A Silence Full of Sound

Chapter 12

Castinarro's was even more posh than I had expected.

I met Lucas outside the restaurant. We said hello and had a very awkward hug. He told me I looked beautiful and I pointed to his outfit and gave him a thumbs up. I had dug out a dress from the bottom of my closet. I hadn't even looked at it since we moved here, I didn't even know where it was. It was a floor length blue gown that hugged my waist and trailed down my legs. I had worn it to a wedding back home, and hadn't touched it since. Lucas looked very handsome dressed in a smart button down with plaid trousers and suit jacket draped over his shoulder. His hair was slicked back into a neat quiff, not a hair out of place

I almost felt like a Barbie doll walking into Castinarro's; alongside a gorgeous looking Ken doll. The waiter took us to en empty table and Lucas, very gentlemanly, pulled out my chair for me to sit. The waiter laid down our velvet menus in front of us. Lucas picked his up and started to look at the food.

Picking up the menu, I realised that there was no way I would know what any of this menu said. It was in another language that I did not know how to speak.

I wondered how a teenage boy our age managed to afford the prices on this menu.

Lucas looked at me from over the top of his menu. His eyebrows raised. I placed my menu down in front of me, nearly knocking off the second fork sitting next to my plate. Yes, you read that right, the SECOND fork. This restaurant was that fancy.

Lucas lowered his menu too and started to talk. "What do you want to drink?" instant panic radiated through my body. I hadn't even looked at what I was eating, let alone drinking. My eyes widened and my hands subtly slid over the menu to pull it back open. It looked like Lucas laughed as the menu, again in front of his face, bounced up and down.

Lucas had to order for the both of us. I guess it seemed rude to just point to a menu in a posh restaurant. Lucas started to tell me about this posh non-alcoholic wine they had. I had never heard of it before so had no idea what it was called. I couldn't read it off his lips, and he was talking too fast. So I trusted his judgement and let him choose.

He didn't seem bothered by my lack of decision making. It seemed he was a lot better at this than I was.

That went for the chatting as well. Within the first two courses of dinner, I had learnt all about his friend Harley and how he has a running joke with him about having a wonky eye because he can't throw a football straight. His other friend Mickie (spelt with an i and an e because he wanted to be more 'fashionable') had injured himself and knocked himself out of the game this weekend. He told me about his little sister Lucy and she had just started school, and how proud he was of her.

"Wow, you're a really great listener." He said after telling me the story of the night that he, Mickie and Harley got drunk at a party and woke up all sitting in a trash cart with a stuffed pigeon and a random street sign.

I just shrugged and smiled. Mostly I was a good listener because I didn't talk much, or, you know, at all. Not that he had noticed.

"Can I ask you a question?" he said, moving his hand questionable close to my left hand. I trained my eyes to focus on his face, and tried to ignore the dangerous proximity of his hand near mine. I nodded with a small smile.

He cleared his throat and pulled his hand up to his neck. He was fidgeting in his chair. "Why don't you...?" I missed the middle section of the question because he scratched his nose. Typical.

He sat there waiting for me to answer a question I didn't know. His eyebrows scrunched together. My face copied his.

"Why don't you talk that much? Is it just shyness?" He repeated.