Two Different Worlds

Chapter Nine

I shot my eyes wide open and sat up straight. Fucking nightmare, I thought. I groaned, laying back on the bed and looked at the ceiling. Dreaming about my dad’s bad. Like, really bad. I am still trying to forget about what he did to me and my mom. It’s just hard to forget, you know? Remembering what my dad did in the past still hurts, a lot. He left me and my mom just like that. I laughed suddenly. What am I doing? I need to forget about it . . . about him, I thought. I checked the time and it was 11:49. I really want to go somewhere with Lauren. I was thinking that maybe we could probably go to the club or something because I really miss those kinds of places. I rubbed my face with my hands and stared at the wall in front of me. I felt my phone vibrating on the bed. I grabbed it, hoping that it would be Lauren. Well, it wasn’t.

“Victoria,” I heard his familiar, happy voice. I rolled my eyes and pressed my phone closer to my ear.

“What do you want, Luca?” I said.

“I don’t have anything to do today and I bet that you don’t have anything to do today, either,” he said. I can hear him smirking. I groaned and ran a hand through my messy hair.

“So?”

“So,” he paused. “Do you want to go ice skating with me?”

“Ice skating?” I said, unsure.

“Yeah, there’s this mall with—”

“Sure,” I said.

“Okay. I’ll be there in about 30 minutes,” he said before hanging up. I immediately ran to the bathroom. I took a cold shower, brushed my teeth, and blow-dried my hair. I walked back to my room and opened my closet, finding something to wear. I got dressed as quickly as I could because I could already hear someone knocking on my door. I grabbed my phone and some money before I shoved them into the pocket of my jeans. I ran to open the front door.

“You ready?”

Luca was standing there, his hands were in his pockets and he was just there standing awkwardly. I gave up and smiled at him, “Yup. Let’s go.” We walked to his car side by side. When Luca was driving no one said a single word. When arrived at the mall, we headed straight to the ice skating rink. Luca and I saw a wooden bench so; we sat there taking off our shoes, replacing them with the ice skates a guy who works here gave us about two minutes ago.

“You okay?” I asked him, untying my shoelaces. He looked pretty nervous.

“Um, yeah . . . it’s just that the last time I skated was with Skylynn and that was a long time ago,” he said, his thin lips curved into a small smile when he mentioned his little sister’s name. “Skylynn is like a professional ice skater.” We stood in front of the entrance. I was waiting for Luca to go first. Well, he’s not moving, I thought.

“Come on,” I whined, grabbing his upper arm. I literally dragged him with me, he wasn’t even trying. “Fine, you can just stand there and do nothing.” I skated away from him slowly.

“Wait,” he said, making me stop. “Just . . . can I hold your hand?”

I raised my eyebrows at him but, I shrugged it off. I skated back towards him, grabbing his hand. We skated slowly, not like the other people here. They were skating like crazy.

“If you can’t skate then, why did you even asked me to skate with you?” I let out a laugh, shaking my head. “We could always go eat somewhere or something.”

He thought about it for a second before he smiled at me, squeezing my hand lightly. “Well, I bet that you and Ryder already ate somewhere yesterday.” He said. “So, I figured that we could do something different today.”

Different.

“But, we could get some coffee after this,” he said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “But, only if you want to.”

“Okay,” I smiled.

*

I sighed loudly after I finished my cappuccino. I licked my lips and pushed the cup away from me. Luca was looking at me like I was crazy just because I finished a cup of coffee in seconds.

“What?” I snapped. “I needed something to warm me up, that’s all.”

“Right,” he chuckled.

“So, why did you want to hang out with me this morning?” I asked, stealing a glance. He looked at the palm of his hands.

“Well, because I thought that a simple Skype call last night wasn’t enough,” he smirked. “And, because my parents are visiting Skylynn so, I had nothing to do.”

“Well, I have to admit, today was really fun,”

“Oh, so when I fell on top of your legs . . . that was fun?” he shot me a goofy grin.

“God, no, that was freaking embarrassing!” I kicked his leg under the table. “People were staring at us.”

He laughed for a second but then, he stopped because he saw the seriousness written all over my face. “Okay, I’m sorry.” I stuck out my tongue at him. He suddenly pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at me. “Skylynn wants to see me. Mom said she misses her big brother, awe.”

“Then, let’s go. Skylynn wants to see you,” I stood up. “I have something to do so, just drop me off at my place. Then, go to the hospital.”

*

“We should do this again sometime,” he said, breaking the silence.

Instead of saying ‘Yes, we should’ I looked at the time and said, “You should go. Skylynn’s probably waiting for you.”

“You’re right,” he sighed loudly. I got out of his car and surprisingly he did, too.

“Okay. I’ll see you whenever.” He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. I smiled at him.

“See you whenever,” I gave him a nod. Neither of us was moving. I wasn’t walking inside my house and he wasn’t walking back towards his car. I took two steps towards him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Okay so, bye.”

“Oh, right, um . . . bye, I guess,” he bit his lower lip, turning around before he walked back to his car. I opened the front door and looked at his car slowly driving away. I sighed loudly, closing the front door. What a day, I thought.