Learning To Fly **ON HOLD**

Chapter 2

     "I swear you've grown, Josh!" Evelyn says, ruffling Josh's hair. He giggles and goes to hide away somewhere. Evelyn was Adam's mum. Yep, you guessed it, they were here for dinner.  Don't get me wrong, I love Evelyn and Mike as much as my own parents, but I just wish... I don't know. I  set up the plates and cutlery when I hear someone come up behind me. "Hey there," They breathe. I feel their breath on my neck, I jump up in the air, and the forks fly everywhere. Everyone seems to stop what they were doing to look at me. "Err... sorry everybody..." I say awkwardly. Evelyn gives a disapproving look at Adam, who is behind me, and carries on talking to Dad. I turn to face him.

    "Don't do that to me!" I hiss. I stride past him into the kitchen.

     "Laura, I'm sorry. Forgive me?" He grabs my hand and I twist round to face him. I get lost in his eyes for a moment, before snapping back to reality.

     "I - uhm..." I say. Adam just smirks. I walk up the stairs and collapse onto my bed. 

     "Hey, do you maybe want to get out of here?" Adam asks, perching on the end of my bed. I nod my head vigorously.

     "Of course!"

~~~~~~~

We wander down the road to Adam's place. He twirls some keys around his fingers. Then I see it.

The motorbike.

Holy crap. What am I going to do? I can't ride this death vehicle. I think. I say the first thing that comes to my mind "I'm allergic to motorbikes!" I blurt out. He chuckles.

     "There's nothing to be scared of, Beautiful," Adam sighs. I shake my head. He gives me a strange look. "Please? It'll be fun, I promise Laura." I take a deep breath.

     "You can take me, but I'm blaming you if I die," I say. He barks out a laugh. He's suddenly serious, and grabs hold of my hand.

     "Come on!" He pulls me on to the motorbike and then jumps in front of me. "You ready?" He asks.

      "Nope," I say, popping the 'p'

     "Three, two, one..."

      "No no no no no no no no no no!" I scream. We shoot off at high speed. I grip onto Adam's waist, and soon I'm laughing at my fear that ended a few seconds ago. As we race down the little roads, my hair flies behind me. Adam slows down so we stop just outside McDonalds. I climb off the motorbike and give him a look.

     "What!?" He exclaims. I shake my head and we push open the doors. There's only the local hobo and some businessman inside. We sit down at the farthest table. "So Laura. How's life?" Adam asks

     "Pretty shit, actually." I respond.

      "How so?"

      "I don't actually know. But I do know that sometimes I get depressed and just break down crying and just can't stop," I say. I see his face softens and he grabs my hand. I try to pull away, but his hands are locked firmly around mine. 

     "That's a lie," he whispers. 

      "I don't care if you believe me or not. You asked me how life was and I replied," I deadpan. Adam sighs. "So Adam. How's your life going?"

      "It's okay I suppose. I mean, I just recovered from my ankle sprain, so yeah, it's good." I sigh. It seems like it was just me who suffered from these crying fits.Nothing was wrong. I wasn't bullied, I had great friends, family life was good, I was just... sad. For no apparent reason. But then other times, I could be happier than anyone on the planet. I just didn't understand it. 

      "You know, Laura, you're so beautiful," Adam says, stroking my knuckles. I blush and pull my hands away.

     "I'm sorry if I'm disturbing anything, but if you're not going to order anything, I'm going to have to kick you out," someone says. I sigh and face them.

     "Uhh... I'll have a McFlurry," I mumble. The guy nods and scurries away. I turn back to face Adam. He looks at me and I see something flash across his face. I ignore it. The guy comes back and sets down the McFlurry on the table. I stare at Adam for a little while. He seems content with eating the McFlurry so I leave him be. 

     "Laura? Laura!" Adam snaps me out of my day dream. I blink a couple of times. "You okay?" He asks.

     "Yeah, I'm fine!" I plaster on a fake grin. Please don't let the tears come now, please don't let the tears come now! I think. I feel my eyes well up and look away. 

     "Woah woah, Laura, what's up?" Adam asks. I shake my head and soon the tears are spilling over. "No, seriously Laura..." he warns. I turn to face him, the tears still flowing.

      "I don't even know, Adam. I don't know what's wrong with me. I just feel sad. I just feel sad for no reason." I whisper. He pulls me into him and hugs me tight. I sob into his jacket, and doesn't say anything. He lets me get my tears out of my system. After a few minutes, I pull away. "Thanks," I say and give him a weak smile. He grabs my hand and we walk back to his motorbike.

The ride back there is no laughing, no hair blowing back wildly and acting like we don't have a care in the world. Because everything has come back. All of the pain, all of our problems and all of our cares and worries are back, and we've sunk back to reality. When things distract you from your problems, you don't forget about the problems. They're always there, haunting the back of your mind. You never forget about your problems. Even when they're gone, you'll never forget them. And that's what's so bad about life. And when you lie down and think about every bad thing you've done, you feel guilty. Even if those things happened fifteen years ago, they'll always be there, nagging, trying to get you to remember them so you can feel bad.

That's another thing that's bad about life.

~~~~~~~

     "Come on, Laura, here we go." Adam whispers as he carries me into my bedroom. He lies me down and pulls off my shoes. I smile. It was nice to be looked after for once. I hear him walk away. "Don't go..." I mumble. I hear him take a deep breath and walk back towards me.

 He squashes into the bed, squidged right up against me.

     "I'm not going anywhere, Laura."

And with that, I fall asleep with my head on Adam Calders' chest.