Ray's POV
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Emma, Norman, and I laughed about the stupidest things ever as we walked around the park. I held Norman's hand as we walked around and soon Emma noticed.
"I want someone to hold my hand." she whined. Norman looked at me and then at Emma.
"Why didn't you invite Gilda then?" he asked.
"They don't like the park ever since that one time they were chased by that swarm of mallard ducks or whatever those beasts were. " she explained.
"Sord" I said. She looked at me with the most confused expression she's ever had. I sighed before explaining, "A group of mallard ducks is called a sord. Another thing, ducks aren't really normally aggressive towards people so they were probably chased by a different animal."
"Oh shut up." Emma said in a playful tone.
We all kept walking for like 2 hours until Emma got a text. She opened her phone and stared at the screen. She chuckled before typing and then turning her phone off.
"Hey guys, Gilda's here to pick me up so I gotta go." she told us before running off. I sighed and looked at Norman, who was trying to get me to keep walking. I complied and followed him, he led me to the nearest bench. I smiled as I sat down next to him and he put his head on my shoulder. We talked for about 3 hours before I got a text from my mom who said that she was here to pick us up. Norman and I got up and started walking to the parking lot; when we saw my moms car come into view we immediately let go of each others hands and ran to the car with full speed. Norman ended up winning because he pushed me out of the way when I reached the door. I climbed into the car and smacked Norman's arm.
"Owww, what was that for?" He whined clearly knowing why I hit him. I rolled my eyes and kissed his cheek. He smiled and kissed me back while continuing to rub his arm.
"So, do you guys want to go to our house or Norman's house?" Mom questioned. I looked at Norman wanting him to choose because he likes being able to choose, but he was watching a Bill Nye meme video. I tapped his shoulder and he looked up to see my mom and I looking at him. "Uhhhhhhhhhhhh, what's going on? Why are you guys looking at me?" he asked. My mom asked the question again.
"What house do you want to go to, Ray?" he said directing the question towards me. I just shrugged, I was honestly fine with any house. He started typing on his phone again while I started playing a game on mine. "Can we go to mine, please?"
"Of course." Mom replied. I started complaining to mom about how the online school program I was in was giving us too many assignments.
"But mom, you don't understand. We have to do like 5 essays every 2 weeks, plus quizzes everyday."
"No one ever said education was easy. And if you don't like it why don't you apply for a in person school?" she replied.
"Because people are scary, weird, horrible, manipulating, and stupid."
"Try applying for the school Emma, Gilda, Don, Anna, Nat, and I go to." Norman said, "You'd know some people there. Plus Emma and I would finally have some competition."
"I'll think about it."
Mom, dad, and Norman would do this a lot. I say something and they quickly turn it into something they want me to do. Sometimes I appreciated it and sometimes I didn't. I know that they just want me to have new experiences but there's always his voice stuck in my head. He started my trauma and even now that he's not in my life anymore he's still impacting it.
"You'd never be good enough. You're hardly good enough for me."
"Then why do you keep me around?"
"Don't answer back."
Soon enough we arrived at Norman's house. I remember the first time I saw Norman's house, well I mean I remember everything. But anyways, I just remember thinking "Holy shit, this house is huge." Norman, Emma, Don, Gilda, Nat, and Anna all go to a private school that most people get in for money rather than intelligence. That should tell you all you need to know.
Another thing about Norman is that he has this thing about trust. We don't look at each others phones whenever we get a text or something because that's what he says trust is about, but we do sometimes reply to texts for each other. He also really loves talking about feelings. In many ways Norman has changed my life, for the better of course. So Norman has always been very open about things. Which made what happened in his room very weird. We walked in and I immediately noticed a box on his desk that was never there before. I walked towards it and looked behind me to see Norman walking with me. He smiled and opened the box with a little key that was next to it. It was a jewelry box. I looked at all the jewelry before my eyes stopped on a necklace with a blue diamond on it. I tried reaching for it before Norman's hand grabbed mine completely stopping any movement.
I looked at him before pulling my hand back and he started explaining, "That's my grandma's favorite necklace and since I'm her favorite grandchild she let me have it, along with all of the other jewelry in the box. I'm going to treasure that necklace for the rest of my life."
"So I'm not allowed to touch it?" I asked. He shook his head, I smiled and tried reaching for it again. He swatted my hand away and carefully picked it up before running to his bed. I walked towards him which made him said, "My precious." in a voice that sounded like a mix of Gollum and a sort of high pitched demonic voice.
"Ok, ok, fine I won't touch the necklace." I said. He smiled and got up to go put the necklace back.
"Good, it doesn't match you anyways. But this one does." he said turning around showing a green necklace, "its a Tsavorite garnet, very rare. The stone of benevolence, vitality, prosperity, vigor, and compassion. It's spiritual meaning is love and friendship. At least, according to google." he said carefully bringing it to me. He smiled as he handed it to me, "Nowadays you can buy jewelry made out of this stone online lowest being like 400 something and the highest being around 12,000. But I never buy things like that, anything could be fake these days. Also this necklace was specially made for my grandma." I looked at the necklace before handing it back to him. He quickly passed it back to me.
"It's yours. Green's not my color anyways." He said.
"Norman, I can't accept this." I told him, "Not without giving you something that's equal in value at least." He smiled again, god I loved his smile. He grabbed the necklace and put it on me.
"Just you being with me is enough."
