That Summer - Jure Maček

The Cave

It's around midnight by the time we're all sick of playing truth or dare.

I make the mistake of pulling out my phone to check the time, but when I realise I will see the message Vic has sent me, it's already too late.

My eyes meet with the: "??????" on the screen.

That's it? All that time being afraid, and after all, all he's sent is just some question marks. I sigh and turn my phone back off.

"Has that person replied yet?" Jure asks me after.

"Uhh no. He probably won't respond at all," I lie, and chuckle.

"You sent that to a guy?" Jure laughs but seems surprised about this.

"Yeah, Vic. He's a.. good friend of mine back where I live,"

"You don't sound so sure of that," what is he trying to say with this?

"It doesn't matter,"

After taking enough shots to kill a grown ass man, Lucia has gotten up to dance with Bojan. They've been at it for quite some time now, and I think it's clear to everyone that they will most likely be ending up going to one of our hotel rooms together. Just.. hopefully not ours.

Lauren and Nace are sitting and talking on the other side of the now smothered campfire, and Jan and Kris have taken one of the drinking games from our bag, and are getting more drunk by the minute. 

Which leaves half sober, boring me, probably taunting Jure. I can't imagine he'd rather sit here with me than having some fun with someone else.

"If you want you can go talk to someone else," I suggest. He meets my eyes and frowns.

"Why would I want that?"

I don't know what happened tonight. This whole vacation I've been a drunk, happy woman and now I meet this great guy and I mess up.

All I've been doing is complaining about my fear of heights, worrying about what Vic might think, and panic about seemingly having a crush on a stranger.

"I don't know," I chuckle.

Jure looks around him and gets up. At first I think he's going to ask me to dance with him. But instead he leads the way to the exit of the cliff.

"I know a fun place, come on!" he shouts, walking downwards.

I follow him.

"You're not going to murder me are you?" I ask him, while we're halfway down. I laugh while saying it, but it's kind of a serious question.

"What? No, just trust me," he chuckles. This is the second time he has said that tonight, and I survived the first. So, I conclude, I will be fine.

We get down to the other side of the cliff, not the side we swam to when we jumped down. It's a rough climb to wherever he's taking me, and seeing the aggressive waves crash onto the shore around me makes me wish I wore better shoes today.

I look down at my cheap flip-flops, which are squishing and slipping away every step I take on the slippery rocks.

I look back up, to see if there's any clues about where we're going yet, and that's when I start to slip. Jure looks back at the right moment and manages to catch me before going down.

I nervously chuckle. "Thanks," 

"Yeah, maybe I should have told you to be careful," he laughs.

"We're almost there now," he points a little way ahead of him, and that's when I see it. There's a small cave rounded into the cliff, which is just reachable with the tides right now.