Till We Rise (11 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Why do you study all day long, Theo?” I ask him while we walk down Devonshire Street. It’s a pretty warm day so it’s amazing for us to walk a little bit before
running away
.

The streets are full of tourists and I absolutely love it. I always wanted to be one; I don’t know how it feels to go to an unknown place and look like I am not part of it. The only place I went besides Boston is New York, which was amazing, but I didn’t look like a tourist at all.

I remember I met a girl that was from Louth, Lincolnshire, a small town in England and she definitely looked like a tourist and I was so mad at myself because I never had the possibility to be like her. She was so pretty with her England clothes (I don’t even know how they look like but you just
know
she is from England) and her beautiful and extraordinary accent I always wanted to have.

“Because that’s why I came to Boston,” Theo says convinced and adds, “I was a pretty good student back in Northampton and when I was accepted in the university I left home and came to the city. And yeah, I kind of broke a promise with my brother, uh, Stephen” His convincing look turns into a sad one.

“What kind of promise?” I ask curious, “Tell me if you want to.”

“I can’t”

“Okay, no prob,” I say immediately.

I try not to over think the promise thing, because there’s no place in my head for things that don’t even involve me, so I absolutely forget about it.

                     I forgot my phone at the car but that’s not worrying me. It’s better because Sarah’s probably calling me like crazy although I told her not to do it and I don’t want to hear her shout like a psycho.

                     “This is amazing,” He says looking impressed at some parade walking down the streets. In the city downtown there are always shows at determined hours and for sure I believe Theodore never saw one, maybe that’s why he is so excited about it.

                     “It is, right?” I say. The truth is that I hate them, but I love the way he looks like so now I love them. I knew he was easy to impress.

“Oh my God, Ramsgate,” Theodore barks super excited, again.

Ramsgate is a pub that is exactly on the other side of the street. I’ve never went to a pub obviously because I am underage –I don’t have a fake ID– and also because I don’t really like them. The fact that you are inside a small place with bad lighting and you cannot understand a thing the other person is trying to say because of the loud music kind of makes my head ache. And besides, Roth doesn’t go to a Pub unless you pay him, so basically I can’t go to a pub by myself because that would be the lamest thing that ever happened to me.

                     “What’s wrong with it?” I ask preoccupied.

                     “Nothing, really,” he answers smiling, “Jeremiah works in there” Theo adds.

                     “Who?” I ask curiously.

                     “Jeremiah. He was my roommate last year,” he turns his gaze to the pub, “Wanna get in there?” he says winking at me.

                     As I said before; I hate pubs. But I can’t say no to Theodore, it’s against my morals.

                     “I can’t,” I say shyly, I know I am going to say yes to him but I am trying to make it a little less easy for him to convince me.

                     “C’mon. Have you ever gone to a pub?” he inquires wanting to know the answer.

                     “No,” I admit, “What if I–“

“Get drunk?” Theodore finishes the question for me raising his eyebrows as if I had just said the oddest thing in the entire planet. “Have you never been to a party?”

“YES, Theodore,” I exclaim upset. “I’ve just never got drunk, that’s it.”

“Oh” he opens his mouth, “There’s always a first time for everything,” he winks again at me. Fact: I find this pretty sexual. I find everything
pretty
sexual lately.

I can’t say a thing. I think that it would be a great idea to go to a pub with him, besides, it’s not midnight and we are just walking around at three in the afternoon. It’s no big deal, Calypso.
Calm down.

“Let’s go,” I finally say convinced. Let’s go see what Jeremiah has for us.

“Woah, girl,” he says laughing, “You changed your mind in just two seconds.” Theo keeps laughing, “It’s because of me, right?”

“No,
Theodore.
” Now we are laughing together, “I want to.”

“Let’s go,” he mutters and grabs my left hand.

We are holding hands.
I am holding his warm hand at the moment. I don’t know how I am supposed to react right now. I don’t know how I am supposed to calm myself down when this is happening. Theodore is so unexpected. I love it.

It’s so nice to be alive.

Besides the holding hands part, we are now walking towards Ramsgate, which it’s no more than thirty steps away. The best part of everything is that we seem like a couple. I am not a tourist though, but at least we seem like a happy couple holding hands.

I giggle because of my stupid thoughts.

“What’s wrong?” he inquires.

“Nothing,” I smile and he smiles back. Of course he smiles with his eyes too.

I feel the urge to kiss him right now in the middle of the street. I don’t care; I don’t really care about anything. But I can’t, it’s not the time yet.

It’s awkward and kind of weird how our hands are feeling sweaty together. Anyway, I bet he is not thinking about it. I believe he is not that kind of boy that is always complaining about everything the other one does, though. He is more like a kind and polite person that has manners and knows how to act correctly.

We finally get into the pub and the music is pumping in my ears. There are lots of people sitting down on their respective tables, having drinks and eating some cheap fried food that looks expensive. Everyone’s laughing at random things and no one is looking at the underage girl that is walking down the place.

Theodore walks towards a bartender that is carrying a big tray with drinks, standing beside the counter where other people are sitting on those typical-of-pubs giant chairs that are even higher than my legs.

“Jeremiah?” he shouts in the middle of the crowd looking directly at this blond and short man.

“Hey” he says kind of confused at first but then, when he realizes who he has in front of him, he gets totally amused, “Dude, what’s up?” he asks excited, leaving his tray on a random desk while he says
just a sec
to the customer that is sitting over the table.

“Long time no see,” Theo adds immediately with a nice smile on his face.

Theo stops grabbing my hand to hug this guy called Jeremiah. They both hug and pet their back like those popular boys that used to play football at High School. Of course Theodore is not that strong, he is kind of skinny, by the way. Not skinny skinny, just a little bit skinny.

“How are you doing man?” Theo inquires louder than he should. He seems so excited, it’s nice to see him smiling like he is right now.

“Awesome,” his friend answers and makes a weird gesture with both his hands, as if they had a code with his moves or something of the sort.

Jeremiah is shorter than I thought he would be and he is way more toned than Theo is.  Nevertheless, I like Theo’s body better. I prefer taller boys, to be honest. Practically, Theo is the type of boy I like because I like him whole.

“I bet you are awesome too, dude,” he says, “I mean, who is this pretty lady?” Jeremiah turns his gaze to me and then again to Theodore’s.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” he giggles, “She is Calypso, my girlfriend.” DID I HEAR OKAY? Girlfriend? Of course he means girlfriend as a friend who is a girl, right?

I try not to blush while Theo presents myself –as his girlfriend– and just smile at his friend, looking at him as if everything was okay and not that the love of my life had just told some friend of his that I was something such as his GIRLFRIEND. I am definitely not making up my mind, you know. Everything is alright and I am not going to freak out because this is it.

I am already freaking out, though.

We should be. We should be boyfriend and girlfriend because if we weren’t, what is the aim of all of this? I don’t know, honestly. But the real thing is that I don’t understand most of the stuff that happens in my life, so it’s the same. They just happen and I never give a shit about them. Because I’ve never had fortune, you know,
everything
that happened to me was bullshit.

Now I am starting to actually know about what is going on in planet Earth.

“Oh, cool.” The three of us stay quiet for a matter of seconds until Theo’s friend asks, “Want a drink?” staring at both of us, entirely smiling.

He seems a nice boy. Pretty calm and confident; I love the way he acts as if we’ve known each other since we were in first grade. I mean, for sure he does know Theodore but it looks like he knows me perfectly, too.

“Do you?” Theo inquires pushing his elbow softly through my stomach. His eyes are the darkest they have ever been, probably because of the bad lighting that’s in this bar.

“Uhm.. I told you I don’t dri-“

“Come on,” Jeremiah interrupts giggling, “The house invites,” he adds while he grabs again his tray and then starts walking through the bar counter where some people are sitting beside.

I nod and smile at Theo. He obviously smiles back, kind of winking at me. It seems that he is such of a winker, at least for today.

I feel kind of scared; it’s brainless because every single teenager has drunk alcohol and stuff but anyway, I know this is not the point. The point of all this is that I am defrauding my mother, I am not saying that I am regretting the part of running away, of course I think it is the best decision I’ve ever made in my life but I care a lot about my mom and I know that somehow this is going to end pretty bad.

We are sitting on these tall chairs besides the counter waiting for the bartender to give us our drinks. I said I wanted to drink the same as Theo because I don’t even know what the fuck the other drinks have, although the menu explains what every drink includes. Still, I am too lazy and it is too dark to read. He wants a Margarita and so do I. Simple.

Jeremiah places the two yellowish drinks over the counter and pulls a nice smirk.

“Enjoy,” he says and then walks away through the kitchen. He is working so hard we definitely should not interrupt him; we have already distracted him a lot.

“What’s this?” I ask innocently to Theodore. We are closer than I expected and this blows my mind. Too many things are happening in a matter of minutes.

“Margaritas, Cal,” he answers laughing as if I was the most stupid person in the world.

“I know. I know,” I sigh, “But what's a Margarita?” I ask again hoping he doesn’t laugh at me again.

“You never tried one?” he shouts.

“I said I didn’t drink” I try not to shout as loud as he did before but it is impossible for him to listen what I am trying to say because of (a) the loud noises and (b) my soft voice.

“You are right,” he nods as if I was
actually
right and seconds later he adds, “Tequila, triple sec and lime.” while sipping his Margarita, looking pleased.

“Basically this is going to kill me,” I exclaim while staring at him, pretending that I totally understand what he means by triple sec, while moving the ice cubes that are floating somewhere in my drink.

“Don’t exaggerate, Calypso.” He places the drink down and rubs his hands against his jeans. Theo observes me cautiously waiting for me to try the fucking margarita.

“I'm not. It’s the first time I'm going to drink and the tequila is probably going to kill me”

“Please drink. It’s nice.”

“Fine,” I sigh and take a sip of this extremely new alcohol drink that shouldn't be drank by me because I am obviously underage and I literally don't want to end up doing things that I wouldn't want to. He won’t take his eyes off of me until he sees my reaction.

To be honest, I like this a lot. It tastes like lemonade but only better and, of course, with a pinch of alcohol. It didn't burn my throat as I thought it would. Theo said himself it was nice and I have to admit that it actually is.

"Theo, this is
so
good," I admit taking another sip but this time a longer one. So long my head freezes.

"Told ya," he whispers to my left ear and I smile in response. When somebody whispers in my ear it gives me goose bumps, it is automatically, I can’t resist it and I bet it shows in my face.

“I’m definitely going to drink another one,” I admit, placing my hand on his lap. I don’t realize what I have just done until I did it.

“What about the I-don’t-drink talk you’ve gave me earlier?” he shouts while laughing.

              “I changed my mind, Sir,” I answer.

              “You’re so…” he starts talking.

              “So what?” I interrupt him

“I can’t find the specific word I need.” He drinks the whole margarita and places the empty drink on the table. Then he stares at me with those radiant eyes and I can’t stop looking at those wonderful lips of his.