a long way from home ; g.d.

t w e l v e

It looked cute, but I don't know if the pain was worth it. The guy who did it told me I could remove it if I wanted but I didn't, because it was something new. Something I've never done before, and that's what this whole New York experience is about. That and getting away from my parents.

Grayson and I left the parlor at about 11:30, and decided it was time for lunch. We walked across the street from the parlor to the bar.

They gave us a table outside. The waitor was pretty young, maybe a little older than us, and had at least tem piercings on each ear and sleeves of tattoos.

I tucked my hair behind my ear and took a drink of my lemonade. "I have a list."

He leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. "A list? Is it a hit list?"

I laughed. "No, it's a list of things I wanna do while I'm in New York."

"Alright, well tell me some."

"I wanna visit the Empire State Building, I wanna take pictures of New York from a window at a high floor, I wanna pull an all-nighter and listen to sad music while sitting on my balcony, I wanna dance in the rain, and I wanna kiss someone at sunset..." I got sidetracked thinking about everything else I wanted to do.

He smiled at me from across the table. "That sounds like a good list, maybe I can help out with a few." He looked up and his eyes met mine. I could tell he wasn't being funny. I felt my lips curve into a smile. "Yeah."

We maintained eye contact for a minute longer until I looked away and looked down at my hands. I nervously twisted the ring I had on my middle finger. It was a stainless steel band with a cross engraved around it. I haven't wore it forthe time I've been here, because I didn't want anything that reminded me of home.

"Where'd you get the ring?" Grayson asked.

"My brother. He gave it to me before he left for college," I answered. My brother, Charlie, was the golden child in our family. He's 3 years older than me and a Harvard graduate. You know how in the T.V. shows how the youngest is always the most attended to?

Well in this case, it was the exact opposite. I was a surprise, and took everyone off guard, which I think in a way is the reason why my parents treated me the way they did. Like I was less of a person than him. I was just the child they got stuck with. Him and I were never very close, he spent most of his time studying or playing basketball. We got along fine, just didn't have that brother-sister bond that some siblings have.

Grayson stayed still for a second, then reached across the table and took my hand in his to look at it. I felt my breath get caught in my throat. His hands made mine look like doll hands. "Is that a cross?" He asked.

I nodded, then remembered he wasn't looking at me. "Yeah, my family is super religious."

He laughed, still looking at my ring. He slowly let go of my hand and let it fall back onto the table. I gulped and wrapped it around my glass. "Mine too. I didn't know you had a brother."

"Yeah, he's kinda irrelevant. To me at least. His name's Charlie, and he's about 3 years older than me."

"Charlie and Chavelle, the two Ch's."

I laughed, and shook my head. "Iconic."

After we ate, it was about 1:00, so we decided to head back to the pastry place where we were supposed to meet up with Emma, Ethan, and James. To our surprise, they were already waiting. "There you guys are! We've been waiting for forever!" James yells. Emma rolls her eyes. "It's been 5 minutes, chill dude."

We had set out an entire schedule before we left this morning. Shop and just do random stuff until 1:30, meet back here, Empire State tour until 5:30, Dave and Busters until 9:00, Rockefeller Center tour until 11:00.

"Well, we should probably call a cab to the Empire State Building if we're gonna make it in time for the tour," Ethan said.

We all agreed and caught one that was already heading in that direction.