I shivered and became aware of just how chilly it was today. I guess that I should be getting back to the apartment soon. I got up from my special spot in the park and began the journey home.
I strolled casually through Central Park, my hands tucked inside my windbreaker and my hair pulled back into a ponytail. I could not believe that summer vacation was almost over! It went too fast! I only get to see my dad for the summers and this summer went way too fast! I would soon have to leave the radiant city of New York and return to Tulsa, Oklahoma where my mom lives.
I glanced at my watch and saw that it was almost noon, time to go back to Dad’s apartment. As I turned around, I actually realized just how many people there were in the park today. There were people throwing Frisbees, riding bikes, roller blading, and sitting on blankets, having picnics.
I quickened my pace and then three blurs flew past me on roller blades. One of the blurs nearly ran into me!
“Hey! Watch where you’re going!” I shouted after them. The one that almost hit me, turned around on his skates and was skating backwards.
“Sorry!” he shouted back. Just as he turned around again, he wasn’t watching where he was going, and he ran into a bench and fell literally on his face. I heard him mumble something to himself, and he wasn’t getting up. I broke into a run and kneeled down by him.
“See? I told you that you should watch where you are going.” I joked, then stood up and offered a hand to help him up. He took my hand and I pulled him to his feet. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
“Nah, I’ve taken worse falls than that. I just wrecked up my arm a little. It’ll be fine, though.” He said raising his arm a little, revealing a totally scraped up forearm.
“Ew, that looks kinda bad. You should clean that up with some peroxide as soon as you can.” I looked around. “Where’s your friends at? They completely left you.”
“Oh, well, those aren’t my friends. They’re my brothers.” He said, laughing.
“Oh,” I said, “anyway, hi. I’m Bronwyn.”
“Taylor,” he said shaking my hand. “Hey, thanks for being helpful and concerned about my arm and everything, but I need to get back to the hotel. If I’m not back soon, my parents’ll freak out or something.”
“So, you’re not from around here?” I asked. He shook his head.
“No, just…touring I guess you can call it.”
“Oh, neither am I. I’m just visiting my dad for the summer. Then I have to go back home. As mean as it sounds, I don’t want to go home. New York is so full of life and activity and you can always find something to do, unlike my boring town.” I said.
“Oh? And where’s that?”
“Tulsa.”
“Tulsa is not boring!” Taylor said dignantly. “I’m from Tulsa, too.”
“Really? Small world.” I said, sitting down on the bench that Taylor had tripped over. He sat down next to me. He leaned his elbows on his knees and looked over at me. I mentally judged him. He was about 6’ with his blades on, making him about 5’9” or 5’10” without them. His blonde hair was long, which was pulled back, and would be about an inch past his shoulders [if it would be down] and it was so shiny. I wished that my hair was in that good of condition. His eyes were a heavenly shade of blue, a blue that I never saw before. They were addicting, I had to look into them. His smile, oh his smile was very nice. It was a flirty smile, yet it seemed so innocent. He had an earring in his upper left ear, which took away from the whole ‘good boy’ thing he had going for him. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because it did look extremely good on him, but it was just something I wasn’t expecting to see on someone so genuine looking.
“When are you going back? Maybe we could meet somewhere and - you blade?”
“Yeah, but I’m not very good at it though.” I said.
“Then we can meet somewhere and go blading.” Taylor said. I smiled.
“That’d be cool.” I said. “Only if you promise me that you won’t wipe out like you did today.”
“Promise.” He said smiling. Apparently, the other two blurs that were previously with him, returned, in search of their long lost brother.
“Tay! There you are! What happened to you?! And your arm? Man, after we passed that chick, you weren’t behind us any…” the tallest one trailed off, noticing that “that chick” was sitting right next to Taylor on the bench.
“Ike, this is Bronwyn. I had a pretty bad fall, and she was just checking to make sure that I was alright.” Taylor said, sort of introducing me to his brother. That’s when I put 2 and 2 together. Taylor, Ike…long blond hair. This wasn’t a coincidence. I looked at the smallest one, which wasn’t exactly that small. He was nearly as tall as I was! He had his hair in braids.
“Wait a minute. Did he just call you ‘Ike’?” I asked. They both nodded. “Are you guys Hanson?” They nodded again, and I felt stupid. “Wow, I didn’t recognize you.”
“Don’t worry about it. We don’t recognize ourselves in the morning either.” Zac said, his voice cracking on ‘recognize’ and ‘either’. I laughed. Isaac took his sunglasses off and wiped them off on his shirt.
“Thanks for helping Tay out. But, we do have to get going. Were you in a hurry to get somewhere? Because you were walking kinda fast.” Isaac asked.
“Um, not really…why?”
“Because, you could come back to the hotel with us, our parents would be grateful to meet someone that was concerned to help out Tay, even after he almost knocked them unconscience. Plus, maybe we could get you a ticket to the concert tonight or something.”
“Actually…I don’t know.” I said. “I told my dad that I would be home at noon and that was about 5 minutes ago. I should get going.”
“But our hotel is right there.” Taylor said, pointing to The Plaza. “You can call him and tell him that you’ll be a little late.”
“I still dunno. He might get mad at me for going with strangers.” I said. Then I actually thought how elementary that sounded. God, I wasn’t 5 years old, I was 16! Then I laughed. “Ok, you win. I’ll call him.” All three of them walked slowly so I could keep up with them as we made our way to the Plaza.
I never really liked MMMBop too much, so I didn’t give any of their other songs a chance. There were occasional times when I would be talking to Jenni or Michelle and music would be in the background, and when I asked who it was and they said Hanson, I automatically said “yuck” and didn’t pay any attention to it. But now I think I’m gonna have to go out and buy their album!