One more day

chapter 21

As Nick and I walked our way to his house, our speed had slightly increased along with the worry now etched across his face. Before you could only see it in his eyes if you looked hard enough, but now it was obvious to anyone who even drove past. I didn't understand why he was so worried, did he have somewhere important he needed to be at by a certain time? What if I'm crashing some sort of family event? Shit, I didn't think this through. I would ask Nick, but even if I could get any words through my heavy breathing I'm afraid I'd be yelled at, so instead, I just kept walking as fast as my short legs would carry me and kept my mouth shut. Soon enough we arrived at what was apparently his house, it was a different one to the one he used to live in before he moved, it looked smaller but it was still a double story. It seemed nice, it had a white picket fence surrounding the bright red-brick house, decorated with lots of greenery and flowers as such. Nick took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders back as if he were trying to relax them but they remained tense and I couldn't help but think that my presence wasn't helping. I put my hand on one of his shoulders, silently reminding him that I was here and whatever it was that he was worried about would be okay. He grabbed my hand with his own and spun around to face me, dropping it from his shoulders.

"You stay out here okay? I'll only be a minute." He said sincerely.

"But I wanna come in and say hi!" I whined. "Not to mention your house looks amazing from the outside, I bet the inside looks-"

"-Julia." He said sternly and I gulped. Looks like I'll be staying out here.

"Okay," I said quietly. He squeezed my hand before dropping it completely and walking towards the front door. I just sighed, feeling defeated. I hate losing, but Nick was nearly never that serious so I know he meant what he said. I sat down on the pavement, my back on the fence facing the road and just waited till Nick came back out. I took in my surroundings, the houses around looking relatively similar to each other. Some were double story, some were single story; they all looked like roughly 3 bedroom houses. Not too excessive but a generous amount of room. There was suddenly a loud crash which made me jump in my spot, sounding like glass breaking, coming from the direction of Nick's house. My head spun around to face the house and there was another loud smash making me flinch. I stood up, unsure of what to do. What the hell was Nick doing? There was muffled shouting coming from the house, along with another loud crash before Nick appeared out the front door with his little sister in his hands, the shouting getting louder due to the open door. Nick just aggressively slammed the door and put his sister on the floor and she ran straight to me with Nick jogging behind her.

"Julia!" She cried out in excitement and I squatted to my knees before she tackled me into a hug.

"Hey there Sophia," I said hugging her back. She was dressed in a pink puffy princess dress, wearing a tiara on her head to go with it. Sophia was Nick's little sister, and we were pretty close seeing as I was always over at their place before they moved. She was only 8 years old when they all moved.

"Woah you've grown!" I said pulling out of the hug.

"Yeah, only one year till I'm officially a big girl!" She cheered, referring to the fact that'd she'd soon be double digits. She'd grown a couple of inches taller, and her hair was a little longer than it was last I saw her. It was down to her shoulders now.

"C'mon now princesses, we gotta move," Nick said, interrupting our little reunion, putting his hand on her back, guiding her ahead. It was then that I noticed the scar above her eyebrow, a cut deep enough it would've needed stitches. I'd have to ask Nick about that later, hell I had to ask him what all the commotion was about too. Maybe he just dropped something, he was quite clumsy at times, however, something told me it wasn't a matter of his clumsiness. I stood up from my position and was immediately met with the usual rush of dizziness. I flung one hand to my head and the other went to hold the fence. Nick was immediately beside me, his hands ghosting around my waist.