Speak No Evil

Emily sat and stared straight ahead as Brian drove along the unknown roads to her. She felt awkward to say the least; she had no idea what she should do. She settled for fiddling around with her iPhone on her lap as a way to pass the time.

While she felt awkward, Brian was completely oblivious to any form of awkwardness at all; quietly mumbling along with the music playing on the radio. He absentmindedly took turns knowing in his mind where he wanted to go.

Pulling into a parking space he turned off the car signalling to Emily that they were at their destination. Looking up from her lap she saw the sparkling ocean in front of her. She thought it looked beautiful from the view out of her window in her room, but it was nothing compared to this. Close up she could see the smooth sand and calm waves coming to shore every so often.

Smiling slightly to herself she jumped when the door was opened beside her. She turned to her right to see Brian standing with his hands on hips glaring at her playfully,

“You getting out or what? Chop, chop,” he smiled at Emily and helped her out of the car. “I say we get ice cream then go sit on the sand, that okay with you?” he didn’t wait for an answer as he dragged her over to the ice cream stall after locking the door.

“Hello, what would you like?” the lady asked them smiling away,

“Hey, I would like two cones please, one with vanilla and chocolate and another with, Emily what would you like?” Emily pointed to the mint chocolate and smiled, “Then the other with just mint chocolate please.”

Going into her bag, she searched around for her purse to pay for the ice cream she was about to receive. However Brian beat her to it placing the money in the woman’s hand and dragging Emily off to the sand before she could protest. He decided on a spot to sit, pulling Emily to sit beside him.

As soon as they were both seated she pulled out her notepad and pen, being careful of her ice cream, and began writing.

If you gave me a few more seconds I would’ve given you the money, you didn’t have to pay like that!

“Maybe I wanted to pay for it seeing as I kind of suddenly, y’know, dragged you out here. Sorry about that.” He chuckled nervously whilst rubbing his neck.

Why did you drag me out?

“Guess I just wanted to put my mind on something else and if I came out with Jimmy and Leana they wouldn’t shut up! So you were my choice and I love the beach. My dad used to bring me here when I was a young boy and he wasn’t in the studio or on tour with a band. Those were the best days.” He went into a sort of daze, remembering those days with his dad,

She tapped him lightly on the shoulder and held up the notepad,

Ice cream!!!!!!

Realising his hand was suddenly cold, he started to wipe the mix of chocolate and vanilla off of his hands with the poor excuse of a napkin given to them. Emily covered her mouth with her hand silently giggling to herself as she watched Brian, handing him her napkin to help.

“Hey I know, let’s play 20 questions, yeah?” Brian asked her suddenly after studying her for a few seconds. Looking at him unsure, Emily nodded anyway, thinking of questions she could ask him.

“Okay, you can go first?” he smiled, putting the pen to her lip in thought she then put the pen to paper and began writing,

“What is your favourite colour?”?

“Purple! Hands down, purple. It is a cool colour, said that in elementary school and I stick by it. How about you?”

Turquoise, don’t know why I just love it. Your question?

Brian thought for a bit, “How do you know Leana then?”

Have you got time?

“Plenty.” Taking the final bite of her cone to finish it off, she began writing again. When she finished she handed it to him. He realised why it had taken a while once he properly looked at it, the story had taken up half a page. Half a page using each line and not spreading her letters across a few like usually.

Well we went to school together and in nursery school, so when we were two and three. Boys being boys thought they ruled the toys. Believe it or not me and Leana were hardly girly girls, we played pirates and with the army men. Because of that we started talking. The boys didn’t like that so they started to bully us. When you’re that age you don’t take no notice really, so because of that we carried on as normal.

One day when Leana wasn’t there they decided to take all their anger out on me and the most violent you got at that age was slapping and pulling hair. So they did just that. I didn’t come in the next day and when Leana found out she went mental and roughed them up as much as she could and got into loads of trouble. From then on our friendship became solidified and until she moved here she was actually like my sister, I saw her everyday.

“Aw how nice, so you are pretty close?”

Like two peas in a pod :) what about you and Jimmy?

“You got time?” they both laughed as he launched into his story about how him and Jimmy had met.