AllFreeNovel
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They’d been talking for what felt like hours, but the timer hadn’t gone off yet. The best thing about the holiday village was that when you slipped away from the hustle of the activity area, there was no one else around. The skinny jean mums with generic buggies and bearded husbands swarmed the main buildings. In the depths of the forest, where little lodges popped up around them, they were free.
As they walked hand in hand beneath the canopy of trees, they shared their most embarrassing stories. Chris talked of getting so drunk that he didn’t know what he was doing at his leavers’ ball and woke up on the golf course in the middle of someone’s round. Lucie fell off stage while singing in the school musical. Chris tried not to laugh at that one, but his chuckles behind his hand quickly turned into bent-over belly laughs when she’d joined in. It was funny, yet it was the first time she’d laughed about the experience. Usually, shame covered her, but it was okay with Chris by her side.
Even in the heat of the day, his hand was comfortable in hers. There were times it got a bit sweaty, and they took a second to wipe their palms on their shorts, but immediately they’d reach for each other and continue their walk.
How would she be able to say goodbye to him? What if he got to university and met someone and they fell in love? Lucie’s stomach tightened, and she held her breath. Chris wasn’t her boyfriend, and they’d just met. But she wasn’t special and couldn’t compete with all the girls at his university.
Beams of sunlight found holes between the branches, and at times it was as if they were walking through a mystical world where no one else existed. Within this moment, they were free from family dramas and education stresses. She breathed in the flowery fern scene that surrounded them.
A squirrel bounded across their path before clambering up one of the oak trees by the side of the road. It was two days ago when the family car stopped by Chris and those squirrels argued like her dad and his. It was too much to let herself hope they would meet next weekend at the café. What if her dad found out? He’d never let her date a boy, especially not during term time when she should be spending every moment studying and especially not Chris.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
She shrugged. “What it will be like when we get home.”
“I won’t forget you,” he said as they reached a clearing near the back of some lodges. How did he know it was worrying her? He dropped his bag down, and Lucie caught a glimpse of the sweat patch on his back. It was gross, but she didn’t care.
Would she have to touch his back if she kissed him, or should she hold him somewhere else? She tried to recall episodes of her favourite teen drama.
“Will you forget me?” he asked tentatively.
“Never,” she whispered, surprised at her honesty.
He grinned back at her. “Good, although I won’t let you. I can’t wait to show you around Manchester. I’ll find the art gallery where there are some awesome paintings and drawings, and we can go and visit loads of places that will inspire your art. Of course, we’ll have to go for a fancy dinner and enjoy the local pubs and visit every part of the city. The cool places and the geeky ones.”
“At this rate, I’ll have to stay for a week,” she joked.
“You could stay for half term. I’d help with your university application, and you’d be able to do homework while I attend lectures.” Chris’s dimples were showing, and his shoulders bounced in excitement.
Did he really mean it? Her dad wouldn’t let her, but the possibility of a week with him made her giddy. She wanted to bounce her shoulders in time with his.
“I need your number first though,” he said casually, but with his lips sucked into his mouth and eyebrows raised, he appeared vulnerable. Suddenly Lucie remembered that he’d written his number on the drawing she’d binned during the anxiety attack. How had she forgotten? She couldn’t ask for it again because then he might be annoyed that she’d binned her drawing of him. Lucie worried her lip with her teeth. “If you want. I mean, I don’t need to have it.”
“I didn’t get it last night because I didn’t really think you’d meet me today, but as soon as I get back for my birthday dinner, I will ask for it so I can give you my number, I promise,” she said quickly. It sounded like she was lying, but she wasn’t. He looked up, and she held his gaze as if trying to convince him.
“Okay, because I can’t contact you without it. I like you, Lucie. Would it be okay for me to follow you on Facebook?” he asked with an awkward laugh and a wince.
Shit. Chris would see how geeky she was and how few friends she had if he went on there. “I don’t really use it,” she lied.
“Okay,” he replied with a shrug. But his dimples disappeared, and his hand was limp in hers.
“But I’ve thought about joining Instagram to see other artists and show my art. So I could open an account and follow you on that. Do you have Instagram?” She fumbled through the words.
“I could get it. I’ll join tonight while you have your birthday dinner and then tell you my handle. How’s that?” Chris asked with a fresh giddiness to his words.
Lucie beamed. “That would be amazing.”
“Awesome.” The dimples flashed back on his face, and he squeezed her hand. “I wanted to tell you something.”
She held her breath.
Suddenly a song carried on the breeze. Together they gazed at the nearest lodge, where a window was open. Lucie recognised it as one of the songs her mum sometimes played, “Hold You in My Arms” by Ray LaMontagne, who was known for his folk-rock sound.
Through the lodge’s lounge window, they witnessed an elderly couple dancing to the song. The white-haired man was bent as if time hadn’t been kind to his body, but he continued to hold the lady’s hand, with his other hand on her back. Their cheeks touched as they swayed to the music. Occasionally, the couple would move their heads to stare at each other, and the man would mouth the words of the song to his love. Even at their slow speed and hunched stance, it was evident by the tenderness on display that they were in love.
“I want to be in love like that when I’m older,” Chris uttered softly. “They look so happy.”
“Yeah, same,” Lucie said so quietly the sound barely carried over the song. “You’ll have to learn to dance first though, if you want love like that.”
