Dammit Dan, You Stole My Hart

Chapter 6

Daniel - 28/05/16, Saturday

"Imagination is always better than reality?" she repeated, giving me a suspicious look.

"Yeah. You basically live in your own world, without the pain, without the sorrow. It's your world, you live in it, you control how you want it. Imagination is always better than reality," I said confidently, tapping my temple again.

"Hmm. Whatever you say." She leaned back into the chair, not wanting to push it further. "So, truth, or dare?"

"Truth. For a change," I said.

"Why is it that you like doing your information gathering business?"

"It makes me feel in control. Feel connected. Feel like I'm part of things," I replied, giving her the simple answer.

Truth be told, there was more to it. This information thingy made me feel wanted. People actually came to me for things. They came. To me. I was actually helpful to them.

"Hey, you okay?"

I looked up at her. Well, down somewhat. Despite me slouching, and despite her trying to sit up straight, she was still much shorter. "Yeah I'm fine, why?"

"Cause you were frowning. You look weird when you do that."

"Yeah okay," I said, brushing it off, putting that snarky smile back on my face. It was partly forced, but she didn't need to know that. "Your turn."

"Truth."

I thought about it for a while, then remembered the mission. "What do you think of Andrew?"

"Andrew Gates?" I nodded. "What do you mean by 'what do you think of him'?"

"Exactly what I mean. Tell me your thoughts about him."

"I mean, he is my best friend. He's a nice guy I suppose?" Her eyes narrowed. "What do you want with him?"

Never thought of him. Hmm. Maybe this was going to be much more difficult than I thought.

"Nothing. Just interested," I said with a shrug of the shoulders.

"You expect me to believe that?"

She saw straight through me, which wasn't too unusual. Most people didn't. I kept my calm, and reacted the same way I had every time these kinds of things happened.

"Yes. What reasons would you have for not believing me?"

"You're too shifty, Dan." Shifty? Well, it was kinda hard to lie to her.

"Whatever it is, you have a truth to answer," I said. Eleanor leaned back in her seat again, enjoying her victory.

"I knew I could beat you some way."

"Answer it."

"Well," she started, her voice laden with hesitation. "He's just really shy and nice?"

"What? Like you?"

She blushed momentarily. 1-1 it is.

"I'm not shy, okay!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Only around me, yeah you aren't."

"It's not always about you okay?" She was clearly infuriated.

2-1 to Dan Fletcher.

"By the way, have you taken anything down?"

She looked down at her notebook. "Ah shit." I laughed. 3-1 to Dan Fletcher. Although maybe that last one didn't really count. I looked down at my watch. Ten. I looked up to find her furiously scratching away at her notebook and noticed that she wrote with her right hand.

Why that surprised me I didn't understand, but then again, there was clearly more to her than I had thought at first.

"So now what? I'm assuming you're bored of truth or dare, and since you've finished your coffee..." I started.

"We can go outside for a walk if that's what you want," she said.

"I'm fine with that," I said standing up.

As we walked out of the cafe, I swore, we must've looked like the weirdest bunch ever. Eleanor only came up to my shoulder, and she definitely couldn't pose off as my younger sister. I looked to our right and spotted something undesirable,

"Shit," I breathed, then sprinted across the street with Eleanor in tow. "What?" she hissed.

I crouched down behind a bench, forcing Eleanor to do the same. "What?" she repeated.

"Macey," I answered. I had almost forgotten why I'd picked the cafe. It was the one the Barbie girls frequented, and it made it easy for me to catch up on the gossip. Though most of the time I came here with a suitable disguise and with suitable equipment. I guessed I had chosen the same cafe without much thought.

The three girls sauntered down the street, chatting with one another as they went. Maybe I should've brought my spy gear.

"Why are you so scared of her anyways?" she said. "I mean, come on! It's Macey Newman! Her dad's rich, and she's one of the most popular girls of the level."

"If you haven't noticed, I'm more into avoiding her." I peeked over the bench. Instead of entering the cafe, they were coming down the street, straight toward where we were. Worst of all, they seemed to be gesturing to my left a lot. Which meant that they were going to turn right, right into us.

I yanked Eleanor onto the bench and found her face from inches from mine, and immediately realised that I had a way out of this.

The Barbie Girls stepped onto the pavement and began their right turn. So I took Eleanor's face in my hands, and kissed her.

And wow, did she kiss. Our lips met, and everything exploded. I felt Eleanor inch ever so slightly closer to me that we our bodies were touching. And then she broke away in shock, speechless.

They walked right past us like nothing had happened. How had they missed me? Eleanor finally recovered from her shock and pushed me away from her.

"Daniel Fletcher!" she hissed rather loudly, but by then, they had gone out of earshot. "What the hell was that?"

"You're not that bad of a kisser," I said, and much to my amusement, she wiped her lips with her arm.

"But.. but," she stuttered, choking on her own rage.

"It felt good, didn't it?"

At that she fell silent. "Ye.. yeah, but that's besides the point!" she managed to splutter out.

I slid further along the bench, giving her slightly more space. "Was that your first kiss?" I asked, half joking.

She nodded, her cheeks now extremely red. Oops.

"Ah, woops. Sorry for stealing that."

"Isn't it your first?" she asked too, hoping that she had stolen that from me as some kind of consolation.

"Nope. I dated once before," I said matter-of-factly.

She sat there silent for a few seconds with her eyes closed. I could feel the rage radiating off her.

"Well, I didn't have much of a choice," I said, hoping to explain myself.

"You know what?" she said, picking up her stuff. "I'm done talking to you." She stormed off.

----

I had returned home, and found myself with a strange urge. A strange urge to apologise to Eleanor.

I lay there on my bed, twirling my phone, trying to decide if I should make the call. What was so hard about making this call? The conflicting notions were slowly tearing me apart.

Don't apologise to her. Dan Fletcher never says sorry.

You did steal her first kiss.

It was either my pride or my conscience. With a frustrated grunt, I dialled the number and pressed call.

Well done.

Yes, well done indeed. Now she's going to laugh at you.

She picked up on the first ring. "Hi."