Chapter 47

                                    

                                          
"Do you have to record every single moment?" Andrew asked Emma who was walking backward with a small camera in her hands as she faced the three people in front of her, a grin playing on her lips.
"No, my dear Andrew, I don't have to, I want to." 
The D-Day had finally arrived and Emma felt like she had drank a dozen cans of energy drinks. She had practically skipped all the way to the fair and now that they were there, she had the urge to record every single moment. 
Emma didn't know what or why, but she felt like something incredible was going to happen, and she didn't want to miss a moment of it, even if it annoyed her precious 'little' brother. 
Angel let out a laugh and interlocked her hand round one of Andrew's. 
"Come on, loosen up! This is going to be fun! Embrace the moment." She said, slightly shaking him as though it would wash away his annoyance. 
Andrew let out a sigh and rolled his eyes at her poor attempt to shine happy rays on his cloudy doubt, but he still couldn't help the small smile that played on his lips. 
"Fine." He said smiling down at the triumphant looking Angel. 
Emma cooed at them and pouted her lips causing them to laugh at her silliness, before swiftly turning the camera to face Cole who seemed to have been in some kind of daze. 
"Now that we have heard from the beautiful couple, shall we see how the mysterious Cole Walker is doing? Mr. Walker, may I be honored to know how your day has been?" 
Cole laughed at Emma's failed imitation of a sophisticated journalist which sounded more like a robotic animation. The smile on his face turned into his signature mystery filled grin. 
"Boring." He said yawning and pretending to doze off. Emma rolled her eyes and the smile on her lips only widened, causing Cole's grin to immediately switch to a warm smile mirroring hers. 
"So where exactly are we going first?" Emma asked, finally placing the camera round her neck and falling in step with the rest of them. Angel shrugged in response and looked around trying to figure out a place to start their 'adventure'. 
"How about the very place that contributed in my being here?" Andrew said wiggling his eyebrows at them. 
"Candy Floss." They said simultaneously and burst out laughing.
Angel finally spotted the stand and pointed over at it. "Okay so you guys go get the Candy Floss." She said gesturing at Cole and Andrew who looked confused by her statement. Emma nodded in agreement and pushed them forward to the Candy Floss stand. 
"Why do we have to get it? We're all equals, and we'll be like the only people our age at a Candy Floss stand without either a child or a date." Andrew whined, pouting his lip at Angel and Emma who only shook their heads disgraced by his desperate escape. 
"Because we already did the job of having to hear you guys complain about wanting 'heavens fluff'" Emma said sticking out her tongue at them. Andrew sighed in defeat as they walked towards the Candy Floss stand filled with a long line of people with their kids, which did nothing to help raise Cole's spirit. 
"I don't think I want Candy Floss anymore," Cole said after some minutes in the line that never seemed to end or move. Andrew laughed and shook his head at Cole's grumbling. 
"Even if you don't want it, we still have to get some for Angel and Emma," Andrew said matter-of-factly. Cole sighed and shook his head before his face suddenly lit up. 
"We'll just tell them it's diabetes in disguise," Cole said giving Andrew a suggestive smile only causing Andrew to laugh. 
"First of all, I also want Cotton Candy, just think of the sugary fluff, sweetly melting against your tongue and setting a rush to your taste buds vibrating with sweetness in your mouth," Andrew said, closing his eyes and sighing as though already tasting it only causing Cole to roll his eyes unimpressed. 
"You can think about that, while I think about the numerous syringes penetrating my skin every thirty minutes or an hour in order to stop the overflow of sugar into my blood stream" Cole said his frown deepening at the thought. Andrew laughter only increased at his friend's grumpy but hilarious attitude. 
Andrew paused for a moment as a thought popped in his head which he inwardly battled with before giving in 
"Can I ask you a very personal question?" Andrew asked after organizing his speech in his head and breaking the comfortable silence. Cole squinted his eyes at him, confused by the sudden question, before slowly nodding unsure of the response to give. 
"This may be out of the blue and quite strange but I've wanted to ask you this for a while now because I used to know the way you'd respond but now... I'm not so sure..." Andrew took in a deep breath before finally speaking up. 
"Do you believe in God?" 
Cole immediately froze. He didn't know what to say, he would usually have a swift answer to that question, a simple "no', but this time, this time he didn't know. 
He was in this bundle of confusion whereby he was looking at the answer but he felt like if he voiced it out, all hell would break loose. 
He didn't know if he believed, but he knew he didn't not believe, and he couldn't say that 'cause that just sounded like some twisted madman gibberish. His mind turned, searching for a valid answer that would agree with what he was inwardly battling. 
He didn't want to say 'yes' because he wasn't sure, and he didn't want to say 'no' because he knew he would be lying to himself. 
He paused before taken in a breath and turning to look back at Andrew. 
"honestly, I'm lost." 
Just those two words and he felt like he had just let out his last breath. 
He felt something in him fade, as though a part of him was caged, but saying those words had set it free. 
He always knew that he was lost. But he just didn't admit it to himself, and now that he was, he could feel the change. 
A small smile played on Andrews's lips as he looked at Cole with a certain untold wisdom in his eyes. 
"You're strong, you may not really think so, but you are, and I'm not just talking about physically. I don't know what you're going through, but I can tell that it's a lot, and the fact that you admitted it, to both yourself and me, just shows how strong you really are. You think you don't know what to believe, but it's in you. You know the answer but you have to dig deeper into yourself before you can fish it out. That small voice that seems constantly suffocated in the midst of all your worries, that tiny though that keeps hammering in your head, calling you to just believe, it's there, and if you just open up and let it fill you, it will strengthen you way much more than you can imagine. It's just waiting for you to believe, to trust." Cole took in a sharp breath at the sound of the seven lettered word. 'Believe'
"It's not that simple," Cole said sighing and racking his hair backwards with his fingers. 
It wasn't easy at all, to believe that all this while, every single time he had suffered and struggled on his own, that there was a so-called 'loving' God who looked down at him and saw his pain, but didn't do anything to stop it. 
That just didn't make sense in any way, and Cole didn't understand why people found it easy to just 'believe' in something like that. 
"I know, it never really is, but you have the ability to make it easier... or harder," Andrew said with a reassuring smile. Cole thought about the statement and Emma's words flashed through his head, 
'We have a choice, it all depends on us and what we choose.'