AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I expect a giggle or even a blush, just anything to acknowledge it, but Tamara simply gives me a wide eyed shocked stare instead. She almost looks like she doesn’t get it, like she’s chosen to forget it entirely. It’s weird, her stare sends a cold trickle up and down my spine. I’m frightened there might be something deeper here.
“Yeah… I suppose we could go on the Orient Express…” she says slowly. “That’s one of those bucket list, dream come true things that everyone wants to do, isn’t it? And it could be a good way to travel between places.”
I gulp noisily, trying to shove my discomfort down. I’ve already decided that this is fine, why make it worse by dredging it all back up again? I really do need to learn to let things go! “Sure, sounds good. It’s fine anyway, because I don’t even like coffee that much, and I’m sure you don’t either…” Stop it, you idiot. “Especially not, you know, when it’s spilled everywhere and it makes a massive mess.” I chuckle like a fool. “That’s horrible.”
“Oh no.” She shrugs in a blasé manner. “I like coffee. I need my caffeine boost in the morning like everyone else.” She gives me a lop sided smile which sends my heart racing. “You know I like coffee, right? I suppose it is messy.” Her eyebrows knot together at this comment. “But that’s only if y
ou have an accident.”
There was meaning in that, right? I’m not going insane? But if I keep on pushing I’ll eventually send her over the edge which is the last thing in the world I want to do. “Of course.” My tone is hollow. “And me too…”
“Right.” She giggles girlishly. “So, we’ve both agreed that we like coffee, even if they don’t sell it on the Orient Express, which I’m not convinced is a true fact, actually. Doesn’t it go on for freaking ages? People that are on it from start to finish must need something to drink. I think you’ve totally made that up.”
My mouth is dry, my whole body stiff. I probably look like a statue right now. “Yeah,” I eventually rasp. “You’re probably right. When you, er, put it like that it makes sense that it does sell drinks. I don’t even know what I’m talking about.” An uncomfortable heat travels the length of my body. “You better just ignore me.”
“Okay, so I was thinking that maybe we should also see if we can travel this route because…
I bury my head back in the map because it’s the safest place to be as I listen to Tamara, all the while my head is spinning. I don’t know why it’s so important to me, why do I even care if we speak about it or not? I cannot seriously be that hung up on the moment we met. I don’t honestly think it matters too much, do I?
But as my eyes continually drag back to Tamara, I kinda feel like it might do and I’m not sure why.
We walk through the park hand in hand, admiring the sights of nature happily. This isn’t a place I normally choose to come to because of all the happy couples, but today I don’t mind. I cannot believe it, I’ve found someone that I actually like enough to commit to… although, I suppose aside from the trip I suppose we haven’t exactly laid titles on who we are. Would it be totally weird to do that now? I could just bring it up, right…
“I remember something here.” Tamara stuns me by breaking the silence. “But I don’t know what it is.”
“Erm…” I’m not entirely sure what she expects me to say to that. “A memory? Right…”
She smacks her hand against the side of her head as if she’s trying to shake her brain. It stuns me, I’m completely blown away. I thought this weird side of her was gone, but it’s back with a vengeance.
“Oh my God, my brain does my head in sometimes. It’s like… there are things inside there that I can’t quite access, do you know what I mean?” I can only shrug because I honestly have no idea. “I don’t know, sometimes it’s like my head doesn’t work properly. Maybe I’m not normal. I don’t know.”
Hmm, this mood is bizarre, I’m not quite sure how to take it. It just highlights to me that we don’t really know one another too well yet. I search my brain for the right words but I just can’t find them.
“I suppose everyone gets a bit like that,” I finish lamely instead. “It must be a sign of getting old.”
She chuckles, laughing along as if she gets the joke but I don’t know if the humor is fully there. This seems to be troubling her a lot. My initial instinct is to search ‘memory issues’ online just to give me some tips but I know that the Internet and health problems are a bad combination. I’ll start thinking that she’s dying in a moment which isn’t helpful for anyone. I’ll have to just hope that I can be at little bit comforting.
“Yeah, I suppose so. I don’t know if I’m just worrying for no reason.”
A thick silence clings to the air for a moment while we both digest this. I can tell that this is something that she doesn’t want to let go which I can understand. Since I’m the one who really can’t let our past meeting go. I think the best thing I can do is try to distract her from her worries. I don’t want this day to go downhill.
“Come on.” I tug on her arm in another direction. “There’s a café over there. Let’s go and get cake. We can picture us on the Venetian canals eating Italian cake, which I’ve heard is the best in the world.”
“Sure.” Her mouth doesn’t turn up into a smile but I’ll take it as a positive. “Let’s do it.”
We grab our seats outside of the café so we can sit in the sun and wait for the waitress to come to us. I tilt my head back and bask in the warmth while half watching Tamara to do the same thing. This isn’t the right moment, I know it isn’t, but at the same time I feel like she needs shaking from this funk. I get a bit of the word vomit that I seem to get about Tamara. She unhinges something inside of me that never has been unlocked before.
“So, Tamara.” She drags her eyes down to look at me. My heart thunders in my chest and my mouth runs dry. “I know this is pretty crazy, but I think we should have a talk about us right? About what’s going to happen with us when we go away.” Shit, I’m making this sound a lot more serious than it is. “Like, I want to know what you want. Do you want…” Oh God, I’m starting to regret this sentence. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
Her face flushes brightly, I can tell that she’s speechless. But at least it looks like she isn’t thinking about her crazy memory right now which is a good thing. At least I’ve achieved that.
“You want me to be… your girlfriend?” Her hand starts fisting her tee shirt as if she doesn’t know how to take this. I can almost see the insanity dancing behind her gaze. “Are you serious? You really want that?”
“I do.” I nod determinedly. Now that I’ve started this I have to go on with it. “I understand if you think it’s too fast but since we haven’t really done anything in the right way, it makes sense, right?”
She furrows her brows together, frowning slightly, but then her face, all of a sudden, bursts into the shiniest smile that I’ve ever seen her do. “Are you serious?” Her hand claps against her mouth in shock. “That’s amazing, I would love to.” She giggles almost hysterically. “I would absolutely love to be your girlfriend.”
She wraps her arms around me and squeezes my tight, her mood completely lifted. Her lips crash into mine and we kiss, probably more passionately than we should be since we’re in public, but safe in the knowledge that we’re together now. So much for my fling… but I don’t want that. I want to just be with her.
