Breaking promises

38. Sharing childhoods

"Stop tickling my leg, Hailey," Seb grumbled.

I furrowed my brows and muttered at him, "I'm not doing anything. Stop imagining things."

He became silent and I rolled my eyes.

"Hailes, seriously stop what you're doing. It isn't funny," he said in an annoyed tone.

I pushed his chest with both of my hands and he let me go. I waved my hands in front of his face to show him that I wasn't tickling him and his eyes widened in horror.

"Then What is...?" He whispered glancing down at his leg. At first he seemed like he couldn't see anything, until he screamed at the top of his lungs.

I widened my eyes In surprise and saw him shaking his leg like a madman. The whole situation looked funny, but I started getting worried for him, because he kept screaming like a schoolgirl seeing a spider.

"It doesn't come off!!!" He screamed in panic.

"What?" I asked laughing.

"The GRASSHOPPER!!!" He shouted, as I saw the bug crawling up his leg.

It's amazing that it hadn't fallen down, with Seb shaking his leg like he was having a seizure.

"Calm down!" I hissed.

"I can't! It's crawling up my leg!" He shouted.

"I'll take it off, just stay still for a second," I commanded him.

He obeyed, which I was kinda surprised about and I took the green bug between my fingers and stood up to take it somewhere, where it wouldn't decide to come back to crawl Seb's leg again.

"Where are you going?" He asked worried.

"To take it somewhere safe," I replied.

The bug was moving its legs between my fingers, trying to break free, but I kept it tight enough not to squish it and to be able to hold it in my fingers.

I used to spend most of my childhood in here and bugs didn't affect me. I was always fascinated by them and I always used to catch them to observe them. My grandma always used to say, that when I grow up, I'd do something related to biology, but once i started studying it, I realized how hard it actually is for me to remember all of those important things our teacher thought us. I suck at biology.

But that doesn't mean, that I still can't love animals. Well... not all of them. I have an enormous fear of horse-flies. I start running and trashing around as soon as I hear the sound of their tiny wings buzzing around my head.

I started shuddering, as I remembered when one time, I felt my leg becoming itchy and I scratched it to feel something big and hard between my fingers. And when I looked down I saw a freaking horse-fly that was like a centimeter and a half long.

It escaped unfortunately and I panicked, once I realized that it would come back for me.

I screamed of course and ran inside my house. I hate them so much.

"Is it gone already?" Seb shouted in the dark.

I rolled my eyes and gently planted the bug in the grass. It hopped as soon as I let it go and I watched it run away from me.

"Yes," I said turning around and walking back to him.

"Thanks," he muttered and if it weren't dark, I'd probably see him blushing.

"You're welcome. I didn't want you to loose your deep voice to have an annoying one instead," I smirked In the dark.

He muttered something under his breath and if I had to guess then I'd say that he was cursing at something.

I sat down and watched that the fire had vanished from the fireplace and it was filled with lava red coal.

Seb noticed that also, as he stood up and asked, "do you want me to throw in some more wood to start the fire again or do you want to go inside?"

I shook my head, "neither. Let's grab something warmer and I'll show you something."

"Are we going somewhere?" He asked curiously.

"You'll see," I smirked.

____________________

"How do you see in the damn dark so we'll?" Seb hissed and I turned around to see him getting hit by another branch of a tree. I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

"You're such a child," I grumbled, taking his hand in mine. "Just follow me right behind me and I promise that you will go to school without looking like your face was destroyed by a group of mean kitties."

I felt his arm shudder in mine and I rolled my eyes at his dramatic ass.

"Are we there yet?" He asked for the umpteenth time.

"I swear to everything that I love," I hissed, "If you don't stop asking me this, I'm going to find all of the grasshoppers there are and I'm going to throw them all at you."

"Ok, sorry," he murmured behind me.

We were walking in a silence through the thick woods and I heard the first sign that we're close. The water running somewhere.

"We're almost there," I chirped happily.

"Finally!" He exclaimed.

The woods started getting thinner and thinner and soon enough, the only thing that could be seen was the clear water reflecting the shining stars.

"We're here," I whispered letting him go and walking to the stool that my grandfather built for us to sit on. Right next to it was a huge tree, that always protected us from the rain, so the location for the stool was perfect.

"Wow!" Seb gasped. "How I envy you and your brother right now. I never had such a beautiful place to go to, when I needed to clear my head. I always just roamed around the city and climbed the abandoned buildings, but this... this is so much better."

He looked at me and smiled, "thank you, Hailes."

I furrowed my brows. "For what?"

"For this... for showing me a part of you, a part of your past and a part of something that you miss. Thank you for bringing me here."

I smiled back at him, "you're welcome. And I'm sorry that you had a shitty childhood. I wish that I could share some of mine with you."

He shook his head and sat next to me, "You already have. This is perfect."

I hummed and looked back at the lake. It was a complete silence, not even the grasshoppers could be heard.

Seb started singing something and I recognized the song as one of the songs that he used to play at our house. Emotions overcame the both of us, but Seb continued laying out his emotions through the song, while I listened to his deep voice.

"If this is redemption, why do I bother at all?
There's nothing to mention, and nothing has changed.
Still I'd rather be working at something, than praying for the rain.
So I wander on, till someone else is saved."

I'm going to miss this.