Don't Need Saving

“Babe, mind comin’ down here for a bit? I’m having some trouble with this, erm, thing for college. You’re smart - I need help. C’mere,” Nick’s voice pierced through my veil of silence when he hollered up the stairs for me. I sighed, throwing my book to a random spot in my room and walking down the stairs. Seeing Nick hunched over the table, papers scattered around the floor and him running his hands through his messy hair made me laugh. Hearing my laugh, he turned in his seat to greet me with a big grin. “Hey Clara,” I smiled down at him while descending down the last few steps.

“What do you need? Well,” I laughed, pulling out a chair and sitting next to him at the old oak table. “I know that you need help but what do you need help with?”

“This damn literature report thing, I just don’t know what to do it on. It has to be a, um,” Nick quickly rummaged through his papers until he made a small ‘ah’ noise and picked a certain wrinkled paper out of the stack. “Here are the requirements. Now, let’s see...there we are! It has to be a analyzation of an old fairy tale. Not a short one though, it has to be forty pages or more in length.” I looked up at him with wide eyes. A forty page report on a freakin’ fairy tale? That seems a bit too much. “Th-the fairy tale, not the report.” He seemed to have noticed the fear that struck my face. Laughing, he set the requirements paper off to the side and then sighed, turning to look at me with his arms crossed. “So, how’re we gonna do this?”

“I have this old book of fairy tales up in my room, if you wanna start with that. I got it from my grandmother.”

“That’d be nice, yeah. I’ll start doing...something.” Likewise, he’d make me begin with doing the work. Then he’d help out. Typical for his laziness. I rolled my eyes and got up out of the chair, walking back up the flight of stairs. I heard him laughing behind me.

I opened the door to my room, sighing. My room was an absolute mess. How was I gonna find this stupid old book in this clutter? I need to clean my damn room. There were piles of old clothes in one corner, and a large stack of books in another. My closet door was slightly open with clothes pooling out of it. Hanging from my windowsill was a variety of medals won from gymnastics and cheerleading. Oh, how I miss those days. Before those memories could come back to me, I kept looking around my room to find a possible spot for where the book could be. Curtains were balled up on a dusty shelf next to my window, along with old pictures and trophies. The faint taste of blood appeared in my mouth when I realized how hard I was biting down on my lip, trying not to cry. An old picture of my father lay hidden amongst the other pictures. If only he could see me now. I walked over to my bed, manuvering around the various things scattered on my floor, and kneeled down, wincing when I heard a crack. I may miss my days of cheer and gymnastics, but they sure as hell did a great deal of pain and aging to my body. I strained to look underneath the bed and found a cardboard box. Gritting my teeth and grunting, I reached my arm underneath my bed and my fingers were able to wrap around it and pull it out from underneath the bed, a large cloud of dust coming along with it. I coughed while opening the flaps to the box, a smile coming across my face when I saw the book I was looking for; an old leather book with the bindings falling off, the cover reading, in italicized lettering, ‘Fairy Tales’.

“I’ve got it, Nick!” Looking at the worn-out cover and resisting a smirk crawling across my face, I stood and kicked the box aside, walking back down the spiral staircase to see what Nick managed to accomplish.

“And I’ve done nothing because I’ve realized we need to read the story first before doing anything.” He mumbled, still seeming to be studying the requirements paper. His tongue is sticking out of the corner of his mouth, just slightly, like it always is when he's focused. Nick looked absolutely adorable in that vunerable state.

“Well,” I pulled out the chair I sat in before and laid the fairy tale book on top of a small stack of other books and encyclopedias and informational shit. I looked to Nick with a big grin. He returned the smile, his emerald-green eyes twinkling under the fading sunlight peeking through the window. I loved helping him and he loved it when I helped him. Nick always made everything so much fun. Hell, he could make dying fun if he really tried.

That reminded me of the first time we met; it was on the playground in third grade. I was assigned to retrieve the bag of toys at the end of recess, but someone else wanted to get the bag. It was my job, so I felt that I needed to get it and not let the other student get it. So - we raced. I was running by the edge of the sandbox when the other student gave me a slight push so I'd fall. My face hit the corner of where the two edges met and it knocked one of my teeth right out. It really fucking hurt, too. Before I was able to get back up and try to continue my 'quest' to get the bag, with tears streaming down my face, a pair of arms wrapped around me and then I felt myself being lifted up. I looked up at the face of my savior, or how I over-dramatized it in third grade, and that's the first time I saw those beautiful green eyes. I was never able to ask his name for the next few days because my mouth was pretty swollen. Let's just say it was pretty bad. I couldn't talk and my mother didn't allow me to play at recess. I had to sit on a bench until recess was over. But every day, my "mystery savior" would sit next to me and read me short stories from a book. A small, wrinkled, torn-up book. He wouldn't stop reading stories until he heard me laugh. Admiration was clear in those green eyes I fell in love with. When I was finally able to speak again, the first words I spoke were to Nick. I asked for his name.

"Uh, Clara?" Nick pulled me out of my daydream, frantically waving a hand in front of my face.

"Oh yeah, sorry. Sorry, sorry. Let's get started on this project, shall we?"