[FINISHED] A Little Colder

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. I like a good video game as much as the next guy. And you just can't go wrong with a good old Netflix binge." He says, laughing.

"But yeah, you're right. I'm more of one to hit the gym, generally speaking, and I love to go running or play basketball. Baseball's pretty fun too."

Oh yeah, baseball. Caroline remembered that she played it for like... a week maybe ? When she went to high school in France. Since then, she hadn't played at all and she wasn't sure she could even comprehend the rules of this sport again. They were so complicated to her and it wasn't helping that this sport was not popular at all where she came from. Basketball on the other hand.

"Oh basketball, I did that a lot. Like, everyone always asked me if I played this anyway. Because when you're taller than, let's say six foot, you only have two careers possible : model or basketball player. I'm pretty hot, I know that, but I suck at sport, really."

She laughed again, remembering how much she hated people asking her about that. Now, she probably didn't have to worry about it anymore.

"Anyway, that's probably good for you. It's important to be healthy and all that."

She crossed her hands on her lap, smiling softly, before aboarding a more touchy subject.

"So, is this your first year here too ? I arrived less than a week ago."

"Heh, yeah. Well, I reckon you've got what it takes to be a model if you're so inclined." Jimmy said with a wink.

"Sports aren't everyone's thing, I get that. To be perfectly honest with you, I still have days where I don't want to do shit but stay inside and watch TV or somethin'. Yeah, I figured if I got on top of all that health stuff now, it'll be easier to keep up as I get older. I don't want to be falling apart at the age of 50, y'know?"

Jimmy nodded.
"Yep, first year. Same here, I guess we arrived at about the same time, then."

Caroline got distracted for a few moments. Would she even be around at 50 years ? Paraplegia wasn't especially known to decrease your life expectancy but it could cause health issue due to some complications. If she'd recall correctly, it was probably okay for her, but still the question remained. She had no idea what could she be so far in the future, and she didn't want to think about it too hard actually.

"Yeah, I guess so. Probably the right thing to do." she shrugged before smiling.

"Most probably. The school is still empty for now, mostly, so it's still nice to meet some people like you or Ada. Which grade are you ?"

If she had to guess, she'll say that Jimmy was a little younger than her, even if he looked tall.

"Yeah, it's good to get to know some people nice and early. I'm a freshman, although I suppose we all are, in that everyone's new to this place. I'm 14, nearing 15. You?"

Nailed it, he was indeed younger. Even more than she would have thought but she had always been pretty bad at guessing that stuff, so this was a pretty good guess according to her.

"I'm seventeen, and in 10th year." she shrugged.

She smiled to him, not wanting to explain why she was late of at least a year.

"I've transferred from France so I hope I'll be fine with the whole "talking English" thing. That's why you have to endure my accent, sorry about that."

"Don't be like that, your accent's wonderful. Now, mine is a different story. Mine's what you get when you cross Mexico with Australia and the Southern US accent. Bit of a weird combination, wouldn't you say?"

Caroline couldn't do anything else than rise an eyebrow to that. This Jimmy seemed to be quite a mix of culture. She had heard an accent of course, but she had no way of identifying it until now. That was probably why.

"Well damn. I could've tried all day to guess that, thanks for filling me in. So, you're half-mexican, half-australian and you grew up in America, or is it different ?"

It could be a very personal question, but she asked it in a way that made it easy for him to dodge it if he didn't want to answer to that.

Jimmy chuckled.
"You pretty much nailed it there. I spent some of my earlier years in Australia, until I was about 10, but other than that, you're spot on. I'd been living in Atlanta since then."

The young woman smiled softly.

"I just guessed by the order you choose to say the three accent. Atlanta then ? It's not exactly close to here."

To be fair, France wasn't exactly close either but still. She could've asked what exactly brought the boy to this school but she had the intuition it was probably some stupidly tragic story like hers. Maybe he wouldn't want to talk about it with a complete stranger, so she wisely shut her mouth about it.

"I wanted to go to U.S for quite some time, I just had a... change of plan, as we say. How was Atlanta ? It sounds like a nice city from what I've heard."

"Yeah, it's quite the voyage. Heh, yeah, I wasn't expecting to be leaving Atlanta any time soon, but things can just turn around on you pretty suddenly. That's life, I suppose. My... uh, thing... was pretty out of the blue. Yeah, Atlanta's great. Got a good rap scene if that's something you're interested in. I wasn't at first, but my time there helped me develop a bit of a soft spot for it. Good for sports and food too, all staples of the culture around there. If you hadn't guessed already, I'm best suited to warmer climates, so it was much more my pace in terms of weather, too. Not sure how I'm going to handle the Canadian winters..." Jimmy answered with a chuckle.

He wasn't usually inclined to side-stepping the subject of his aneurysm, but from how carefully
Caroline was treading, he wasn't sure if she was doing so to guard his feelings or her own.

"And about you? Whereabouts in France did you live? What was it like?"

His "things" heh ? It was probably for the best not to push around too much about that. If he didn't brought it out loud, it was probably for a good reason. Caroline had still no idea what could be wrong about him - and no idea how wrong it was to think like this - but it was of no matter after all. Except if he bites people, but he doesn't look like that. Instead of that, she laughed to the mention of winter.

"Yeah, I've heard it's pretty hard too. I hope I won't die of cold, would be a shame after all that."

Her face lightened at the mention of her country and she didn't stop for a second before answering.

"Oh, I lived in Paris. My whole life. So you know, it's like... Paris. It's beautiful, but it smells like piss." she laughed. "I shouldn't talk about it like this, really. It was nice actually. You just have to get used to it and know the good places. The climate isn't great either but I have a feeling I'll still regret it once I'll know how the winter here is."

"Yeah, just a little. As long as we've got some heavy coats I reckon we'll both manage just fine." Jimmy replies.

He laughs at Caroline's comment on the smell of Paris.
"Well, to be fair, I've never been in a city that didn't smell at least a little bit like piss, cigarettes and exhaust fumes until I got here."

"Winter's a while off yet, so I guess we'll just have to see. I'm considering hibernating in my dorm room if it gets too bad, though."

"I didn't visit Toronto's alley or main streets since I arrived. I mean, we crossed it to get here but I haven't had the occasion to smell it, so I'm not that sure it doesn't smell like piss too."

The idea of hiding herself under strates of coats when the winter will come crossed her mind a few times, and she found it so ridiculous that she instantly smiled.

"If it comes to this, I guess you won't be the only one. Maybe I'll resist longer than you but maybe not, I'm not that used to cold." she shrugged

"Yeah, tuve un poco de un paseo alrededor de Toronto después de haber dejado el aeropuerto... Sorry, uh, I had a bit of a walk around Toronto once I left the airport. It smelled pretty clean and fresh to me. Relatively speaking." He grins sheepishly at his huge slip-up.

"Sorry, the Spanish comes out every once in a while. Bi-lingual household, lots of switching between languages, you get the idea." He explains quickly.

"Well, France is far colder than any place I've ever lived up until now. Not to say it's bad or anything, just, uh, different."

For a solid minute, Caroline stood there - well, sit there but you get the idea - looking at Jimmy like he suddenly turned into a chicken. Was that... Spanish ? Why would he suddenly start to speak Spanish ? She was so surprise by the sudden change of language that she almost missed the whole meaning of his sentences afterwards, and she didn't answer right away, giving him time to explain what just happened.
Maybe it's something in his brain, she thought. The young woman had heard some stories about what an injury to the brain could cause, there was multiples outcomes possible. It would explain why he talked Spanish randomly like that, if he knows many languages.

"Oh uh, yeah. No problem, as long as you don't forget to translate" she chuckled "And if you say so, maybe Toronto is nice, I'll see that for myself."

Of course, France would seem cold to someone who lived in Australia, she would have guessed, but she was pretty sure Toronto would be worse. That's kind of a constant wih America, every thing was more extreme there, including climate.

"We'll see how it goes. I'm sure the school will make everything in its possibility to keep us from freezing." she smiled nicely.

"Speaking of which" she said suddenly, turning her wheelchair around. "I'm starting to freeze and if we keep standing like that, our legs will be numb. How about a walk ? Mostly for you ?"

"Yeah, I usually catch myself before I go too far off the rails with it. Usually it's only the odd word or two, I've been keeping it in too long, I think." Jimmy said, laughing.
"Toronto seemed really nice. I'll have to explore it properly some time, though."

"Absolutely, a bunch of frozen disabled children in Toronto would make one hell of a PR nightmare for the school."

"Sure, I could do with getting moving again. Lead on, Miss Caroline."

"Oh, I think the scool will be fine with that. I mean, it has already a great majority of children who apparently end up disabled, it's not a very good publicity either."

Caroline had failed to keep that joke for herself, it was just too beautiful to not make it, even though it was absolutely horrible. She laughed softly as she rolled in the gardens. She was pretty quick at this, especially because her wheelchair was electric and could just move forward with one push on a button. The french girl was casually looking at flower arrangments.

"I shouldn't make joke like this, it's not really... Correct." she ended up saying even if her voice didn't express any regrets.

Regardless of how correct or incorrect it was, Jimmy couldn't help but laugh.
"You're spot on there. Maybe there's some conspiracy to make every student here disabled." He joked.

Jimmy was really enjoying Caroline's sense of humor, finding her to be good company. His body still had the satisfying ache from having finished his workout, and the beautiful background of the gardens gave him a huge sense of contentment.

"Hey, if we can't laugh at ourselves, what can we laugh at? I can't imagine anyone here being offended by that, to be honest."

Caroline was smiling softly, he was probably right. Nowadays, most people would, at worst, tolerate those kind of jokes, at best, enjoy them. Though, this was a completely new environment for her, so she couldn't really tell. She wanted to try her best to be careful even if it was far from being her speciality.

"Well, if you didn't meet anyone offended by your jokes, it means either you haven't met enough people or that your jokes weren't good enough."

She chuckled and suddenly stopped her wheelchait to look at some weird but interesting flower arrangment, the gardeners here seemed to have a lot of fun.

"It is a nice school indeed" she said "I really hope the city is nice too. Maybe I'll ask this Ada to escort me, you know, to feel safe."

"Yeah, it's pretty idyllic here."
Then, Jimmy mocked taking offense at Caroline's remark about having Ada escort her.
"What, you don't think I'm big and strong and scary enough to keep you safe?" He said with a chuckle.

Caroline smile changed to a mocking one, she turned her wheelchair and took a good look at Jimmy, from head to toe with an overdone expression of hesitation.

"Well, you seems alright, but did you cut fingers from a guy once ? Didn't think so. I'm sure she'll be protecting me alright if I ask her nicely enough."

And with that, she made a demonstration of her best method of persuasion : The cutest smile she could manage, mixed with an imploring expression from those big greh eyes of her.

"After the impression she left, I have no doubt she'd protect you well, I'm just disappointed that you don't think I'm up to the job..." Jimmy says, still pretending to be offended, before grinning to make sure that Caroline doesn't think his reaction is genuine.

Caroline's smile was still teasing, sticking with the joke as her grey looked over Jimmy like she was inspecting him.

"Well, I don't see why I should think you're fitting for the job." she said with an hint of pretentiousness.

Stiffening in her wheelchair, she raised her chin like some kind of noble, looking at him with disdain.

"I'm a pretty important - according to myself - so I need the best of the best."

"Well, when you put it like that, it's hard to argue. I am just a filthy peasant, after all." Jimmy responded with a wink.