Runaways > > Mikey Clifford

//Chapter Two//

I stared at this boy. This flamboyantly dressed, yet very attractive, boy.
I had never had people skills. I've never even had a friend since kindergarten, and she moved over the summer.
So that also means I've never been asked such a bizarre, yet intriguing, question.
I looked into his emerald eyes and thought.
"That would be.... Perfect," I said.
He smiled, revealing perfectly straight, shimmering white teeth.
We stood up and grabbed our duffle bags and began to walk.
"So, how old are you, Mars?"
"Sixteen. And you?"
"Same. Which school do you go to?"
"Falling High."
"Really? I do too. How have I never seen you around?" he asked, with an eyebrow raised.
"I guess I just have that invisible quality."
"Yeah, me too. I have a couple friends but I'm basically the third wheel. I just kinda keep to myself, I guess," he said, and starting staring at his feet. "I'm not planning on dropping out, I was just gonna find some place in the woods to stay. Maybe a nice little clearing surrounded by trees."
That did sound good. At least, compared to home.
But I feel like he hasn't thought this through at all. I bet he acted on impulse. Where would he bathe, use the bathroom, brush his shiny white teeth?
"Yeah. I didn't really think about school, but I'm sure as hell not going to drop out."
After about twenty minutes of walking, we found a forest. It was pretty late now, 11 or 12. We picked a random place in the woods to enter at, and starting walking through.
"Oh, and I have a battery-powered outlet box so I could charge my phone. There's 4 outlets, so you can use it too. I have extra batteries for it," he said.
"Well, look at you, well prepared," I said.
Maybe he did think it through a little.
I looked ahead and saw something. There was a small clearing, with two apple trees in the center.
Since it was late fall, there were a lot of apples growing off them.
We sat down underneath them and started showing the stuff we had in our bags.
I showed all the stuff in mine first, all my candy and snack cakes and water bottles, my blanket and pillow, my charger and headphones, my clothes and cans of coke.
He had stuff identical to mine, but also had the outlet box and a notebook.
"What's in the notebook?" I asked.
".... Drawings." He blushed a little.
"Mind if I see?" I asked.
He handed me the notebook and I opened up to see amazing drawings, cartoon characters and animals, celebrities and landscapes.
I flipped through the pages and saw a list titled "band names".
"What's this?" I asked.
"Oh yeah, I'm in a band. I play guitar."
"Oh, which name is it?" I asked.
"Right now? It's Bromance."
I chuckled.
"Yeah, I know. It's not final yet. We're still thinking," he said.
There was a short silence, and I thought of something.
"Hey, since we're so far from school, and I live like two minutes walking distance, how about on Sunday we just go back to my place?"
He looked skeptical, so I added,
"I have wifi."
"Well, when you put it that way... Sure."
Now don't get me wrong here, I hate home. But maybe it'd be different if I had a friend. Someone to talk to.
I always feel better when I talk to Grace, so I think it'd be even better to have a real-live person in my room with me.
"We also have indoor plumbing and AC," I said, "If that even matters, compared to wifi." I smirked, and he smirked back.
"Yeah, I guess," he said, and grinned at me.
It was getting chilly outside, so I pulled out my blanket and laid it on the grass, and folded it over on top of me after I laid on it, and followed that by pulling out my pillow and resting my head on it.
I could see my breath in the air, and the tip of my nose and the top of my ears were catching the cold air.
"What I wouldn't g-give for five s-seconds of summer right n-now," I said between shivers and teeth-chatters.
Michael looks at me for a second, and repeats me.
"Five seconds of summer," he said quietly.
He grabbed out his phone and started texting.
"Uh... whatcha doin?" I asked.
"What? Oh, I'm texting Luke and Calum. My bandmates. That's a perfect band name."
"Oh, well.. Thanks."
"Wait, Cal texted me earlier. Said a drummer saw the flyers we hung. He's gonna come for a tryout Monday afternoon," He said. "His name's Ashton."
"Oh," I said nonchalantly.
"Sorry if I'm rambling. This probably doesn't really excite you. But I feel like someday, we're gonna be... Big. Famous, even. I just... feel it."
There was an awkward silence.
"I'm hungry," he said, breaking the silence.
"Diddo," I said, sitting up and pulling a few snack cakes and a can of coke out of my bag.
He did something else.
He stood up and pulled two apples from the tree and tossed one to me.
"Thanks," I said, even though I'm not much of an apple person.
We ate in semi-silence, with the crickets and locusts sounding in the woods, accompanied by a few hoots from an owl overhead.
Now that my eyes are pretty much fully adjusted to the shaded darkness provided by the night and the trees above, I realize how tall the grass is in places, but it also differs from how bare the ground is in some places, the grass ranges from about a foot and a half, down to about half a centimeter. I figure deer have been here and grazed, mostly around the apple tree, so they can also eat the fallen apples and the low-hanging ones.
I ate the apple last, and it didn't taste like a store-bought apple. It tasted... Natural.
I've always never eaten apples, but accepted because I didn't want to be rude. But this one was different from the store bought ones I've had when I was really young.
I do realize I'm rambling about apples. But really, wow. I don't understand. Something about it made me feel really happy, which I haven't felt since I was a very little kid.
After we ate, I was knackered. It was about 1:30, and I decided it was time to go to sleep. I laid down in my little blanket burrito my original fold-over turned into, with my pillow, and told Michael goodnight.
I closed my eyes, facing him, who was also laying down facing me.
I opened my eyes as slightly as I could, and he didn't seem to notice, probably because it was too dark. But his eyes were everything but closed.
He was looking at me.
Not in a creepish way, but in... Admiration? Lust, even? No, those weren't it.
It was more like in... Thought. Interest. Deep concentration and wonder. He was thinking something. He looked like he was trying to figure me out, like I confused him.
I didn't really know what to think. I stared right back at him for a while. I guess I was trying to figure him out, too.
I decided to leave him to that and closed my eyes again, when I heard him talk.
"I saw that, by the way. Night."
I opened my eyes and watched him turn to the other side, having his back face me.
I turned and faced the other way, too, and closed my eyes
"Night," I said, falling asleep seconds later.