A Summer's Dream

Chapter 11~Pick a Side Any Side

I wait for the clap of thunder to cease before I answer his question.

When I said tell me more about yourself, I didn’t expect him to take me so seriously. It was my shameful attempt at lightening the dense mood, however it fell through. Like a bowling ball plummeting through a wooden floor and into a basement.

Somewhere along the lines though we had both accepted the situation and made light of it, despite our obvious lack of social skills. So here I lay on a tousled bed, Terrence in -I assume- his reading chair next to the mattress in a close corner; playing twenty questions. Although in all the mixture of campfire perfume and the pounding rain outside, I’m sure we surmounted twenty one questions.

I bit down on my chapped lip, peeling away a layer of skin nervously. Whether I winced from the pain or the question I’m not sure.

Have you ever kissed a guy?

How did we go from favorite books and colors to asking such intimate questions! It wasn’t the fact I had in fact never kissed a boy, it’s the principal of the thing. One doesn't simply ask such a thing. Although if that’s the case, maybe I shouldn’t have asked the same question before him. Oh my stars how do I get myself into these situations? I hadn’t expected him to be so open, so transparent with everything he answered.

Have you ever felt heartache?

Yeah. Sometimes.

Have you ever wanted to jump off a cliff?

Sometimes, depending on the situation I’m in.

 

Do you know what you want to do in life?

No actually. It never really came up in the conversation my mind holds with itself.

 

Have you ever kissed a girl?

Besides my mum or sisters? No.

 

How. Do. I. Answer. Him. He’s like an open book! Excuse my unintentional irony. But if I were to be as transparent as he is/was, I would look like an even worse baboon. The baboon who is constantly shunned in the group of people. The one who has no social life. The one who has never kissed a boy.

Before I can even conjure up a half decent lie, the word no slips out and I slap my chipped nail polished fingers to my mouth.

I closed my eyes tightly, praying he won’t shun me like so many other people have done. But when I crack my right eyelid open, it looks like relief is washed onto his face and he let go of an enormous breath of air. Or is that all wishful thinking? It’s probably all wishful thinking but it makes me feel better anyways.

When I peeked out of my other eye I saw his lips twitch and a small smile spread across his face as he looked down. My mind raced a mile a minute. Oh the papers I’d write to know what he’s thinking.

His smile was contagious and I could feel my own slipping onto my face. Biting my lip I covered my face with my hands and spread my fingers apart to reveal my eyes. Shyness was beginning to make its way into the pit of my stomach.

“What?”

“Nothing…” He glanced up at me and then back down. I watched as his smirk deepened and he choked back a laugh.

“What?” My voice came off whinier than I had intended.

“Nothing.”

Jutting my bottom lip out I forced a cute look onto my face, something I had perfected in my kindergartner days. “Pwease tell me?” I don’t know what it is about this boy but I can be my absolute self around him. Childness, dorkiness, nerdiness, and even my personal seasoning of awkwardness.