Different But Same (Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz)

LXIII. Back To The Future

Eli had cooked himself and Lainey their macaroni cheese and they spent the early afternoon eating it. They made their way up to the cinema room and Eli found an old copy of Peter Pan lying around, so insisted he watch it with Lainey. He knew it was her favourite Disney movie and wanted to watch it with her again. He loved to see how happy it made her.

The way her face lit up was something he'd never forget. She seemed so carefree and happy and it made his heart burst.

After the movie ended, they had a try at Monopoly but decided it was super boring with only two players so stopped.

They now sat on the beanbags at the far end of the attic turned movie room. There was a small window just to their right: the sunset peeped through the glass and illuminated the room as they talked the early evening away. Eli pulled up a bunch of questions on his phone and they made their way through the list.

"If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?" Eli asked.

"That's easy." Lainey nodded. "Okinawa."

Eli smiled at her words.

"Of course, princess."

"What about you? Where would you go?"

"I've always wanted to go to New Zealand."

Lainey smirked.

"What?"

"Because they filmed Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit there?"

Eli held his arms up in defence. "Maybe that's one of the reasons."

"One, sure."

Eli chuckled.

"Would you rather travel back in time or to the future?"

"I'd go... back to the future!" Lainey giggled as she displayed her bad attempt of Doc Brown from Back to the Future.

Eli chuckled. "Princess, you have to go to the future once in order to go back there."

"Can't you just let me be nerdy and leave me be?" Lainey pouted.

"Fine, back to the future it is."

"How about you?"

"The past. Definitely."

Lainey nodded. She guessed she meant his dad but didn't want to pry so let it be.

"Okay... What's your favourite childhood memory?" Eli asked.

"Definitely spending time here as a family. This one time, Ant dragged me up here and we stuffed our faces with all the candy we could and were both sick the next day but we managed to convince everyone that we were actually ill and we stayed here by ourselves for a whole day and came up here to watch movies."

Eli laughed. "Why doesn't that surprise me? You're such a bad influence, LaRusso."

Lainey faked offence. "Anthony dragged me up here!"

"Sam had no idea?"

"If she did, she didn't say anything."

"You'll have to ask her."

Lainey laughed. "Not likely. She'd rat us out years later. She's like that. What about you? What's your favourite childhood memory?"

Eli stopped to think for a moment. His heart swelled at the memories of his dad. But he couldn't say anything about him. Not yet, he wasn't ready to tell Lainey the truth about his dad.

"Definitely when my mom taught me how to ride a bike."

Lainey pouted. "That's so sweet! Would've loved to have seen that."