Life Of Bayla

|9|

There we sat eating our ice cream and laughing at the random people that walked in and out of the ice cream shop.

"See that lady over there?" Cullen started, discreetly pointing at the woman that stepped in wearing an ankle length skirt and a large hat.

I chuckled, "Yeah?"

"Look how weird and curved her hat is? I bet if I throw my spoon at it, she won't notice".

"And if she does?"

"I'll drag you down with me", he smirked and I laughed.

I watched as he lifted his spoon and aimed it at the woman's silly hat.

He threw it and it perfectly landed on top the hat itself. As predicted, she didn't notice and Cullen let out a chuckle, rubbing his hands together.

"Yeah, that's what we talking 'bout!"

He looked cute when he was feeling himself. I just had to stare.

His head snapped to me and I wanted to shrink. He just caught me checking him out but being the kind of guy he is, he smiled softly at me and reached out to ruffle my hair.

"Hey!" I shrieked and reached out to mess up his hair.

He held his ice cream up, blocking my hands, "Try it and your face gets this".

I gasped dramatically. "You wouldn't!"

He inched his ice cream closer to my face, daring me to ruffle his hair. We stared at each other for some time and started laughing.

I scrunched up my nose at his ice cream and he smiled at me.

"What?"

"I don't know why you'd eat that shit, to be honest".

He raised his brows at me and stuffed his mouth with the pink coloured cream, "Because this shit is awesome!"

"Stop talking with your mouth full, it's disgusting".

He stuck his tongue out and I cringed.

He got a Strawberry ice cream while I got a Buttered Pecan Caramel ice cream. For some reason, strawberries make me puke (learned that from throwing up the strawberry champagne i snatched and drank without Ian's knowledge).

"Not as disgusting as whatever that is", he motioned to my cup.

I laughed, shaking my head and digging my spoon in my ice cream.

"Bayla". I loved it when he said my name.

"Yeah?"

His voice was soft, serious. "Wanna tell me what's going on with you? I know I said I wasn't going to pry but I really wanna know what's bothering you".

I blinked.

As you would know by now, affection isn't something I'm used to. I mean I only ever get the empty how are you questions from people. They ask but they don't care. And now that someone's showing me concern of the bare minimum category, as sad as it may sound, I'm touched.

Touched enough to blurt out my whole miserable life story.

And I do because, hey, when next will the universe present someone that actually gives a shit about the life of Bayla Lakes?

I tell him how all my life, it's like I've been invisible, at home, at school and in general, how it should make me a wallflower. Except it doesn't. I'm not a wallflower. I'm a loser. Wallflowers are  decorated losers. That's the difference. So obviously because of my social ineptitude I got bullied. But when Ingrid Matthews popped into my life, life got less shitty. Facing the dystopian reality of high school as an angsty, nerdy teenager is a whole lot better with a companion than when you're alone.

And things were going okay. Well, okay enough, till Ingrid 2.0 was created and I was left to eat the dust, facing everything head on and on my own.

You know, at this point, what I was grateful for was the fact that Cullen just sat there listening. He could've been anywhere he wanted to be right now but he was here, eating horrible strawberry ice cream and listening to me yap about how much of a shit show my life is.

I couldn't possibly thank him enough.