From her purse she takes a really thick journal. It’s full of papers that stick out, of every colour and it takes me a few seconds to recognise them and process that those are the post-its I’ve sent her. She keeps them there, now with the letters and the pictures.

“Those are my post-its, aren’t they?” I question, just for confirmation.

“Ah, yeah. I keep them all here,” she shows me flipping through the pages showing me the many post-its I’ve sent her. I feel a tug in my heart at the sight and then I think of my wall with all the ones she’s sent me.

“I put yours on my wall. It’s very colourful, now,” I tell her and she looks at me surprised so I just smile. “By the way, is purple your favourite colour? ‘Cos most of the post-its are purple,” I comment and she blushes a bit.

“Yeah, it’s my favourite colour. I can’t really tell yours. You sent me post-its of every colour!” I chuckle this time

“I just bought post-its, I never cared about the colour. But mine is also purple. The headphones are mine,” I tell her pointing at the headphones she has around her neck.

“Oh right, then I should give them back to you. And the MP3 player,” she speaks out loud, taking the headphones off and then handing them to me. “I really loved the playlist! All the songs. Some of them I already loved but there were quite a few I didn’t know of which I completely loved.”

“I’m glad!” I express with relief. “I just picked some of my favourite songs and artists. Nothing in particular, just the first song that came to my mind. I would’ve added even more but I thought thirty was enough. Did you listen to them all?” I ask and I notice we are talking more comfortably now.

“Oh yeah! All of them. I had to stop when I noticed the play, but then continued from where I stopped until the last track.” She then hands me the MP3 player but I shake my head, pushing it back into her hands.

“You keep that,” I tell her and her eyes widen. “That’s an old MP3 player and I have the same playlist on my mobile, so keep it so you can also have it and listen to it again whenever you want.”

“Thank you,” Maca replies with her bright smile that makes my heart race. I don’t even notice how I don’t let go of her hand, still touching her fingers, until she pulls back to put the MP3 player in her purse and then focus on the journal again.

I see her collecting all the pictures carefully but my eyes are more interested in watching her fingers. They are slim and not that long, she has small hands but proportionate to her body. I also notice they tremble a tad bit and I wonder if she’s that nervous.

“You don’t need to be that nervous, Maca,” I surprise myself saying and she looks at me confused. “Your hands,” I point as the only evidence to backup my statement and she looks at them before understanding what I mean.

“Ah, that! No, my hands are always shaking. When I’m nervous it’s worse. I mean, I’m nervous but not that nervous. This is the normal thing,” she rambles and I tilt my head. “It’s kind of a side effect and just bad pulse. I’m kinda used to it already, or better said, I accepted it.”

I want to ask what does she mean by side effects. Is she under some treatment? But I think it’s too early to ask that kind of questions, although it’s one I’ll definitely have to voice later on.

“I always wanted to have a Polaroid,” she tells me, closing the journal once all the pictures are out. “It was really cool to take pictures today and have them immediately in paper.”

“When I take pictures with my mobile I never print them, that’s why I have a Polaroid. The one you have is mine,” I inform her as she organises the pictures by order in which they were taken.

“It’s the same for me. I do, however, have loads of pictures of when I was a little girl. Mum has a suitcase with all of them and loves showing them my friends when they visit. It’s so humiliating! Now I barely take pictures of myself. I don’t like them,” she tells me and I frown. She should take more pictures, to remember the things she’s done later on and smile when she thinks back.

“Do you think one day I could see those pictures? I bet you were adorable,” I blurt out and wince when I see her blushing furiously. I shouldn’t make her feel uncomfortable but I have problems keeping my thoughts to myself, especially now that I’m still so excited and nervous.

“If you ever meet my mum, I’m sure she’ll show them to you no matter how much I object. I should burn them all before someone else sees them,” she muses and my hand immediately flies to her, as if like that I could stop her from doing such a horrible thing.

“Don’t, please! Those are memories, you can’t even joke about it.” She looks at m surprise, blinking away the confusion before she looks down and notices my hand on hers. Her cheeks light up again and I know I should retract, but I really don’t want to.

Reluctantly, I pull back. “I won’t. Mum would never forgive me if I burn them. She would disown me or something and I would have to fight for Oddie’s custody.”

“Who’s Oddie?” I question and she smiles so brightly at me.

“My dog! He’s the baby in our house. Let me show you!” she chirps and then takes her mobile to show me a brown Dachshund sleeping on her lap. He looks so comfortable there.

“He’s really cute!” I say excitedly and I look at Maca to see her proud smile. I can tell how much she loves Oddie.

“Talking about Oddie and Mum, I should ring her. I texted her that I was alive, but she wanted me to tell her when I met you,” Maca muses and now I realise it’s late and her mum will be probably worried. Maybe we won’t even have enough time to talk and ask all I want to know about her. “Do you mind if I ring her now? I might forget to do so later.”

“Please, go ahead,” I agree and she smiles gratefully before searching for her mum’s contact and tapping the dialling icon. I’m glad she doesn’t stand up and leave me alone in the swing.

“Hey Mum, it’s me… Yes, I’m alive and I haven’t been sold in the black market,” she says and I smile at her words. I can’t hear what her mother replies, though. “It’s been great, Mum. I’ll tell you more when I get home. And yes, I’m with him now. He’s very nice and hasn’t tried to kill me,” she adds in a more monotone voice and I can barely contain my laughter. Is her mum actually asking her that? “No, Mum! Don’t say that. God, please!” For some reason, the way she reacts reminds me a lot of how I react to Grace’s jokes. “Mum, I beg of you, don’t say those things. Nothing of that will happen!” Now I’m very curious. What is she telling Maca? “Yes, I’m fine and I’ll be fine. I’ll go home later, though, because I just met him and we have loads to talk.” I’m relieved to hear that, I don’t want her to leave just yet. I don’t want to regret planning a whole day for her instead of spending it all with her. “I know it’ll be late, but I’ll just take a taxi or something. Don’t worry, really. I’m not that far from home. Just like a twenty minutes walk.” My eyes widen when she says that, impressed that we’ve lived that close and never met before.

I tap her shoulder so she can look at me when I say, “I’ll drive you home.”

She covers her mobile before speaking to me. “That’s not necessary, H. I can grab a taxi, really.”

“Please,” I insist. “I’ll drive you home so you won’t have a problem. I wouldn’t be at ease unless I’m sure you got home safe and sound.”

We look at each other for a while and I know she’s thinking of my proposal. She smiles brightly and I know she’s accepted. “Thank you,” she says to me before uncovering her mobile and talking to her mum again. “Mum, H is gonna drive me home to make sure I get there safe and sound, so don’t worry.” Then she stops to hear to whatever she’s saying. “No, I won’t let you speak to him!”

My eyes widen again. Her mum wants to talk to me? Well, that’s not that weird. Maybe she wants to make sure I won’t kidnap her daughter or something. I think that’s reasonable so I tab Maca’s shoulder and nod at her. “It’s okay,” I tell her and she looks at me with horror in her eyes. “You met my sister,” I remind her and she sighs, getting what I meant.

“Fine,” she whispers handing me the mobile.

“Hello, Mrs Maslany. I’m Harold Reid,” I introduce myself.

“Hello, honey. So you’re with my girl. Everything is fine? She told me you planned a whole day for her. Thank you for that. She always talks about you and your post-its. That’s very sweet of you,” she speaks. Her voice is a bit raspy but very sweet, very mum-like.

“It’s been my pleasure. And don’t worry about her, ma’am. I’ll drive her home safely and I’ll give Maca my number so you can have it, too.”

“Thank you, Harold. As long as she gets home safe, I’ll be okay. Take care of her and don’t get her drunk, okay?”

I laugh, remembering what Grace told me about getting Maca drunk. “Don’t worry, ma’am. I won’t.”

“And enjoy your time together, so don’t worry about the time. If she trusts you, then I trust you. However, please give me the address of where you’re right now.”

“Will do, ma’am. And thank you.”

“Have fun!” she chirps happily and I decide in that moment that I really like Maca’s mum. “Now please give me back with my daughter.”

I do as instructed and notice how embarrassed Maca looks like, but she still takes the mobile and turns around so I can’t see her face. “Yes, Mum. I’ll text you everything in a few minutes. You go to sleep because you have work tomorrow.” A pause. “I love you, too. Sweet dreams.”

And after that she hangs up and turns to face me with a deep sigh. “Your mum is very cool,” I compliment and she sighs again.

“Tell me she didn’t say anything inappropriate,” she begs and I laugh. That’s exactly how I feel about Grace.

“Nothing at all. She’s just concerned. And really, do you live that close?” I question and she nods.

“Yeah, when I saw this address and came here I noticed that my home is quite close. But the park is in the opposite direction.”

“That’s because the theatre is near the park so I dropped the post-its after practice every day, before coming back home.”

“You live in this building?” she questions and I nod. “Oh.”

“Is the park near your home?” I question next and now she nods.

“It’s on my way to uni,” she explains. “What did my Mum say, by the way?” she inquires going back to her mum.

“She said we can take our time, but she still wants my address and mobile number, just to be safe. So I’ll give you those for you to text them to your mum,” I report and she nods.

So that’s what we do. I give her my number and save hers whilst she texts her mum with my information as a guarantee. Then she shoves her mobile in her purse and I put mine back in my pocket.

“So, shall we start? This is the first picture, right?” I ask reach out to grab the picture in which I recognise Kristal and the others in As You Like It. “So, Maca, tell me: what did you think of this stop?”

-:-:-

Hello again! The update you were waiting for. But guys, don't expect me to update every other day for I did that before just because the first part was dragging so I wanted to speed things up.  So now updates won't be as frequent, probably like how it was with Post It Remember I'm also writing other two stories so it's a lot of work for me and it takes like an hour to write the chapter, some 15 min to edit and some 10 to update just one chapter. And I also have a life, I don't live on Wolf. 

Also, this part of the story has more dialogue. I don't know if you've watched "Before Sunrise" (and the others from the trilogy) but I see it something like that, mostly talking.

Finally, on Saturday I'm going to the wilderness (not even reception there D: ) so the updates probably will be very sporadic. I can't tell you which days I'll update, but it'll be at least once a week, (Mum agreed to take me into town just to update). During my vacations I'll write. Probably finish the stories and start working on the new ones so once I'm back (mid-February) I should update a lot :D So wait for that! For the new projects, you check my tumblr :D

That said, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Bel, xx