Fairytales and Nightmares

It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought. At first, things were stiff, especially on my side of the conversation. In fact, I was doing a spectacular job of ignoring him. Eventually though, he broke through and the atmosphere became more friendly. I found that I could easily talk to him. The weirdest part was that I was having fun. I almost forgot that I hated Nate’s guts. We were almost at Starbuck’s and were crossing an intersection when it happened. It was all so fast; I didn’t even have time to think. All I saw was a white car and a small boy. He was going to get hit.

I sprinted the distance without even pausing to realize I was running faster than an Olympic athlete. I grabbed the boy and swung him onto the sidewalk. I was about to bolt myself when I met Nate’s wide eyes. I paused for a millisecond, realizing what I just did. That millisecond would have cost my life. The car was going to run me over.

Out of nowhere, Nate pulled out a gun and fired a shot at the tire of the car. I inhaled sharply as the car swerved away from me and saved me worlds of pain (unfortunately I can’t be killed from a vehicle running over me). Blinking, it suddenly occurred to me that he must be a really good target shooter. Had he been off so much as an inch, the car wouldn’t have swerved away from me.

All thoughts flew out of my head though as I was abruptly surrounded by warmth. Nate was hugging me. Out of all things, I felt my face heat up. Damn. Not again.

The driver of the white car saved me from Nate’s a-little-too-intimate hug. He got out of his car and began yelling slurred profanities at Nate and me. He was clearly drunk. The man approached us, jabbing his finger against Nate’s chest and demanding for money to pay for car damage. Before I thought more of it, my fist flew at his face just as someone else punched him at the same time. The man fell back from the two hits in the face, hitting his head against the pavement and losing consciousness. Nate and I looked down at him, then at each other. All of a sudden, we both started laughing at our synchronized punches. It must have been the shock aftereffects kicking in if I was laughing with Nate. Nevertheless, he did save me.

“Thank you,” I said sincerely, looking straight in Nate’s eyes.

Nate seemed taken aback, but he smiled. He did the Romeo bow and said humbly, “Anytime, love.”

“You ever call me ‘love’ again and I will throw a hammer at your head so hard that you will suffer from amnesia afterwards.”

“And here I thought I could take advantage of your sincere mood.”

“What do you mean ‘take advantage of’?!”

Someone tugging at my jeans drew my attention away from Nate. The small boy, no older than 6, was standing beside me. His huge black eyes were trained on my emerald ones in a blank expression.

I knelt down in front of him and scanned for injuries. I zoomed in on his knees that looked like it went through a paper shredder. Maybe throwing him against the cement sidewalk wasn’t the best approach.

“Hey, does it hurt?” I asked, lightly brushing my hand against his wounds. The boy stared at me with a blank expression. He didn’t look like he was in pain, but his knees looked really bad and he was covered in red scratches. I looked over my shoulder at Nate who said that there was a hospital nearby. In response, I took the kid and swung him onto my back. Piggybacking the silent child and walking besides Nate, I made Nate promise to pay me compensation for me missing my shift at Starbuck’s.