If Only

Fourteen

Charlotte Bartlett

"What's your favorite color?" With my words, he sighs. A classic, simple question to start.

"The basics?" He asks.

"You gotta know the basics to know the exterior before you know the interior." With my words, he chuckles softly. Taking his free hand, he ruffles it through his soft brown hair.

"Mine is blue, how about you?"

"Lilac purple," the prettiest shade that I'd cater most of my school supplies to as a child growing up. As well as the color of my old bedroom.

"Dream vacation?" he asks.

"Ah, good one. Well, luckily, I've been fortunate enough to travel to the basics, Paris, Italy, and most of Europe. You're going to think it's silly, though." I train off, and he shakes his head.

"Judgment free zone..... unless it's brutal," he warns playfully, making me roll my eyes.

"Fine, I've always wanted to travel to the Tulip fields in the Netherlands. They look so breathtaking with the windmills. I've never been to the Netherlands, but I heard it's lovely, and the Dutch are wonderful. Stroopwaffel doesn't sound too bad either," I muse in my soft imagination. This is the place where I let my thoughts linger when I need to escape.

"What was your first kiss?" Bold I tred into deeper waters with him and with this he sucks in his lips.

"Fourteen," he starts, "I hadn't been kissed yet, which I found pretty normal, but I have three girl cousins who are like my sisters, and they wouldn't stop teasing me about it. So one of them, Kate, had me make out with one of her friends. It was awkward. She had chapped lips and smelt like Fritos." I cringe at the thought of it, and he laughs.

"Oh, the trauma," I jest, stifling my laugh.

"It's not funny," he sighs, clutching a pillow tight to his chest.

"Kind of is," mumbling the words, he leans back, amused.

"Tell me an embarrassing childhood memory?" Nate says now trying to dig deeper with me.

"One time, I had my diary in my backpack at school, and I had a crush on this boy in my class. Remind you I was in 3rd grade. There was marriage brought up in said writing." I can't help but blush at the silly little memory.

"I was at recess, and we'd just finished up. So I was quickly writing and didn't hear my teacher. She ripped the diary straight from my hands and read it aloud to the class, talking about my love for Tommy Betoncourt and Leonardo DiCaprio." The look on his face only made me die. Sure, I was a kid, but now expressing this to my husband was mortifying.

"Oh really, Leonardo DiCaprio?" He teases sending me into a deeper spiral.

"Come on, have you ever seen him in Titanic? Romeo and Juliet... GATSBY!" Surprised, he shakes his head, leaving me in more grave disappointment.

"I'll confess I've seen Romeo and Juliet in English class, freshman year of High School. However, I did fall asleep. I've never seen the Titanic, though." He could sense my disappointment as I shifted away slightly.

"Come on, it wasn't that bad. He was really good to look at," He chuckles at me, and I raise my hands.

"Tesoro, should I be worried?" Pressing his hand to his chest in dramatics, I roll my eyes, shoving his arm slightly.

"About Leonardo DiCaprio? " A man who doesn't know I exist," I add. If I had met DiCaprio, he would've found out by now, and my picture with him would be everywhere.