Music Teacher

Chapter 4

"You know, we may be walking for a while," he stated, kicking some rocks out of our way.

He was the first to break the silence that had been going on for the past half hour. He'd point out some things he found interesting and I would just nod to agree with him. I knew what he was trying to do. Trying to get me to speak up, say something. But I hadn't spoken to many people, especially to ones I didn't know. And despite my pathetic ritual I'd done in freeing the old Reyna, to bring to life the one I claimed to be ready to show herself, it was obviously going to take some time because she obviously wasn't ready.

So all I could answer with at the moment was, "mhm."

"We are complete strangers."

I breathed in. "Yes." I breathed out.

"We kind of have to trust each other."

I looked at him skeptically, and he was pleased, because as soon as I reacted his eyes widened and he smiled and he pointed at my face.

"It's not words but it's something! What's that for?" His face beamed so much that I almost started to smile myself.

"What makes you think I'm not trustworthy?" I asked.

His face immediately fell and the same skeptical look I'd given him, took place of his previous smile. "Because you're a total stranger and you haven't done or said anything but look at the ground and if that doesn't say suspiciously creepy than I don't know what does." He spoke in one breath I had to breathe for him.

His words reeled in my mind and a laugh escaped my mouth before I could stop it.

"What?" He asked.

" 'Suspiciously creepy'," I repeated. "I'm nothing close to dangerous or anything if that's what you're worried about, trust me. If anything it's the other way around." I clarified for him.

"What? Me?" He asked. Quite surprised.

"That's what I said about me!" I gestured to myself with my free hand.

He laughed, and I had to hide my awe. So I laughed along with him. He stood up straight and cleared his throat. "Alright," he chuckled while I still laughed, "well good that's been cleared up and is out of the way then One less to worry about."

I was about to speak up when my stomach interfered.

"Oh! Here." Max stopped walking to bring his bag over his head, and set it down on the floor where he opened it. When I saw he was taking out more than just his blankets, I stopped him.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"There's food under all this I promise." He gestured to the overflowing mess.

I was about to decline his offer out of fear but decided against it, considering our previous conversation. Even though he still was a complete stranger and all I knew about him was his name and he played guitar, I think.

My stomach grumbled once again, impatiently.

"Hold on, hold on I'm almost there," he rushed. But I noticed that although he was rushing to get me food, his words weren't directly to me exactly, but to my stomach.

I held my stomach and made a face at him. He looked up just in time and chuckled. "You sure are trustworthy," I joked.

He stopped searching to look at me for a moment, then rested both his hands on the bag to keep himself from falling over, out of his bursting fit of laughter. When he was done he leaned back on the grass and reached his hand out to me. At first I thought he was asking to pull him up, but then he turned his hand over and opened it to reveal a snack wrapped in a Dora the Explorer wrapper.