Nightspell || Michael Clifford

Chapter 2

'Bailey?' There was a knock on my door.
'Hold on a sec!' I replied, quickly strapping my leg in my leg brace before opening the door.
I had a habit of taking it off when I wasn't planning on going anywhere for a while and in moments like these that was a very inconvenient habit.
'Hello stranger.' I smiled as I opened the door.
'Hey, you want to go dive in the pool with me?' Matt asked.
I looked at him, the dress pants and Green day shirt he had worn a few days ago were now replaced with swim shorts and flip-flops.
'I need to hide away from my parents and I know they won't go near the pool. Wait can you swim?' he asked, looking down at my legs.
I smiled and nodded. 'I'll just have to take the brace off and we can't go very deep I need to be able to stand.'
Matt nodded understandably.
'Why do you have it?' he asked as he followed me inside my cabin.
He sat down on the edge of my bed as I rummaged through my suitcase, searching for my bikini.
I deeply regretted not shaving my legs the day before but there wasn't much I could do about it now.
'My knee collapses when I walk and my muscles aren't as strong as they should.' I explained as I stood up, bikini in hand.
'I'll be right back' I said before disappearing into the bathroom.
I changed into my bikini as fast as I could and looked at my right leg.
There was a big scar right above my knee from where the car had crushed it. I still woke up feeling the pain sometimes, as if it was happening all over again.
'Where even is the pool?' I asked as I walked out of the bathroom and tied my hair up in a ponytail.
'It's on the deck. Somewhere in the middle.' Matt smiled, watching my leg carefully.
I nodded, finding my room keys, sunglasses, and a towel and looked at him.
'Let's go.'
Matt nodded, tearing his gaze away from my leg.
We walked out of my cabin and made our way to the pool.
'Where are your parents now?' I asked, looking around to find them even though I had never seen them before.
'I don't know. They told me something about meeting some important guy and I practically ran of saying I had other important things to do.'
I nodded and a short silence fell upon us.
'Can I ask how exactly we're going to do this? With your leg?' Matt asked eventually.
I looked at him and smiled 'I'm just going to take the brace off and leave it with our towels.'
'But how are you going to walk from our towels to the pool without the brace?'
'With your help.' I stated.
We reached the pool and dropped our towels on 2 chairs.
I sat down and started unstrapping my leg.
'How do I help you with that exactly?' Matt asked, sounding a little nervous.
I pulled the brace of my leg and put it on the chair behind me as I stood up and looked at him.
'Just come stand on this side,' I said, pointing to my right.
Matt followed my instructions and stood on my right side as I took his left hand and placed it around my waist.
'Just pretend I'm injured because that's how I'm going to be stumbling forward.' I said as I wrapped my own arm around his waist and looked up at him.
He was looking down at me, his mouth slightly agape as he was mindlessly inspecting my face.
'What?' I asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.
He shook his head in attempt to physically shake off what he was thinking about.
'Nothing, let's just get to the pool.' Matt smiled, the look in his eyes was different from what it was before, darker but not in a threatening way.
I hated moving without my leg brace, I felt helpless. My leg felt useless and that was one of the few things I was still struggling with since the accident, just the idea of not being able to move myself around if I didn't use the brace.
I started moving us forward, Matt's hand squeezed my waist as his arm muscles flexed to keep me up.
Our chairs were close to the pool so it only took us a few steps to get there.
Once we reached the edge of the pool, Matt looked at me again.
'Now what?' he asked.
I looked at the water in front of me, the last time I had gone out to swim was when my coach had told me it would help improve my muscles.
The pool started off with a small amount of water at one end and gradually became deeper and deeper the closer you got to the other end.
We were standing in the middle of the pool, where I should be able to stand.
'Now I'm going to sit down,' I started as I took Matt's hand in mine and used it to help me sit down more easily. 'And you jump in the pool and catch me when I let myself fall in because I'm not taking any risks. I need someone to help me out if the water turns out to be deeper than I expect it to be.'
Matt nodded and jumped in. The water reached just below his shoulders which meant I should be able to stand as well seeing as he was just a little bit taller than me.
Matt held out his arms and I allowed myself to fall into the water.
Carefully trying to stand on my feet, I held on to Matt's upper arms as his hands were holding on to my waist tightly. As if he was afraid I would be pulled under water if he let go.
I smiled as I looked up at him, the sun shining down on his face. Making his black hair and brown eyes stand out to me.
His pink lips suddenly felt like a magnet, one that my eyes couldn't stop staring it once I was taking a good look at them.
It took me by surprise and I only realized I was staring when he started talking.
'Can you stand?' he asked.
I blinked and nodded, still holding on to his arms.
To say I was scared would be a lie, but I didn't really enjoy it yet either.
Matt seemed to notice my hesitation to let go and smiled, pulling me a little closer to him.
One of his hands let go of my waist as it brushed through the water and before I could fully realize what he was doing, he splashed the cold water in my face.
I gasped, and looked up at his bright smile.
Feeling brave, I let go of his biceps and splashed some water his way.
I had never been very good in splashing other people, mainly because my hands were small so I couldn't get as much water to one place as someone with bigger hands could.
When I was little, I always fixed this by getting on my back and kicking the water to the other person but that was no longer an option either.
'Wow, that was threatening.' Matt laughed, wiping just a few drops of water from his chin.