Silver Lining

13. Picnics and laser guns

24 days before

Theo was staring at me with a riculous grin on his face when I woke up on Monday morning.

"Do you know what day it is?"

"Mmm?"

"The second of November," he said excitedly.

I nodded. "Okaaay..."

"It's your birthday silly! BE EXCITED!"

A huge grin spread across my face. "What kind of idiot forgets about their own birthday?" I wondered out loud.

"Exactly," Theo answered.

***

After we had both had a shower and put clothes on and Theo made me pancakes for breakfast, Theo put a blindfold around my eyes and he carefully led me down the stairs into his car.

"Pleeeease tell me where we're going?" I pleaded with him for the thousandth time.

"No can do, bub."

"Fun spoiler," I grumbled good naturedly. I payed attention to the movement of the car, so I could remember which turns we took and hopefully figure out where we were going or at least which direction. I gave up after five minutes though, because my sense of direction is that useless.

We got out of the car around an hour later, after some very bumpy gravel roads. Theo walked behind me with his hands on my upper arms to guide me. We went down a small hill, and some very uneven steps where I would of faceplanted if it wasn't for Theo catching me. At the bottom of the steps, we went a tiny bit to the left. "Okay, you can sit down now," he said.

"And take off the blindfold?" I asked hopefully.

"Once you're sitting."

I sat down quickly on what felt like a wool picnic blanket, and Theo untied the knot at the back of my head. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the brightness, but when they did the place looked like a fairy tale. There was a glittering lake in front of us, and the grass was green and soft and pillow like. It looked like it had been untouched by humans. I really appreciate places like this, because I can't go anywhere with people recognizing me. Like, once Theo and I went on a hike in the middle of nowhere, and we still managed to run into one person who just happened to watch all my videos. I really love my fans, I do, but it's just nice to go somewhere, and be the random chick no one knows every now and then. Or be totally alone, that's great too.

"This is so beautiful," I sighed.

"I'm glad you like it," Theo said, kissing me lightly on the lips. He tasted like spices, the same comforting scent he always smelled like.

He picked up a bag that was behind him on the striped picnic blanket, and put it in between us and started unpacking it. There were containers of raspberries, which is possibly the best food in existence, and cute little sandwiches which all had different fillings like egg, and ham and cheese, and salmon and cream cheese, and a bunch of others. There were also two glass bottles of pink lemonade, which is just too delicious for words. "Raspberries! You're a keeper," I told Theo, giving him a friendly poke.

"Of course I am," he said with his 'amused' smile. Theo has the absolute best smile out, and it's slightly different every time. The left side of his mouth curls up slightly more than the right, when he's amused or joking, and when he's really ridiculously happy he has a really toothy smile, with his perfectly straight white teeth on show.

We spent the next two hours there, running our hands through the soft lush grass, and walking around on the shores of the magical blue lake. Sunlight softly filtered through the leaves of the trees, and birds flew from branch to branch, singing and chirping happily. Me and Theo talked about absolutely everything- his painting, the trip to Sydney, my YouTube channel, stuff we did when we were kids, the first time we met, the time we got together in year 9 and broke up after two weeks- but we also enjoyed the silence. We were both outdoorsy people and not having the bustle and rush of the city was exhilarating.