Foolish Summer | ✔

25 • W A V E R L Y • 🥶

It might've been the middle of summer, but sitting alone in the dark woods sent a chill down my spine.

Chloe x Halle blasted from someone's speaker's system and as much as I loved the song, at that moment I hated it. If the music wasn't so loud maybe someone would've heard my screams for help. I'd been down there for almost thirty minutes. My ankle throbbed and my throat felt rough from shouting.

I should've stayed in the tent. When Naomi and Theo got bored roasting weenies, just the three of us, they decided to accept the invitation Theo and I got earlier.

They double teamed me with pouty puppy dog faces until I agreed to go with them. Now, I was stuck at the bottom of a hill surrounded by trees and darkness while they roasted weenies with strangers.

Something rustled in the leaves. My head whipped back and forth, hoping it wasn't some wild animal. Theo said he was joking about the bears, but that didn't ease my anxiety.

"Waverly?"

I let out a heavy sigh when I heard the familiar voice. Stephen. Never thought I'd be so happy to hear my name on his lips again. I was grateful someone was there to save me from the woods. That gratefulness was accompanied by a flutter in my belly. Butterflies I immediately squashed.

"Over here!" I called back, turning on the flashlight on my phone and waving it in the air. The light from his own phone found me as he came closer.

"Be careful." I didn't want him making the same mistake I did. We both couldn't be injured down there.

"What happened?" he asked, towering over me.

I couldn't make out his face because his phone was blinding me, but he sounded worried. Something that simple shouldn't have had my heart doing flips.

"I fell," I said, keeping it simple. "And hurt my ankle."

He squatted beside me, his fingertips brushing my leg as he pulled the leg of my jeans up as far as the tiny foot hole would allow. As I watched him examine my ankle, I tried to remember the last time I shaved my legs. I probably had stubble.

A sharp pain pulled me out of my thoughts. He had poked my now swollen ankle, apologizing under his breath when I jerked away from his touch.

"It doesn't look broken, at least." He stood then reached a hand out to me. "Can you stand up?"

"Yeah," I said, accepting his help. "But I didn't want to risk trying to get back up the hill."

"How'd you get down here anyway?"

I sighed, annoyed at the chain of events leading to that moment. "Some guy kept asking me if I wanted to dance and when I said no for the fifth, he took my book and tossed it. I slipped when I came down to find it."

Now that he didn't have his flashlight pointed at my face, I could see the slight amusement on his face, but it was gone in a second. "Where's the book?"

He came to my rescue when I called, yet he was kind of stand-offish. Like he didn't want to be there. His replies to me were short and he avoided eye contact. He was the one spreading rumors. I should've been mad at him, not the other way around.

Now wasn't the time to call him out on it. He was my way of making it back up the hill without dying. I pointed my light up at the tree across from us, where my precious baby was stuck on the branches like a kitten.

Stephen started for the tree. "You don't have to do that," I said, partially afraid he'd fall and break his neck. The book was pretty high up.

He obviously didn't see that as a problem as he jumped up to grab the lowest branch, hauling himself up effortlessly. One of the butterflies must've survived because watching Stephen risk his life for a book, for me, had me wondering if I was too quick to cut him off.