3 hours have passed on the motorcycle again and you can feel your stomach rumble. You forgot that you only had orange juice for breakfast so now might be a good time to pull over and find some food.
“Hey, Lucien! Can we pull over for food soon?”
“Yea, let me know if you see anywhere that you want to stop at”
You're on the highway right now so the only thing that’s around is fast food, which you aren’t a huge fan of. About 20 minutes later there’s a sign for a gyro place and you signal to Lucien to take the next exit.
Lucien doesn’t bother to park in the parking lot and goes right onto the sidewalk next to the door, “Gyros? Why am I not surprised you pick somewhere like this?”
“W-w-w-what is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just very ‘in character’ of you to pick something out of the ordinary like this. It’s not a bad thing though, I love gyros”
You continue the conversation as you walk inside. Lucien starts to walk in the kitchen but you stop her, “Wait. I got this”
She gives you a weird look but lets you continue into the kitchen without following. You really enjoy cooking, you and your mom would do it together all the time when you were younger and as soon as Gracie was able to hold a whisk you started to teach her too. You learned from the best so you’re actually pretty good at it.
“Do you want falafel or meat?”
She doesn’t even bother looking up from the magazine she’s reading, “Falafel”
‘Good choice,’ you think to yourself. You start to build the gyros, throwing in an assortment of colorful veggies and topping it off with the falafels. When you finish you take a step back to admire how delicious they look.
After walking back to the table, you set the plates down and Lucien finally looks up from the magazine, “Wow! These look really good!”
“Just wait till you try it,” you say smugly
She chuckles and takes a big bite, pieces of vegetables fall from the gyro back onto the plate, she’s got tahini sauce smeared across her mouth as she pulls it away, “Oh my god,” she still has some food left in her mouth, “this is sooo good!”
You smile, you know it was all pre-prepped food but you’re proud that you could impress someone like her, and take a bite of your own food.
The two of you continue eating. You casually talk in between bites and tell her about your cooking experience. You tell her about the first time you cooked with your mom when the two of you made pancakes on a Sunday morning and decorated them with all kinds of fruit, whipped cream, and sprinkles. You also tell her how you started to teach Gracie when she was just a baby and that the two of you would always make your mom pancakes after she had had a long day at work. Talking about cooking made you forget that she might have wanted to chime in too, “Sorry I’m rambling, I can stop,”
“No no,” she waves her hands in front of her, “I like listening to you. I think it’s super cute that you have such a great way of bonding with your family, and all that cooking has definitely paid off, you’re amazing at it!”
Your cheeks turn red from both embarrassment and flattery, “Th-thanks”
Both of you sit in silence for a minute, finishing off the rest of your food. When you finish, Lucien asks if you're ready to go. You tell her you need a minute to go to the bathroom and she says that she’ll go start the bike. When you get to the bathroom you stand in front of the mirror, your curly brown hair is sticking out all over the place, there’s crumbs around your mouth and sauce on your new shirt. Now you’re super embarrassed that you were just talking with Lucien while looking like a slob, and the fact that she didn’t say anything about it makes it ten times worse.
You walk back out and Lucien is sitting on the bike looking down with her arms crossed, “Everything alright?” you ask
“No! The bike won’t start!” she throws her hands in the air and looks pissed
“Is the gas empty?”
“I think so. There was a gas station about a mile down the road, we’ll have to walk”
Walking isn’t so bad, and at least it’s close. You start to walk and about 15 feet later you realize that Lucien isn’t behind you. You turn around to see she hasn’t moved from the bike, “Lucien? You Ok-k-k, you okay?
She doesn’t turn around or answer you so you walk back over to her, “everything alright?”
She lets out a long sigh and excuses herself to the bathroom. You don’t have a clue as to why she’s upset. You sit on the curb of the sidewalk with your feet stretched out in front of you, it’s weird that she all of a sudden got all upset, though you figure there’s no sense in trying to figure it out, that girl’s a mystery.
POV Switch
You walk back into the gyro shop. The bathroom is just around the next corner but you don’t feel like taking another step. You take a deep breath before exhaling in a long sigh, the air flowing out of your lungs is comforting.
You can feel the weight of the item in your pocket weighing down your pants; it’s so heavy for its size, not at all how you imagined it to be, kinda like a dead body. Heh. That’s an interesting comparison. You wonder why that’s the first thing that your mind came up with. You shake your head a little, you don’t have time to think about silly little things like that.
You continue walking in the direction of the bathroom, but instead of stopping, you walk straight past it and out the back door. You gently close it and walk away from the shop. Part of you feels bad for leaving Johnathon alone without an explanation but it’s not like you can do much about it. There are more important matters at hand. You imagine him walking back into the shop, knocking on the bathroom door, looking in the kitchen, searching for you, wondering if you left him or not. He’s so silly, you’re glad you got to know him. His cute little face, that hair that always looks like he just woke up. You imagine what the future will be like and whether or not you’ll still even be friends.
The gyro shop is far in the distance now, so far that you have to squint to see it, “Here’s good,” you say to yourself
You pull the object out of your pocket and hold it in your hands. The energy flowing through it penetrates your hand and you stand, feeling and trying to translate what it might mean. Your finger traces over the design of the Talisman. It’s bizarre markings confuse you.
You know you’ll figure it out soon though.
ns 172.70.179.54da2