Let's Be Birds (OLD VERSION)

☁ 26 ☁

"Good morning Baltimore!" Hannah yells and then does a twirl. A group of girls look away from us, giggling but neither of us care that much. I put my sunglasses on and sip my milkshake, wondering where we are.

See, Hannah was driving and singing along to the radio at the same time. I wasn't paying much attention because Clementine was being nice to me and I was still thinking about the Chloe thing... so we ended up in this random place in the middle of Baltimore. My phone's outta battery and she won't tell me where we are.

At least I have my milkshake.

"What are we going to do today?" I ask.

She shrugs. "You ever wanted to get a tattoo?"

I shake my head and she laughs. "Do you want a tattoo or something?"

"I don't know. I just thought I'd ask."

"What a random question to ask."

"Oh whatever, sharpener boy." I stick my tongue out at her and she waves her hand at me. "We could go to an aquarium."

"I couldn't look at another nemo fish if it slapped me in the face." I declare quite dramatically. "Could we just chill instead?"

Hannah shrugs. "Sure, Nate."

To be honest, I've been kind of a downer these past two days. We explored most of Philadelphia the second day we were there and even bought some 76'er's jerseys despite not even getting to see them play but I haven't contributed to the fun like Hannah has. She's been trying to get me to cheer up but I haven't really been responding all too much.

Sighing, I look at Hannah who is on her phone. She's swiping through Instagram and humming at the same time. I know I haven't been easy to travel with recently because I'm so negative and as much as I'd like to stop, it's hard because I feel terrible. At first I didn't think I was heartbroken because I wasn't that upset about the fight I had with Chloe. But ever since then, I've just been... down. It's worse than what it was when I realised that she was gone last year and it's making me feel so uncomfortable but I don't want to talk about it so there's no chance of the discomfort changing.

Hannah squeals and shows me a photo of a dog. I decide that I'm no longer going to ruin her summer.

"You know what, Frozone?" I say, whipping off my sunglasses. She looks up, startled. "Let's get tattoos."

☁☁☁

It's not hard to find a tattoo parlour in the middle of Baltimore. Once my phone has charged up a little, we drive over to the small shop and my nerves begin to set in. My mom's gonna kill me if she finds out I got a tattoo on a whim while running amok across the east coast but I figure I might as well go along with it for now.

"What are you getting?" I ask Hannah, nervous.

She hums and parks the van. "Probably a bunch of flowers, something corny, something small. You?"

"I don't know." I admit truthfully. "I just agreed because I thought it'd be fun."

Hannah stares me down and then bursts into laughter. "Boy, I hope you have a high pain tolerance. Because this is gonna hurt."

I wince and we get out of the van. Clem mews before settling down with a bowl of milk. Since we don't know how long this is gonna take, we decided to leave out some kitty treats and milk so she won't go hungry while she waits for us.