This Ain't The End [The WANTED FanFiction - Nathan Sykes]

This Ain't The End - Part 13

 On the way, we passed a pretty square with a big colourful bandstand. There were steps going up to it and people taking pictures.

'Want to go up? We've got time,' Nathan said, checking his watch. I nodded. We walked over to the steps. Nathan went ahead and climbed the steps no problem. I climbed the first two steps and stopped. Again, memories of me and Mum came flooding back. I could almost see the ghosts of little Lola with her mum, jumping up the steps to get to the top. With her mum watching her and catching her when she slipped.

I hung my head to hide my eyes filling up with tears. Nathan noticed me.

'What's wrong?' he called down from the top. I shook my head. No. I didn't need to lay my story on him. He didn't really care. I'm sure he had enough to worry about. I tried to blink away the tears and I tried to slow down my heartbeat. This had happened often a couple of months afterwards but this was 2 years. I was being stupid. She wouldn't have wanted me to be like this.

I heard footsteps come down to me. It was Nathan. He put one hand on my shoulder and with the other he brushed a piece of my hair out of my face. I felt a couple of tears escape my eyes. His hand immediately left mine and caught the teardrops that were crawling down my cheek.

'Hey, don't cry,' he said softly. Which made more tears come from my eyes. He put his arms around me and descended to the step I was stood on. Then he pulled me closer to his body and hugged me tightly. A bit like Mum used to. I kept desperately trying to stop my tears. It was so pathetic and stupid. My head however rested almost perfectly on his chest as he stroked my hair, which was a bit odd given the time we'd known each other for but it was nice.

After a while I pulled away a little from him and sniffed, wiping my eyes. I felt utterly stupid for doing this. What would he think of me now? Some broken low life with stupid problems. That's what.

'What's wrong?' he asked me. I gulped. I was taken aback by the amount of care I heard in his voice. Did he not think me a broken low life with stupid problems? 'You don't have to tell me if you don't want to,' he said quickly. I nodded. He seemed so concerned. I wanted to tell him but I didn't know how I could do it.

We then walked down the steps and walked away, back towards where our meeting spot. Nathan was holding my hand. Not in like a couple way, just like a friend would, supportively. It felt nice and made me feel just a little bit happier. As we walked, I tried wiping the tears away and making it not look as if I'd been crying. We finally got to the meeting spot.

'You took your time!' Sophia said. I looked up and smiled the best I could but Nathan seemed to smile enough for the two of us.

'So... It's lunch time, anyone know good places to eat?' the woman asked. I raised my hand.

'I know a nice ice cream place I used to go to with my family,' I suggested, assuming a completely neutral face.

'You know the way? Is it close by?' she asked. I nodded.

'Let's go then!' she said.

So we left the market complex and I led everyone across the road and all around the promenade to the ice cream place.

After about ten minutes of walking, I finally saw a little building. It was just in front of the row of tourism shops in a car park open. I smiled and pointed at it.

'There it is,' I said. We walked across the car park and walked into the cafe.

'Ah! Customers! Welcome! Sit down! Sit down!' a waiter came and ushered us to a table. We sat down on 2 large sofas and he handed us the menus. I recognized the waiter immediately. It was Víctor I thanked him in Spanish and he turned to leave. But he stopped. Then he turned back around.

'You,' he said, pointing at me. I looked up at him. He squinted his eyes a little and then widened them. 'Oh my gosh! Lola!' he cried. I nodded in affirmation for him. He grinned. 'Last time I saw you, you must have been pequeña! Tiny! How's your mother?' he asked me. I gulped and fell silent.

'She er... passed away. 2 years ago,' I finally said. Those words stung even more when I said them out loud than when I thought it.

It was like the world had stopped for a while in realisation and the only thing I could hear were the distance speech of tourists and the music playing in the restaurant.

'I am so sorry to hear! She was a wonderful woman! Always gave us tips!' Juan said after a while. I smiled sadly and nodded. That sounded like Mum alright. I looked up at him. He was smiling as usual.

'Well just for that, on the house ice cream! I think I remember your flavour. Vanilla was it? You were always one of those strange children that never asked for chocolate – that's what your mother said. Oh and of course your friends as well! How rude I must seem!' he said and kept going. That cheered me up a bit. Personally, I think Víctor had a bit of a thing for Mum. Whether Dad noticed or not, I wasn't sure, although with the way it seemed she loved him, he would have had nothing to worry about. Juan took our ice cream orders then walked over to the ice cream place. The others got engaged in conversation. Nathan leant a little closer to me.

'Was that why you stopped there?' he asked me quietly. I nodded, bracing myself for the comments that I was being stupidly weak, which, to be fair, I was. But instead, he smiled at me sympathetically.

'Sorry,' he said. I returned his smile, a little shocked at the fact he didn't say anything else.

'It's okay. You wouldn't have known,' I said. I then decided to tell him about some stories I could remember about Mum. I told him how she introduced me to the Narnia books and how she'd read them to me before I went to bed when I was little. When she passed away, I got her battered set of Narnia books and would only read that, as well as Harry Potter of course. It turned out Narnia was an obsession we shared and that set us talking about the books and what we thought of them.

Victor came back in about ten minutes with ice creams in bowls, nicely decorated.

'Your ice creams on the house. No pay. Your mother's tips added up all together could probably buy you two three course meals each here!' he exclaimed in that Spanish accent of his. I laughed a little and took my ice cream from him. It was cold so I put it down on the glass table for it to get a little warmer.

'Enjoy!' Victor said and left us. Everyone dug into their ice cream so I gently picked mine up and took a small scoop out of it. I placed the spoon in my mouth and let the piece of flavoured ice slip onto my tongue. The coldness of it made me jump but it tasted wonderful. I put the bowl and spoon down on the table and just sat and stared at it for a while. I lost myself in my thoughts and blocked the whole world away from me. I couldn't hear anyone and I liked it like that. Just for a while. To let recent events sink in.

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This has been edited as of 24/01/17.

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