Listen to Broken Stereo by Sean Fournier in the sidebar. It's one of my favorite songs. Ever. Though it's not really related to this chapter. Haha.

Chapter 22

"Sara, are you sure about this?"

Daniel looked at me. There was a nervous kind of excitement in his frosted pale blue eyes as he scanned my face for any signs of wanting to back out of this.

I didn't want to show him I was nervous. Nerves or not, I wanted to go through with this. So with as much confidence as I could muster in a few low breaths, I gave him a faint nod and a sure smile.

Daniel tried to hide the fact that he was slightly trembling. I wasn't sure if he was shaking out of anticipation or whether his own nervousness was making him jittery. Once more, he looked into my eyes before giving me a tight-lipped smile. "Completely sure? Say the word and we can put this behind us as if it never happened."

I heard myself give off a nervous laugh. Where I got the idea that laughing was acceptable in this kind of situation, I'm not entirely sure. I quickly fixed my face so that I looked more serious and nodded with finality.

"I'll give you the same answer I've been giving you all fifty billion other times you asked me," I laughed.

Why, of all times, was I suddenly adapting laughter as a nervous habit?

Daniel opened his mouth but I didn't want to give him another chance to ask if I was really sure. There were just so many times a person could be asked that question before their head blew up in frustration.

I reached across the few inches that separated us and slipped my fingers into his. Either he was just as nervous as I was or my hands weren't as clammy as I thought they were. I waited until his eyes were once again looking right into mine before I spoke up.

"Playing coy isn't my style. When I said yes, I meant it." My voice, thankfully, cooperated. I sounded sure and confident – completely unlike how I felt inside which can easily be summarized by the words freaking out.

Daniel nodded, apparently finally convinced, before pressing a soft kiss on my forehead. "Here we go then."

In that moment, he'd temporarily looked away from me. I took it as a chance to clench my jaw and steel myself for what he was about to do.

Unfortunately, Daniel caught my brief display of cowardice but before he could give me a way out of this I was once again reassuring him that I was fine and that, yes, I was going through with this.

"It's normal to be nervous if you're in my position," I pointed out.

"Yes," he smiled. His thumb went back to the reassuring habit of gently tracing circles over the hand. "I can promise you that, despite what you think, this won't hurt, Sara."

"Easy for you to say," I mumbled low enough so he couldn't hear.

The past hour had allowed me to connect with the nervous side of myself. In that time, I'd discovered that I had a few habits that popped up whenever I was in a situation that, like the one I was in right now, could be considered stressful.

Laughing, as I'd said earlier, was one of them. Gnawing on my bottom lip, which was exactly what I was doing right now, was another. I suppose you could also add shaking knees and a perpetual thirst to that list as well.

Daniel gave me a gave me a small smile that was undoubtedly meant to calm me down and ease my nerves.

It didn't wipe out my nerves completely but it did manage to keep them in check and hold them at bay. As a gesture of thanks, I reached up to give him a kiss on the cheek.

He gave me a beaming smile that reached all the way to his pale blue eyes then leaned leaned down to whisper in my ear. "I suppose I've also said this fifty billion times today alone. But let me just say it one more time: thank you for this."

Daniel then pushed through the bright blue doors right in front of us, giving me the first look into the pediatric oncology ward of Greenville General Hospital.

"I should be thanking you," I whispered to Daniel as my eyes widened slightly, taking in the sights around me. "You're introducing me to some of your best friends."

There was a nurse's station occupied by a handful of nurses in lavender-colored scrubs. Every single one of them smiled when we walked past them. One of them even cheerfully waved at us. Daniel and I politely returned their greetings.

"An eighteen-year-old boy who considers a group of children with life-threatening medical conditions as his best friends... Why exactly are you dating me again?" he joked once we were out of everybody else's earshot.

I playfully nudged his shoulder. "It's sweet that you care about them so much. It's even sweeter that you're not ashamed that you like hanging out with your Mom's patients. Most teenage boys – or, well, most people – don't really care about anyone else other than themselves or whoever it is they're dating. Some of them don't even care about other people, period. I'd rather spend my time with you than some dunderhead who just sits in front of an Xbox the entire day."

"I have an Xbox too," Daniel pouted adorably.

I laughed. "And have you unboxed said Xbox ever since your grandparents gave it to you on your birthday? And let me just hammer a few nails in the coffin by pointing out that your birthday was in May and that we are now in the first week of October."

"Point taken," he smiled, swinging our linked hands in between us.

Daniel was finally making good on the promise he made of bringing me with him the next time he tutored the kids from the hospital.

Dr. Tarver – his Mom, not his Dad – was a pediatric oncologist. Her patients were kids with cancer and some of these kids, despite having to go through intense chemotherapy and a whole other slew of treatments for whatever it was that brought them here in the first place, still tried to keep up with their schoolwork. It was admirable, to say the least.

Daniel came here regularly, at least once a week and twice if he could manage it. We were supposed to visit these kids last Friday afternoon. But seeing as how I was occupied with injuries resulting from being slammed into by a teenage Goliath, he'd had to go without me. Two weeks after he first told me about these visits, I was finally getting the chance to join him in the study sessions.

To say I was kind of nervous would be like saying I kind of liked cupcakes. It would be a ridiculous understatement.

It wasn't the fact that I was going to meet children who blatantly stared death in the face that made me anxious. I was worked up over the fact that these were people Daniel honestly and truly cared about and I wanted them to like me.

I was here on the pretense that I had better grades than Daniel, that I knew my way around schoolwork; but that didn't necessarily mean I would be a good help to these kids. More importantly, it wasn't any kind of assurance that I would make a good first impression on them.

The many times I'd been told that my social skills needed some work kept running through my head. I could barely interact with people my age. How was I going to manage talking to kids who were younger than me for a few hours?

Daniel didn't miss out on the fact that I looked like a caged animal. "You can still back out. I completely understand if you would. I mean, this isn't anywhere near what a romantic Thursday date night should be."

"One, I don't go out on dates on weekdays, thank you very much," I replied haughtily. "Two, and more importantly, romance is extremely overrated."

I squeezed his hand as I laughed at my own jokes and, in response, he leaned down and gave my forehead a very gentle and loving kiss.

We were quiet as we continued to walk down the long long corridor. Sure that Daniel was leading me in the right direction, I took the time to glance at the brightly painted mural that covered the walls of the ward.

It was a mural of a soft blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds over a lush, green meadow. There were tall trees and brightly colored flowers. There was even a prancing unicorn and a few fairies that peeked at us from behind the shrubbery.

"It's a bit excessive, I know," Daniel mused. "But the little kids really like it."

I nodded, still staring at the colorful world that surrounded us. I was beginning to notice the finer details like butterflies that were right about to land on a pale pink daisy or birds that soared across the expanse of sky.

My gawking only stopped when Daniel paused in front of a door that was almost at the very end of the hallway. The large glass windows on either side of it provided a glimpse into the playroom it led to.

The meadow-themed mural continued inside it and every piece of furniture – from the large daisy-shaped rug in the center of the room to the kiddie chairs and tables that looked like tree stumps – added to the illusion that you were actually in the middle of some magical forest and not a hospital.

"It's supposed to distract the kids from the fact that they're in a place where they get poked and prodded on a daily basis," Daniel mirrored my thoughts. "Give it five minutes and you should be getting used to it."

I highly doubted that but I flashed him a small smile nonetheless.

He looked at me worriedly one more time. "Ready to go in?"

"If you're still waiting for me to run towards the doors and as far away from you as possible, it's really not going to happen," I smirked. "But if you tell me that the five kids and the three nurses in there are blood-thirsty vampires, well, that's a different story."

Daniel just shook his head and turned the knob.

The first thought that crossed my mind had nothing to do with the occupants of the playroom. Rather, I was more bothered by the fact that, for a place that put in so much effort into making a drab hospital wing look bright and welcoming, it managed to gloss over details like oiling their door hinges.

Everyone in the room, all three adults and five children, turned to Daniel and I when the creaking door loudly announced our arrival.

The nurses gave us quick smiles before going back to the all-too-important tasks of checking on the patients' IV tubes. The two smaller kids, both of whom looked like they couldn't be older than four years old, only gave Daniel and I curious glances. They then quickly resumed their art project on the crayon- and construction paper-littered table. The other three kids – two boys and a girl – were huddled around a larger table in the far corner of the room. Spread out in front of each of them were textbooks and notebooks.

I tilted my head questioningly at Daniel and he nodded before gently pulling me towards the trio.

"Hello," Daniel greeted when them we were only a few feet away.

Each of them gave Daniel a cheerful welcome. Their gazes then shifted to me and, even with my infamous obliviousness, I didn't miss the questioning looks in their eyes.

Before I could recall my recently discovered nervous habits under their wide-eyed stares, Daniel wrapped an arm protectively around my shoulders and pulled me closer to his side. "This is my good friend, Sara. She'll be helping us out today."

"Us?" the taller boy with short blonde hair asked. He fixed the glasses that were haphazardly perched on his nose before giving Daniel and I a wonky smile.

"Yeah," the boy who wore a beanie seconded his confusion. "Isn't it you who's usually helping us?" he laughed.

Daniel smiled at their joking then looked at me. "These two smart alecks are Braden," he pointed to the taller boy, "and Trevor," he gestured at his beanie-wearing comrade. "This little sweetheart," he gestured to the only girl in the group, "is Beth. All of them are in the eighth grade and," he looked down at the books in front of the two boys. "Well, it looks like they'll be studying history today."

"My mom's giving us a test tomorrow," Trevor grimaced.

Daniel squeezed his thin shoulders in a comforting manner. "I'm sure you two will do fine."

"I was hoping I could go over my math today," Beth piped in, smiling shyly at me and cutting into the boys' conversation.

I returned her shy smile. "Well, I'm pretty good at math –"

"Sara is actually pretty good at everything," Daniel interjected. "She's the smartest student at our school."

"No way," Braden mumbled, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion just as he pursed lips. "Pretty girls can't be smart too. That's just unfair."

Daniel and I laughed at that, though my chuckle came out more nervous than actually amused. "Braden, you really need to learn how to give a proper compliment if you want to impress the girls."

"Come on, Sara," Beth stood up, picking up her things. She rolled her eyes at Braden and Trevor before turning away from them. "We'll let Daniel teach those two history and, if he can, teach Braden how to be more suave."

"That's never going to happen," Trevor joked.

Braden playfully jabbed him in the ribs.

I followed her to another large table and watched as she arranged her books and papers in front of her. Once that was done, Beth turned to me with a small smile on her face. "So, you're Daniel's good friend, huh?"

I laughed. It didn't matter who did the teasing. I still didn't deal well with the fact that I wasn't really sure what I was to Daniel. "I guess so," I grumbled.

"I didn't know that's what youngsters nowadays were calling the people they dated," she smirked.

I blinked.

Was this really happening to me right now?

Suddenly, Beth chuckled lightly. "You could do worse you know," she whispered as she opened her math book to the right chapter.

I smiled at her then pretended to tuck a few strands of hair behind my ear to hide how weird I was feeling.

Eventually, Beth stopped flipping through the pages of her book and smiled at me. "So, triangles," she trailed off.

"Triangles," I nodded.

Silently, I thanked her for moving the conversation to safer and less awkward topics.

*   *   *   *   *

After two hours of going through the basics of triangles with Beth, Daniel and I bid her, Braden and Trevor good bye. Daniel laced our fingers together once we were out of the playroom. "I know that was a pretty boring way to spend your Thursday afternoon –"

"I can think of a billion more boring ways," I laughed. "Most of them involve me laboring over my own books and notes. At least this way, I got a bit of social interaction. Plus, Beth is cool – and so are Braden and Trevor."

"They are," Daniel smiled. He held open the door that brought us back into the part of the hospital where the walls were a bland eggshell white.

The pediatric oncology ward was on the first floor, same as the hospital cafeteria. So when I spotted the sign that told me to make a left to head on over there, I made a move to follow it. Daniel, however, pulled me back.

"I thought we were grabbing a bite to eat at the cafeteria?" I pointed to the sign the hung above me.

"I know I promised you a delightful meal at the hospital cafeteria but there really isn't anything delightful there. More importantly, there isn't anything appetizing. I'd like to think it's a universal law that cafeteria fare should be bland and tasteless," he chuckled.

I faked a reproachful look. "And here I was thinking you were the type of person who kept your promises. Somehow I remember you telling me about how you were going to distract me from the horrible food and the pea green walls using your devilish charms," I teased.

"Devilish charms? I don't think I have any of that. I have British charms but definitely not devilish ones," Daniel chuckled. "But if you do want to continue ignoring the fact that we both have a mountain of homework to do when we individually get home, we could grab a bite to eat elsewhere?"

I looked down at my attire – a long sleeved shirt underneath a denim jacket, jeans and my usual Converse. Safe to say, I wasn't dressed to eat out.

"We don't have to go anywhere fancy," Daniel smiled at my crossed eyebrows. "Don't let the accent fool you, I can also do low-brow," he teased.

"Well then, how do burgers and fries at Annabelle's sound to you?" I smiled.

I was in a constant hunt for the perfect burger and while I didn't really find it Annabelle's, their cheeseburger was more than decent. Plus their fries were just sent from heaven.

"Burgers and fries it is," Daniel confirmed.

We walked hand-in-hand towards the parking lot, neither of us saying anything. He opened the door of his car for me, as had become his habit, and we continued the drive to Annabelle's in the same shroud of quiet wrapped around us.

With Daniel, there was never any need to fill in the silence. The quiet that existed between us wasn't vast or empty like most people would assume. It wasn't the kind of quiet that you dreaded and just had to break through.It was the kind of quiet that was warm and companionable.

I remembered thinking before that being with Daniel was the best kind of comfortable there was – and I'm glad to say that it was, so far, still true.

There was never any pressure to be funny or witty when I was with him. We didn't need to impress each other or be larger-than-life. But the thing I was most grateful for was that there was never any drama between Daniel and I – or at least, not yet anyway.

I've heard of more than enough horror stories about teenagers in relationships that are filled to the brim with drama. There were girls who changed moods faster than an average person could blink and there were boys who were the textbook definition of douche bag. What made it worse was that, Sometimes, those kinds of people even decided to pair up together. All this resulted to were relationships that made both World Wars seem like love festivals.

I'd like to think that if I were in a drama-riddled relationship, I was equipped with enough sensibility to get through, or out of, it. It wasn't really a hypothesis I was eager to test though, whether or not I had an interest in studying psychology in college or not.

After the all-too-heavy things I'd found out last night from Louis and Nate, I was happy to spend a drama-free evening with Daniel.

Well, at least that was what I'd hoped our evening would be until we stepped into Annabelle's for dinner twenty minutes later.

The first thing I noticed was that it was a busy night for Annabelle's. It was like everyone and their mother had decided to skip cooking dinner tonight and just eat out.

I could see Louis and the three other waitresses who worked the afternoon to early evening shift with him running around. They were busy taking people's orders and delivering them as fast they could. Louis barely had enough time to wave a greeting at me before someone was calling out to him again.

Daniel took advantage of the fact that he was insanely tall and scanned the room for an empty booth. The look of disappointment on his face told me there was none. "Do you want to –?"

At that exact moment, Nate's booming voice called out to us above the already noisy diner. Next to him was Amanda who wore a beaming smile.

Nate waved us over and, after sharing a questioning glance with Daniel, I found myself walking up to their booth with Daniel's arm wrapped around my shoulder.

"Should I be marking today on my calendar as the day the infamous GPA monster crawled out of her cave to enjoy the company of us common folk?" Nate teased as he moved so Daniel could take a seat next to him.

I swatted him playfully on the head before I took my own seat next to Amanda.

"I was about to tell him off about that lame joke but you did a better job," Amanda smiled.

"Thank you," I genuinely replied, smiling back at her.

"You're welcome," she chuckled. "By the way, I saw the photo collage you and Pitt put together. It was really good."

"Julian took the pictures. I just helped paste them on the board," I shrugged. This – specifically, Julian Pitt – wasn't something I wanted to talk about.

"Careful, babe. You never know where Angelie might be hiding," Nate laughed. "That woman hates that photo collage more than a kid hates broccoli."

"Really?" Daniel frowned, looking up from the laminated menu he was perusing. "But why? It's beautiful. There's absolutely nothing to hate about it."

Amanda sighed. "There are also no pictures of her in it," Amanda pointed out. "The thing you guys need to know about my best friend is that she lives life with the belief that a constant spotlight is pointed at her."

Nate let out a booming laugh at that one. Daniel and I, however, merely gave uncomfortable chuckles.

I wondered again how Amanda and Angelie were best friends. Nate and I, despite being on different levels of the social totem pole at Warren Brown, had the commonality of our childhood linking us. Amanda, despite being popular, was nice and Angelie ... Well, actions tend to speak louder than words and nice didn't really seem like a word fit to describe the way she'd been acting recently.

Of course, I didn't voice out any of those thoughts. I just squirmed uncomfortably in my seat.

"And you," Nate looked at me. "You better watch out too."

"Me? What did I do?" I quickly went through the things I'd done since Monday, the last time I saw Angelie. I didn't even look at her out of the irrational fear that she would maul me if she caught me doing just that.

"She blames you for Pitt not having any pictures of her up there in that collage." Amanda's nose crinkled adorably.

"Well, that's insane," Daniel mumbled, summarizing what I thought of the situation to a tee. "From what Sara's told me, she and Pitt had to work with the pictures he'd already taken for the class. If there weren't any pictures of Angelie up on that board, she should take that up with her boyfriend."

"Boyfriend. Who thought that Angelie Nash would be the one to tame Julian I'm-a-Badass Pitt," Nate shook his head while his lips lifted up into a very amused smirk.

What I did next, I blame on the fact that I was too distracted by the possibility that I was still at risk of being Angelie's punching bag despite literally having done nothing to offend her.

"That's not his middle name," I blurted out without thinking,

Nate did a double take. "Wait, you know his middle name? What sorcery is this? Did you tell him you wouldn't work on your project unless he told you his middle name? No, wait. Don't answer that. Just answer this: What is it? Is it horrible? Will it make him cry in shame if the whole school finds –"

"Hey guys," Louis mumbled, walking up to us with a very tired look on his face.

"Thank you," I mouthed at Louis.

He looked at me like I'd just lost my marbles then he quickly turned to address the rest of the table. "What'll it be?"

Thus began a double date with Nate and Amanda that was surprisingly, at least on my part, enjoyable – proof that, if Amanda weren't friends with Angelie, she would be the embodiment of everything that was good and right and perfect in the world.

Despite having nothing in common with Nate, Daniel made an effort to show interest in the stories my best friend kept sharing with the group. I made a mental note to myself to thank him for that.

When it was time to go home, Nate pointed out that it was more logical if Amanda caught a ride with Daniel and if I caught a ride with him. Since Amanda and Daniel lived only a few blocks away from each other and in a neighborhood that was on the other side of town as Nate and I did, I reluctantly agreed.

Still, that didn't mean it wasn't weird to have Daniel walking me to Nate's car while I watched my best friend walk his girlfriend to my sort-of boyfriend's car.

"If you don't feel as weirded out as I am about this, then I should probably schedule an appointment with a therapist for you," Daniel smiled before opening the door to Nate's jeep for me.

"No, this is definitely weird," I agreed with him and settled myself into the front seat, buckling the seatbelt across my torso. "Thank you for today. As a very unconventional date, it was also a lot of fun."

Daniel smiled. "I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. We might have to start making room for less boring dates though. Studying together at the library and tutoring sick kids just makes us seem like a couple of nerds."

"Daniel, we are a couple of nerds," I pointed out.

He smiled but his expression quickly turned serious. "Nerdiness aside, we do need to work on making this relationship more romantic."

Relationship.

Up until this point, I was guessing Daniel had been too much of a gentleman to not put a label on 'us'. But hearing him imply that we were in a relationship, made me think that calling him my sort-of boyfriend probably wouldn't cut it. From here on out, boyfriend, I think, was a more fitting word.

He broke into my thoughts just then when, smiling, he moved in closer. "Even if romance is, as you've said, overrated."

With those words, he closed the gap between us and planted his lips gently on mine.

But what started out as a soft goodbye kiss melted into a heated one.

Despite the fact that my stomach felt like it was filled to the brim with butterflies and not the cheeseburger, fries and milk shake I just had for dinner, I couldn't help but take note of the fact that buckling your seat belt before the actual car door had been closed was not the smartest of moves.

We only pulled apart because Nate cleared his throat. "Uhm, Daniel? Not to be a buzz kill or anything –"

I shot him a look that, yes, he was being a buzz kill.

"– but I kind of need to get home. I've got a ton of homework due tomorrow," Nate smiled.

Daniel nodded and planted one last kiss on my forehead. "I'll see you tomorrow," he whispered before walking to his own car. I watched as he slipped into the driver's seat and maneuvered the car out of the parking lot then turned to Nate.

Nate didn't look at all embarrassed at having to cut off my kiss with Daniel.

Instead, my best friend was wearing a humongous smirk. As he started the car, he began to chant, "Sara and Daniel sitting in a Jeep, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes record-breaking-GPA-babies in a baby carriage."

I would have smacked him upside the head.

But I was too busy smiling like a loon.

SO. Who thought that the beginning of this chapter was something else? Haha. And WHAT did you think it was? Am I a troll or am I troll?

I shall dedicate the next chapter to the person who can give me the BEST reason/s why Sara should end up with Daniel (and no Julian bashing, please). 

If you haven't yet, PLEASE check out my new book called Good Enough to Eat by clicking the External Link. It features a food photographer and a bunch of models (Francisco Lachowski, Garret Neff and Danny Schwarz to name a very few). 

VOTE. COMMENT. SHARE. (And follow? XD)

- Chompy