Before You Leave

23. Surprise

We eventually got the strength to leave the apartment and sneak out.

When we did, the sun was about to set as we got into Gideon's car. He was allowed privileges some weren't because of his exceptional grades and behavior.

I glanced over at him, grinning. Kiss ass.

He was actually allowed to go out (with permission from Ms. Birchwood, or course) one day of the year. And he used it with me.

He put a black duffel back in the back. I looked over at it, raising an eyebrow. "What's that for?"

"You'll see," he tells me, smiling down at me as he backed out of the driveway.

I rolled my eyes as I smiled. "So secretive today," I groaned as I turned my head to look outside his car windows.

It was a nice car. A blue Mercedes. I guess he wasn't lying when he said his dad had bank before he died.

Good riddance.

"Did you pick out the car?" I asked over the dumb pop music on the radio.

He shakes his head. "I asked my mom not to get it. I didn't want to use dad's money."

"What? Why not?" I asked carefully.

"I don't know where he got it," he says, looking at me as he sighed and drove onto the road.

"Thank you for being so open with me," I murmur as I put my hand on top of his on the leather arm rest.

"You make it easy," is all he says.

———————
We stopped at a parking lot by a hiking trail.

I laughed. "Hiking?" I say. "I'm these clothes? In this weather!" I exclaim, pointing to my jeans and sweater and then to the neat dead trees around us.

He laughed, unzipping the duffel bag and taking out a black scarf from my room and covering my eyes with it.

"Hey!"

"Relax, I jus Tsing want to ruin the surprise," he assures me.

I grumble. "If you murder me, Gideon, I will haunt you and kill you."

"Consider me warned."

It felt like I was guided and turned for hours, though I knew it wasn't more than twenty minutes. This wasn't an 'After' thing where I was giggling when I was blindfolded like in that stupid book. I was cursing Gideon every few minutes because he was making me walk so much.

After I started to bite him for the second time, he finally undid the blindfold, spun me around and laughed at me. "Will you stop trying to ruin this?" Gideon says.

"I don't like surprises," I remind him.

"Don't be afraid, kleiner Löwe," he whispers softly in my ear. "I would never hurt you."

I sighed happily. "I know."

"Turn around, baby," he breathes, making my ear tickle. I don't know if I shivered from the cold or from Gideon.

I turned around slowly and my eyebrows raised.

It was a lake.

"But— it's freezing!" I protest.

"I checked the weather. We'll be fine, I promise."

"But I don't have a swimsuit," I say.

He holds up the duffel bag. "I thought of that too."

I groaned. "You are not having me change in the middle of the a clearing," I tell him, out stretching my hands to the trees and blank space around me.