WHERE WE ARE ; COLE WALTER

021

"I DIDN'T THINK YOU'D ACTUALLY COME," Cole spoke as Veronica sat down on the passenger seat of his car.

The girl looked at him as if he were crazy. "Of course I'd come when something happened to your family, I'm not heartless. But enough of that BS, how's Nathan doing?"

"They said he's alright, they just want him to stay overnight to run some checks and supervise him, tomorrow he'll be back home, probably," Cole told her as he turned around in his seat to look at her.

He noticed the way her hair was all over the place and that she wore her favorite baby blue pajama, the one he had gifted her on her 15th birthday, with a checkered, fluffy jacket thrown over it, the brown color not matching with the pajama, like at all.

A smile made its way onto Cole's face as he looked at her, oh, how he had missed seeing Veronica in such a . . . intimate way. Not the perfect Veronica people at school could always see, he liked this version of her much more, it made her seem more human and close to him.

Veronica exhaled and relaxed back into the seat, some of the tenseness finally leaving her body. "That's good to hear."

A silence settled over them, one they felt familiar with, they felt comfortable in it. While Cole watched Veronica, she looked outside the window at the dark sky, noticing how there were only a few stars visible due to the city's lights.

"Wanna drive over to the river and watch the stars?" she asked after some time, disrupting the silence and forcing Cole to look away from her, so she wouldn't notice that he had been staring at her this whole time, which she of course already had taken note of but decided to ignore.

They had broken up, yes, but that didn't mean that both of them were completely over the other and as they sat there in the car, only the two of them being present, the lingering feelings surged.

Old habits die hard, a saying goes and the same seems to apply to love, it dies hard and comes back to hit one when you least expect it, Veronica noticed as she looked over to Cole who was already looking at her.

Her brain told her to leave him back here, all alone in the parking lot, go back to bed and sleep, but every other part of her body was glued in place, not wanting to move an inch away from him, completely forgetting the pain he had put her through.

Cole brushed his hair away from his eyes and smiled the smile Veronica loved so much. "Sure but we need to take your car. I don't know if  mom and dad want to go back home later."

They exited the car and before Veronica could say anything Cole had already sat down in the driver's seat of her car, a sly smirk on his face as he told her to get in the car. Veronica huffed, but without saying anything, walked to the other side and sat down, deciding that if he was going to be like that, she would be the DJ for the duration of the drive.

Just as Cole pulled out of the parking lot, Veronica had found the first song she would torture him with, settling on a song she knew he kind of disliked and then play the songs he hated most.

Singing along to 'Call me maybe', Veronica wore a huge smile on her face as they passed by dark houses, keeping the volume low so that no one would accidentally be awoken. Next to her, Cole concentrated on the road, though he couldn't help himself but admire her from the corner of his eye. Seeing her act this careless around him again, even if it was just to annoy him, he couldn't help but beat himself up internally for whatever had been going through his mind weeks ago.

When they were about five minutes away from their destination, Veronica decided to play the last song, the one Cole hated more than anything else because he had been forced to listen to it so many times already.