Blame Gravity

Chapter 16

We go to the British Museum, which I find so interesting I don't even realize when Mr. Simmons calls on me for the fifth time that we should go.

After that, we make a quick trip to the Charles Dickens Museum, where James and I have the time of our lives. I love Charles Dickens, and, for some reason, even though he has terrible taste, he likes Dickens' works as well, and we have lots of fun, quoting his stories, reading between the lines, already knowing everything about him but every so often still finding something incredibly interesting.

And then, when it's already dark out, we go to the London Eye, which I've wanted to see since I was 5 or something. James and I go sit in one cabin and Mr. Simmons sits in another, not wanting to disturb us (for some reason? I don't know, it's what he said...). 

When we're halfway up top, I finally speak. "It's beautiful."

"Yeah," James says, and he clears his throat.

Finally, when we're up top, I see James is taking pictures with some sort of camera. It annoys me the hell out of me, and when he doesn't understand my loud sighs, I grab at the camera. I fail, though.

"Hey! You're going to drop it!" he says, and he takes a picture of me without warning. He snickers while doing so.

"Miller!" I yell and try to grab the camera out of his hand. "Why do you always smile like that when you're being mean...?" I whisper.

"'One may smile, and smile, and be a villain'" he quotes. He's so lame. I hate it when he cites Shakespeare. 

Suddenly, he kisses me, catching me off guard. We kiss for a few moments, and then, he pulls away, carefully grabs my chin, and unhurriedly turns my head toward the view.

"Lovely, isn't it?" he whispers. Our carriage has started to go down again. Then, he turns my head towards him, smirks, suddenly pulls out a camera, and photographs me. "Almost as lovely as you in this picture," he giggles in the annoying way only he can.

I blink after the flash and hit him gently on the head. "You're such an idiot," I breathe. "Did you only kiss me so you could take a picture?"

He holds up the now printed picture, in which I look absolutely terrible, a blushing mess. He's smirking in a manner that makes me want to throw punches. "Perhaps," he whispers, and we lock eyes. We then both get flustered, clear our throats and look back at the view.

We get back to the hotel after some fast food dinner (I'm going to gain a few pounds by the time we're in California again), and both of us slump down on the bed, not even bothering with showering or anything like that. We're way too tired.

When I wake up, I have the strange sense of being watched. I quickly open my eyes and see James' smiling face look back at me.

"Ah, you're awake," he grins.

"Were you staring at me? Creep." I look around and notice it's already 10 AM. "Fuck!" I stand up and am about to run to the bathroom when James grabs my hand and pulls me back to bed. 

"Aw, come on, don't rush-..."

"Why didn't you wake me up?!" I yell. "It's 10 AM! We should have been downstairs for, what, an hour now?"

"I... I would have woken you up, but you were sleeping on my arm, and I didn't want to wake you, because you just looked... adorable." He blushes, fixes his hair, and looks away.

I sigh. "Is this some sort of strange love confession? Because if you don't do it with a Bieber song I'm not going to believe you."

"Oh, fuck off, Canmore!" He hits me with a pillow. "You've got to ruin everything."

I freeze. I do ruin everything, I guess. I mean, I had a perfect relationship with Mike, and I screwed it up; I hated James, which felt great, and I kissed him for no reason; I'm messing up my grades; I could go on and on. 

"H-... Hey, are you crying?" he asks and puts his arms around me.

"No," I sob, and I bury my head in his chest. "I don't cry."

"Of course, you don't," he whispers gently and kisses my hair. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way."

"It's not that. I'm just... I don't know." 

He tucks a stray hair behind my ear. "This is the second time I've seen you cry. You look terrible."

My sobs grow louder, and he starts shushing me, holding me closer.

"Aw, I was just joking!" he says, almost laughing. "Don't be sad."

"Oh, thanks for that advice, I didn't think of it," I whisper-yell. I make myself comfortable in his lap, and our foreheads touch. We make eye contact, and we're about to kiss when we hear a knock. We quickly scramble away from each other and yell "Coming!" in chorus.

"Okay!" answers Mr. Simmons, and I can hear his footsteps grow quieter.

We sit in silence for a few seconds, and then we get ready for breakfast.