Sing It for the World

When they reached Birmingham late the next morning, everyone decided it would be best to just take a day and relax. They’d been on the road almost constantly since leaving Belleview, and they were tired from driving on the road constantly. Ray had announced that he was going to walk around and see if he could find some decent food to eat later that night, and both Mikey and Gerard wanted to check out some art museum that nobody else was interested in going to. That left Frank and Aurelia alone in the hotel room, and while most other young couples would be having sex, the two of them didn’t have that kind of relationship with one another. Instead, they decided to rent a couple of movies from the pay per view channels that the hotel had, and stayed cuddled together on the bed they’d claimed as their own.

The entire day, Aurelia was thinking about everything that had happened in the last forty-eight hours. She’d left her home forever. She knew that, even if her parents somehow found her again, she’d just leave like she had this time. These past two days with Frank and his friends had taught her that she couldn’t live under someone else’s thumb. They had taught her that she was an unique and beautiful person just waiting to blossom into something beautiful; something that would outshine the sun. And she wasn’t going to let them down by going back to the life she’d led before.

Once the first of the movies they’d decided to watch was over, she looked up at Frank and smiled in spite of herself when she saw him sleeping lightly. She just giggled softly and reached up to press her lips to his, waking him up gently and then resting her head in the crook of his arm as he held her tighter to his body.

“You don’t regret coming with us, do you?” He asked her in a quiet voice, breaking the peaceful silence that had settled over the hotel room. She blinked in surprise, and then shook her head as she looked back up at him.

“No, I don’t,” she told him with a reassuring smile. “I don’t regret leaving at all. It’s the best thing I ever did, Frank. I’ve already learned so much, and…I know that I’m going to learn more from you,” she said softly before pressing her lips to his shoulder. “I love you.”

He chuckled to himself softly as he threaded his fingers slowly through her hair, nodding and then sighing softly. It was already five o’clock, and no one had come back to the hotel yet. He wasn’t too worried, though. When Ray found food he liked, it took him awhile to eat it, and he knew that Gerard and Mikey were probably caught up in the museum. He grinned when he heard Aurelia’s stomach growl quietly and sat up to look at her.

“C’mon, let’s go find someplace to eat,” he told her, standing up off of the bed before extending his hand to her. Aurelia giggled again, amused by the way his eyeliner had smudged while he’d been sleeping, and then stood up. She wiped her thumb under his eyes to get rid of the smudges, and then cleaned her hand off on his jeans.

“But what about the others? Aren’t they going to be hungry, too?” She asked him. He just shrugged as he put his arm over her shoulder and grabbed his keycard off of the nightstand before they started heading out of the hotel room and towards the sidewalk that would take them towards a business district he’d seen some restaurants in when they’d driven to the hotel.

He ended up picking an Italian restaurant just a few blocks away from their hotel, and requested a corner booth with candlelight. Aurelia had blushed at his request but she didn’t say anything as the waitress led them with a smile towards the back of the restaurant. He let her slide in first before he scooted in after her, immediately pulling her up to his side and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

She had no idea what to get because she’d never really eaten in restaurants before. She’d gone out occasionally with her parents, but her mother had cooked most everything that they’d eaten. She told Frank she’d get whatever he was having, and he smirked at her before placing an order, speaking in Italian so that she wouldn’t understand what he was saying. While they were waiting for the food to come to them, she held his hand underneath the table, her heart skipping beats every time he smiled at her or rubbed his thumb over her soft skin.

“I’m glad you came with us,” he whispered into her ear softly, giving her body a tight squeeze before he let her go, looking at her dead on. “I don’t know if I would have been able to hold out without you here with me. I love you so much, Aurelia.”

She blushed the color of the red candle that was positioned in the center of the table, and then the blush turned darker when he brought their hands to his mouth, pressing a soft kiss there as he met her eyes with his hazel ones. “I love you too, Frank,” she whispered to him. And in that moment, that was all that mattered to Aurelia. She had someone who would love her forever. She had new friends who would do anything to support her, and she had the world at her fingertips. She’d never before felt so free, and hearing Frank confess his love for her in a setting like this only cemented everything that she was feeling at the moment. He grinned when he saw her face, and he hugged her tightly. Their food arrived a few moments later, and neither of them said anything while eating. It was the comfortable sort of silence; the kind where things didn’t get awkward, and where they were perfectly fine just looking at one another occasionally over their food.

When the bill came to Frank, he didn’t let her see it, and instead paid without letting her know how much the food had cost. She protested a little, insisting that she’d help, but he shook his head with a grin. “Baby, this is our first real date. The guy is supposed to pay for dinner,” he rolled his eyes before pecking her nose softly. “C’mon, let’s see if there’s anything else we can do before we have to head back to the hotel.”

As they were walking back, he grinned and stopped on the sidewalk as he looked at an abandoned playground. Since it was already dark, there were no kids with their parents playing on the equipment, and the place looked almost eerie with only the orange streetlights to light it. Frank grabbed Aurelia’s hand in his own and led her into the park, walking directly over to the tire swing that was in the center of everything.

“C’mon, get in and I’ll start it,” he said excitedly to her. Aurelia gave him a doubtful look but nodded in spite of herself, climbing into the center of the tire and then grabbing on to one of the chains that supported it. Frank started twisting it in circles and then let out a loud yell of playfulness as he gave it one last thrust, holding on as he let his feet fly off the ground. He pulled himself onto the swing and then positioned his feet in the center before he and Aurelia started using their upper body strength to keep the swing propelled.

Aurelia squeezed her eyes shut as Frank grabbed one of her hands, and she felt her heart drop in the most adrenaline-pumping of ways. She felt as if she was flying; with her feet off the ground and her body swinging through the air the way it was, she honestly felt as if she were flying. Frank grinned when he saw her reaction to the swing, and then as he stopped using his feet to keep it moving, he just watched her.

Frank had never seen a girl as beautiful or as intriguing as Aurelia was before. She was as unique as her name was, with a pretty smile and wide, innocent grey-green eyes the likes of which he’d never seen. She had been born into a well-off, snobby family, and yet she had always tried to stay as far away from that as possible. She’d found something in him worth loving, and she held on to that with every bit of her being. The way he felt when he was with Aurelia made him feel like he was the luckiest man that had ever lived. He wanted nothing more than to just scream it from any rooftop he could find that he loved her. He’d been planning on proposing to her tonight, but he had chickened out. He didn’t know why, he just couldn’t bring himself to say those little words, Aurelia, will you marry me?. The words had gotten stuck in his throat, and try as he might, they just hadn’t been able to come out. HE felt horrible about it, because he knew that he loved her. He knew that someday, he wanted her to be his wife. And someday, he’d figure out a way to make it happen.

Until that day, though, he was content just going wherever it was that they were headed with her. He didn’t care where they ended up in the end of everything, just as long as he had Aurelia with him and he still had her love. Because God knew he loved her more than he’d ever loved before.