Time After Time

Chapter 10: Feels Like Home

Words left Lauren.

She stared into those bright brown eyes burning with curiosity and her heartfelt silence. Her dumbfounded expression once that pendant revealed everything she witnessed in her dream was clear as the sky beaming upon her window. Why did she have to say anything? She knew damn well what was going to happen - her dream once again predicted it, the visions she couldn't shake for the past two weeks. The silence caressed her skin like a cool summer breeze, sending chills throughout her body as her eyes stared at the front door, desperately longing to forget everything about the past two weeks and just run out of it, never looking back.

Meanwhile, as John scanned Lauren's face for a reaction, the stillness hung in the air, a sensation he didn't enjoy one bit. Lauren was hiding something and the longer he spent with her, the more suspicious she became. What exactly was she hiding? Was she playing the fool and dragging him around this entire time? By now, John wasn't so sure what to assume but needed to think of something quick.

"Come 'ead now, Lo, what do ya know?"

Her eyes perked up from staring intensely at her shoes as if he had said something offensive, "What do you mean?"

John sighed heavily, getting a little annoyed by repeating himself, "The pendant, love," he kept it in the palm of his hand, moving it closer to her, "You seem to know quite a bit 'bout this."

Lauren shifted her eyes around the room, trying to find a distraction. She was a terrible liar, she knew it - everybody knew it and John started to pick up on it, "I don't know anything," she fibbed, leaning closer to the pendant, fixing her eyes on John's picture, which inevitably turned out to be the same from her dream.

Even though he should be completely annoyed with her right now, he wasn't. The little crease between her eyebrows formed, something Lacey had every time she fibbed, "Did ya know," he pointed to the wrinkle, "That when ya fib, there's a little wrinkle that shows right there?"

This was something she knew since her family members pointed it out once before while growing up, but how was it that he knew that? She was beginning to sense John knew a lot more about her than she gathered but was curious just how he was learning personal details about her, especially spending so little time getting to know her.

Desperately, she began to think of other things to bring up to distract him. She wasn't sure if she was ready to tell him the complete truth and nervously bit her lip, her mind pondering, her eyes scanning the pendant once more.

"You loved her, didn't you?"

His expression softened, almost surprised she mentioned something about Lacey. John cleared his throat, "Hmm? Lacey? What makes you say that?"

She snatched the pendant from the palm of his hands, a small smile forming on the corner of her lips in the satisfaction that distracting him seemed to be successful, "A guy doesn't give a girl jewelry just for fun," she fastened the chain around her neck, placing a hand over the still open pendant, "Jewelry is a gift, a form of one's affection."

"I'm not a materialistic sort of bloke," he huffed, his eyes glancing from the pendant to her eyes, "It's the other things that count."

"So, you didn't love her? She was just a good time?"

John thought of Lacey and how much he did miss her. But sitting here with Lauren was just as if he were chatting with her once again, just another more modern version of her, "I did love her, ya know. She didn't like any of those materialistic thin's, ya see. She wanted the physical and emotional time spent together, but I couldn't give that to her."

It seemed she struck a soft spot of John's, something she always read about but never witnessed for herself, until now. By now, she was used to seeing John's goofy, serious, and moody side but she hadn't seen the romantic and sentimental side, before today. As much as she figured she shouldn't pry, she couldn't help her curiosity. Speaking about Lacey and learning how he truly felt oddly intrigued her, something she felt that could help the two of them out.