The Lemonade Stand

5 - Somewhere Only We Know

Chapter 5

The scenery blurred past me as I rested my head against the passenger seat window. The peaceful simplicity of the sight was soothing. Mixed that in with the acoustic sounds of the current song on the radio and it felt like I had escaped into a utopia. The incident hours before was being slowly erased from my memory with every mile we drove away from it all.

I rotated my body to face the boy sitting behind the wheel. It so happened that he was staring back at me. Our eyes locked for the briefest of seconds and I blushed, shifting my focus to the windshield and the view on the other side of the glass.

I couldn’t help but be curious as I stole a peel out of the corner of my eye to see him still watching me. I glanced back at him and caught sight a faint color change in his cheeks but he covered it quickly.

“What?” I broke the silence, wondering why he was so interested in my face. There was nothing special about it. Trust me.

“It’s nothing.” He muttered, clearing his throat as he turned his attention to the road ahead.

“Well that definitely cleared up my confusion.” I thought to myself, still as perplexed as before, but decided just to let it go. A rap replaced the previous soft melody and I couldn’t help but change the station as fast as I could. Rap and me don’t mix well. I stopped when I heard the beats of As Long As You Love Me and turned the volume up.

“You’re such a girl.” He teased at my song selection, breaking the awkwardness that had begun to seep between us.

“Well that’s not a far fetched observation considering I am a girl.” I laughed.

“Sassy.” Ian chuckled as he reached over the knob to switch the artist to Coldplay.

“Hey I was listening to that!” I cried, trying to turn it back to the Biebs. We fought for control of the radio, swatting each other hands away.

“How about I settle this?” He said as he fiddled with the radio, skipping over both of our songs until he found the station he was looking for. The truck was instantly immersed by the voice of Carrie Underwood. A smile broke onto my face as I started singing along to Cowboy Casanova.

When the song ended and Tim McGraw’s new hit, Highway Don’t Care, came on, I twisted my head until my eyes landed on Ian. He was surprising me again and again with the fact that he still remembered the little things about me: my horrible lying skills, my addiction to 7up, and now this.

“I brushed up on your quirks. I have a handbook you know.” Ian joked as if he knew I was formulating the question in my mind.

“I don’t know whether to be creeped out or honored that you have a manual with this information.” I decided to play along with his sarcasm.

“You should feel special.” He chuckled.

“In all seriousness, how did you remember?” I asked inquisitively.

“You’re the only one I know who listens to country music.” He replied. “Things like that just stick in the back of my mind. Like the fact that you’re the worst liar in existence or that you’d eat nutella with basically everything or the way you scrunch up your nose when you’re trying to act mad but fail miserably to be. See you’re doing it right now.” Ian pointed out and I realized I subconsciously did in fact scrunch my nose. Damn. He knew me too well. I huffed, pouting as I crossed my arms. He laughed, clearly satisfied that he was right.

“You’re different from a lot of other people Hazel.” He continued.

“Thank you?” I said with a puzzled expression, trying to figure out if he meant it as a compliment or an insult.