Young Writers Society

"Pierce," She said with a seductive smile. "Let's get out of here."

I stare at her for a moment. She's right here. Xylia is in front of me. Her beautiful blonde hair, gorgeous grey eyes, and another oversized classic rock band sweatshirt. Her voice sounding exactly like it had in my dreams. Velvety smooth with a hint of scratch. I nearly choke on the mouthful of Dr. Pepper in my mouth as I go to speak without swallowing. 

"Xylia? What the hell are you doing here? Where is Alistair? Does he even know you're here? Why are you here?" I stutter out all these questions without knowing if I'll even get an answer.

"It's simple, really. I'm here because I know you called my phone. Alistair is God knows where, fucking who knows what. And he doesn't have to know I'm here because he doesn't control me. Now then. Want to get out of here?" And while she speaks, I can see the hint of a smirk in her eye. As if she knows that I'm going to say yes.

I stare again for a moment. "Sure, I guess. Just let me pay for my meal first."

I walk over to Gretta and tell her that I have to leave and hand her $20. I kiss her cheek and tell her to keep the change before I walk out the door and look at Xylia.

"So. Since you're so eager to get away from here, where do have in mind to go?"

"I don't know." She says with a simple shrug of her shoulders. "Any where around here we can just, hang? Maybe talk and...stuff." And with a wink of her eye, she grabs my keys, climbs in the passenger seat of my car, turns the ignition, and immediately starts to rifle through my dozens of CDs thrown in the floorboard. 

Suddenly, I hear her squeal, "You have Red Hot Chilli Peppers? And you just let it chill on the floorboard? My dear friend, this should never leave the deck." 

She gives me a "tsk" and pops the CD into the player and turns the volume up loud. I can't help but grin at her. Here she is, a pretty, 20-something girl, acting like a five year old over a little CD. My grin soon turns into a full cheese smile when she starts to scream along with every single word to "Scar Tissue" and drumming her hands to the beat.

"You really like this song don't you?" I yell at her over the loud music.

"RHCP is only my favourite band in the whole world. They were my childhood. My mother used to say that she would play Californication while I was in the womb. I was practically born with the whole song memorized. From then on it was my destiny to see them in concert. I finally got to see them when I was 13. I waited outside after the concert by their tour bus for almost three hours to get my shirt signed. You can imagine my pre-teen enthusiasm when Flea shook my hand and signed my four year old garage sale shirt. From then on I would imagine myself as a groupie. And with the parental figure I had, it was a pretty logical dream. I could have easily quit school to follow them around. But by the time I turned 16 I had bigger dreams. To become a doctor. And so here I am, 22 years old, up to my ears in student loans, and about to fail out of college. That's basically my life story. So what's yours?"

I noticed that she said "my mother used to say" along with no mentions of a father, so I decided to put those questions on the back burner for now.

"Well, I grew up in the middle of no where, Minnesota, three brothers and a sister. Happily married parents who wanted me to go to community college like the rest of the family. So naturally my first act of rebellion was to work my ass off and get plenty of scholarships so I could afford out of state tuition and haven't been home since. Now I'm trying to make it as a writer and journalist to prove I can do something better than help run the family bakery. Obviously you know Alistair had about the same ambitions."

She just looks at me for a second before speaking.

"And here I thought I was dealing with a goody goody. Guess I was wrong. Oh! You need to turn up here. I've got a good place to go in mind."

I take the sharp and sudden turn and drive onto a small, dark road.

"It's right up here." She says to me and goes back to singing along to the music.

We drive for about half a mile until I pull up on a dark shadow of something. Xylia go out of the car and walked over to the dark shape. I heard her fumble around for a second, and then suddenly, a sight that shouldn't have belong to the dark forest we were in appeared in front of me.

In front of me was a beautiful white gazebo with colourful Christmas lights draped all around it. Flowers were planted around the sides of the gazebo, as well as little pots of roses set around the edges of the benches. It was almost like something you would read about in a fairytale. And here it was, a beautiful sight in front of me, along with a girl who could quite possibly be a princess sitting in the middle of this magical gazebo waiting for me.

It was this princess who pulled me out of my awestruck trance,

"Welcome to my home away from home. I spend most of my days here after school. Kinda like you do at the coffee shop. This is where I come to think about things and ponder life. You're the first person I've brought here. Consider yourself special."

And boy did I. I wanted to ask her a billion things. How did she find this place? Did she make this herself? Why did she bring me here? What made me special enough? She barely knew me. So many questions in my head. So many answers I was dying to get, and all I could do was look at her. And when I did that, I felt myself falling for her more and more. And then I did something that, looking back on it now, I probably shouldn't have done.

I kissed her.