Outside || Luke Hemmings

Chapter 2

‘Are you sure that’s what you saw? He could have been doing something completely different’ I heard a random women say to the women walking beside her. I had been sitting on the bench for about half an hour, trying to distract myself.
I’d been listening to conversations of people passing by and it was boring me. So instead I decided to figure out how the traffic lights worked.
My parents told me how they were called, they just never explained how they worked.
After staring at the traffic lights for about 15 minutes, I was pretty sure that there were only three colours on them, Green, orange and red.
One was to tell you, you could drive, one to tell you that you had to stop, and the third one didn’t really make sense to me. Sometimes people stopped, but sometimes they just kept driving.
I looked around, suddenly noticing that there were barely any people outside anymore. Maybe it was time for me to go home too.
I stood up and grabbed my bag. I walked away from the bench, not knowing where to go and I decided to just wait at the crossover.
I pressed the button, as I had seen multiple people do and waited for it to turn green.  Or was it red? I didn’t remember. What if I walked at the wrong colour? What if I can already walk now? I panicked and looked around.
If only there would be someone right now to help me out. But since it was already pretty late, there was no one to be seen. ‘Shit’ I mumbled, as I looked back. I was just going to have to walk then.
I could feel my heart beating in my chest again as I started walking.
I took two steps before I got pulled back and saw a car driving exactly where I just stood. ‘Are you crazy?’ the guy who pulled me back said. I looked around to face him.
Still half in shock from what just happened. ‘I’m sorry’ I mumbled quietly. I was kind of ashamed of what just happened. Everyone here seemed to know what to do and when to do it.
All I could do was risk my life and hope for the best.
Now I understood why my parents always wanted to keep me inside.
The guy in front of me grinned. ‘You don’t have to apologize, just make sure you look at the light before you walk.’
I smiled uncomfortably, not knowing what to say.
We were quiet for a moment before the light turned green and the boy started walking. I followed him, making sure I wasn’t going to walk at the wrong moment again, and tried to remember you can walk when the light is green.
The guy looked behind him, and smiled at me when we accidentally made eye contact. I looked at my feet, while walking and almost bumped into him when he suddenly stopped walking.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘I mean, not because you just bumped into me, but in general?’ I looked at him, surprised he asked me this. Why would he want to know that?
‘Yeah, I’m okay. I’m just a little…lost, I guess’ ‘You’re lost? Well, where do you live? I’m not from here but maybe I can help you?’ I was quiet for a moment, letting his question sink in. Where did I live?
‘Okay, I get it. You shouldn’t tell random strangers where you live, right? Do you know anything close by? Like, I don’t know, a mall or something?’
‘How am I supposed to know that?’ I asked. The guy looked at me, a confused expression on his face. ‘well…you live there right? There must be something around that you would recognize’ I shook my head. Swallowing back the tears.
I shouldn’t have been so stupid to just walk off without any idea how to come back.
That’s just  stupid. ‘There is absolutely nothing?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know anything and I’m not even over reacting, right now. ’ I answered, I could feel myself slightly freaking out, as I frantically started walking back and forth from once side of the sidewalk to the other and I couldn’t stop the tears from falling anymore.
‘hey, don’t worry okay. we’ll find your house’ he said while trying to make eye contact with me. I nodded but I didn’t really believe him.
He grabbed his bag, that was hanging around his shoulder and pulled out a bottle of water. ‘Here, drink something, it’ll help you calm down. I don’t have any weird diseases I promise’ I had no idea what he meant with that, but I decided to just smile, or at least attempt to smile, and take the bottle, drinking something out of it, while trying to calm myself down.
We stood in silence for a while, until I had calmed down. ‘Okay, do you remember where you came from?’ he asks. I looked around and shook my head. ‘I just remember seeing that bench over there and sitting down on it for probably an hour.’ I softly answer him, pointing at the bench.
‘Well, let’s just walk back to that bench than.’ The guy smiled at me carefully and walked back to the crossover. Once the light was green we walked to the bench. I sighed and looked around. ‘I think I came from there’ the guy nodded. ‘then we’ll go there. Can I ask how long you’ve been walking?’ I smiled. ‘I don’t know. It felt like hours but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that long. Although it was light when I started walking’ ‘Where were you going?’ he asked looking at the massive bag I had hanging on my back. ‘Well, I went to find my parents’ I answered, already feeling new tears filling my eyes. ‘Where are they?’ ‘Well, I didn’t know. That’s why I went looking for them. But as soon as I walked out of the house. my neighbour told me that they were…they were in a car accident’ the guy stopped walking. ‘Really? Are they okay?’ he asked worriedly. I shook my head and started crying for what felt like the millionth time that day.