Waiting on You

Chapter 19

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We probably looked crazy, sitting there on that park bench in the middle of the night, me wearing a dress and him wearing a suit.

The snow was starting to fall heavily, but for the first time, I didn't really mind.

Tucker was a breath of fresh air, the reason that I could sit in the freezing cold without a jacket and not mind.

We sat in silence mostly, and I was relieved to not have to please him by making small talk. Sometimes, silence can speak louder than words.

A laugh escaped my lips, and Tucker looked at me, a smile on his lips. I bury my face in my hands. "I'm sorry, Tucker."

He doesn't say a word, and I wonder if he regrets coming with me. I shake my head. Since when did I care what Tucker thought about me?

I feel his fingers start to pull my hands from my face and I let him do so. When I open my eyes he is staring at me with so much tenderness that my heart aches. Even in the darkness, his eyes are iridescent. "About what?"

Staring down at my shoes, I give a small smile. "For making you skip the dance."

He lets out a small chuckle. "You didn't make me," he says. "I wanted to."

I raise an eyebrow, looking at him from the corner of my eye. "Really? You're just trying to make me feel better."

Tucker shakes his head, snow sprinkling onto his shirt. "Trust me, Ror, I would much rather be here with you, in the freezing cold, than sitting in that crappy gym, listening to crappy music, surrounded my crappy people."

He puts his finger under my chin, forcing me to look up at him. I stare at him, surprised by how much I wanted to look at his face. "Trust me," he says again.

This brings a smile to my face. I did trust him.

The moon hangs full and high in the sky, so shiny and big that it looks like the cardboard prob we made for our fifth grade play.

Christmas lights are hung on all the houses nearby, plastic Santa's and candy-canes all over their yards. Carolers roam around the streets, creating a sweet melody that makes me smile with delight.

"Are you cold?" Tucker asks me, already starting to take off his coat.

My teeth start to chatter. "N-no. You could it, you'll be cold."

He wraps his jacket around my shoulders, ignoring me. "Tucker! You're gonna be cold now."

"Rory!" He flashes me a wicked smile. "I don't care. It's the gentlemen-ly thing to do."

I giggle. "Gentlemen-ly."

He shrugs. "You get what I mean."

Families walk past us, giving confused looks before straying far enough to be swallowed by the night. "I hope they don't call the cops on us," I say.

My friend looks around. "What? Who?"

I laugh. "Don't you see those families passing by us? They keep giving us dirty looks."

He scoots closer, snuggling into me. He wraps his arms around my middle, his head on my shoulder. "I don't care."

Chuckling, I rest my arm around his back. "I told you you'd be cold," I chirp.

"No I'm not," he argues. As if straight off the script of a sitcom, he shivers.

"Okay, whatever you say," I sing, shielding myself from the falling snow.

We are silent for a moment, the only sound we hear is the whistling of the wind. The snow has soaked into my dress, but I don't care. The only thing I care about is this moment. Now.

"Do you remember Tyra Watterson?" He asks me. "From the fifth grade?"

"Yeah," I tell him. Of course I did. Tyra and Tucker had been a "thing" for about a week in the fifth grade. Tyra had had a lot of boyfriends, especially for a fifth grader, and Tucker had been one of them. "Why?"

"I never liked her," Tucker says. "She just asked me out and I said yes."

I laugh. "Okay, I didn't know you still thought about her." For some reason, his words comfort me. Why did I care about his little fifth grade relationship?

He sits up, looking into my eyes. My heart beats faster and faster the longer he looks at me.

Tucker was both completely different, and the same at the same time. Of course, he looked different, in a better way, but on the inside he was still the Tucker I had grown to love over the years.

"I just felt like telling you that," he whispers. The silly smile disappears from my face. Was he being serious? I think about Juliette, telling me that Tucker and I would make a good couple, telling me how good he looked at the dance last year.

"Thank you," I respond slowly. He smiles so sweetly, warmth spreads throughout my whole body.

He sits back on the bench, running a hand through his hair. "Jules is gonna freak out when she finds out about this."

I give a small laugh. "You got that right."

I turn to him, suddenly ready to leave this bench and the freezing cold. "I think we better go home," I say. "Or else we will die on this bench from hypothermia."

Tucker laughs, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. "Let's go, Jensen."

A smile spreads across my face suddenly, and I let him walk me across the frozen grass. The lights lead us home and in that moment, I realize that I have come one step closer to looking into the future where I would be with the ones I loves and not waiting in the past for something that may not even be worth it.

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- I want to thank Selena170101, roxyfulmore, and alliima for being some of the first people to support my story:)