Fate's Cruelty

Chapter Twelve: His Request

Chapter Twelve: His Request

                “It’s been at least a month since I’ve known you and I don’t even know where you grew up,” Nick laughed as he drank out of his beer. It was Friday night and after I had gotten out of work he had texted me asking if I wanted to for a drink and since I had nothing else to do I agreed.

                We sat in the bar section of Chili’s drinking and talking, we’d been here for at least half an hour talking about what we had been doing lately and how school was going. I sighed as I ran a hand through my wavy hair before tilting the bottle side to side in front of me, avoiding his eye contact. “I grew up in South Texas,” I replied. “In a town called Harlingen.”

                Looking up I met Nick’s gaze. He smiled at me before taking another sip from his beer. “Never heard of it,” he admitted.

                Laughing I shook my head side to side, “Yeah, almost nobody has.”

                “So why’d you leave?”

                I sighed and pushed my now empty bottle away. “Too many reasons.”

                “Alright, name two.”

                I bit my bottom lip as I looked at him, he seemed sincere about wanting to know more about me. Sighing again I sat up straighter in my seat and leaned in. “My mother is a control freak. She wasn’t always like that but after what happened sophomore year she just completely flipped. She started being strict and she hardly ever let me go anywhere but me being me, I sneaked out. A lot but I never got caught. The more she tried keeping me sheltered and tried to control what I did the more I pulled away, the more I wanted to flee.”

                For a few seconds Nick just stared at me, the waitress had come with another round of beers and as she left I saw Nick sit up in his seat leaning over the table just like I had a few seconds ago. “What happened tenth grade year?”

                I tensed up. No one ever spoke about tenth grade year. I gulped as I felt my stomach begin to do flips and they weren’t the good kind. My stomach twisted and tightened, my eyes began to burn but I wouldn’t let the tears out. I bit my lip and sat back in my seat, looking out the window as I replied to him. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you.”

                Again he stared at me, the same way he had minutes before. It was like he was searching for something in my face, anything that would give off what I felt but I knew that he saw just a blank face. Sighing Nick nodded and mimicked my movements leaning back into his seat. “Alright what’s the second reason?”

                “It sort of links with the first one but it’s a little different.” I admitted. He nodded but didn’t say anything and I took that as my cue to keep on talking. “After what happened tenth grade year, I sort of changed, my attitude, my appearance, everything. People in town looked at me differently ever since then and it seemed that they judged me on every little thing I did.”

                “My every move was watched and I just couldn’t live like that anymore so my junior year in high school, me and my three best friends made a plan and we applied to several colleges, worked a lot more hours and saved up all the money we could. We each got into several colleges but the four of us all got accepted here to Lubbock, I got a full ride and so did Paisley while Adam and Gracie only got partial scholarships.”

                I paused and inhaled deeply before continuing, “We all knew that if we stayed in Harlingen after we graduated we’d never leave so as soon as we walked off that stage graduation day we loaded up the cars and took off to Austin. We have two other close friends up there and we stayed with them for the rest of the summer and hung out, then the week before classes started we came here.”