt. I was still drowning and falling and madly trying to fly, but Cal would be there and he would be the pair of wings I needed. He had before and he would be now.
"You know you can never outrun me," Cal poked at me. It wasn't a tease, or happy, but it was serious. The comment was his way of telling me that he was never going to let me run away again, and if he did he'd only catch me. I knew I was stuck with him now, but maybe I was happy with it.
"We'll have to test that theory," was my simple reply before I went in for another kiss. Finally, maybe I had finally chased down the happily ever after and the home I was searching for.
So this is under ultimate copyright and for a writing challenge. Steal this and I kill you with a candlestick. Kay? Kay. Motivation from the song below.
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