7 Days With You

Chapter 6 - Kitchen Confusion & Goodnight

"Do you remember when we were kids... we would have adventures in your back garden?"

Isabelle looked up from her book and towards Luca. He had been silent all this time, and finally he had spoken. The both of them were sitting in the cream material hammock Luca's Dad had put in the garden. She was lying at one end; he was lying at the other.

"I do," Isabelle replied. She placed the satin bookmark on the soft pages and closed the cover very slowly.

"Do you remember we'd pretend to go see different things and your house would be a different place, like a castle in Paris or an ancient bookshop in Greece?"

Isabelle couldn't help but smile at the memory. They'd sometimes dress up in Isabelle's parents' old clothes. Luca called himself Eduardo Hamilton and Isabelle would be Catalina Edwards. The names would change each time, but in reality, it was just the two of them.

"I want an adventure like that," He continued.

"Luca we've only just started sixth form-"

"I know Bella," He said with a small smile. "What if we go after finishing our exams next year? We've got a longer summer holiday. And I'll have my car by then."

Isabelle couldn't help but smile at the idea.

"I'd love to go to Paris," She murmured to herself.

"We'll go!" Luca exclaimed. "And I can read out that poem we did for our GCSEs... What was it?"

Isabelle shook her head as she remembered the words to the poem they had studied over and over again. It was 'In Paris With You' by James Fenton. "Don't talk to me of love."

Luca sat up and moved closer towards his best friend. "I've had an earful. And I get tearful when-"

"I've had a drink or two." Isabelle replied finishing the first two lines of the poem.

The two of them couldn't help but look at each other with a hopeful smile. The idea was something out of a coming-of-age movie. It was crazy.

"This is insane," Isabelle sighed, trying to be realistic. "It's not going to happen."

"Yes, it is," Luca stated as he tapped her nose gently.

"Did you just boop me?" Isabelle's eyebrows arched in surprise.

"What are you going to do about it?" He said with a teasing tone.

In all of two seconds, Isabelle pushed Luca off the hammock and heard him yell out in pain.

"Dios mio! Sei Pazzo?" He yelled at her.

Getting out of the hammock herself, Isabelle then proceeded to roll her eyes and help her best friend up. The two carried on bickering as the idea of going away on an adventure simply was put to one side. They continued on with their Saturday and the time they had before Isabelle would go back home and Luca would endure the constant insults.

*

"Why was there a bag of cheese twists in my car?"

Looking up from the piece of cake on her plate and back to reality, Isabelle found her Dad holding the brown paper bag from her earlier visit to the café. Dammit! They had probably gone stale by now.

"I went to Cozies, Alden was there, and he gave me the cheese twists," Isabelle said calmly. The memory of her and Luca had left her like Luca had done a couple of hours before. He had proposed to her the plan they hadn't thought of in so long. Now that he was back, he wanted to take her on a trip for a week. Just the two of them. No other friends tagging along, no family as well.