Nightspell || Michael Clifford

Chapter 15

'I feel disgusting.' I groaned when we finally walked out of the forest.
We had been walking through it for the biggest part of the day and although it was fun, I was sweaty and it was hot and I felt gross.
Michael grinned and pointed at the ocean.
'There's your shower if you want to take one. Or...more like a bath. Just be aware of the fact that there's animals in there that you could step on.'
I looked at the ocean in front of us as I followed Michael back to he cabin.
It looked inviting, but at the same time I was a little scared to get into the water, I hadn't been in the ocean ever since I almost drowned in it.
'It might be a good idea to go and take your clothes with you. Just so they've been washed as well.' Michael said, dropping all his stuff inside and coming back outside to look at the ocean.
'I haven't been in there since I just barely made it out alive.' I mumbled, looking at my fingers as they anxiously started playing with each other.
'Are you afraid to go in? You don't have to go in very deep. I'm going to check if we have some fish to eat tonight so you don't have to worry about me seeing you naked.'
I smiled and looked up at him 'You already have but I think I should be okay. Except my leg brace can't get wet and I can't really walk into the water on my own without it.'
'Eh...' Michael hummed, switching his gaze from me, to the ocean and back at me. 'I can help you in.' he said, before telling me to take off my shoes.
I did as he said, wondering what his plan was.
When my shoes were off, he took my hand in his and lead me to the shoreline.
'Take off your leg brace.' He said, his hand still tightly holding onto mine.
I quickly took it off and carefully laid it down in the sand.
'Do you want me to carry you in or are you going to stumble your own way in?'
'I'm stumbling my way in.' I grinned. I wrapped my arm around Michael's waist, flashbacks suddenly overwhelming me as I thought about Matt and how he had helped me inside the swimming pool.
Michael wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me out of the flashback when he started talking. 'Ready?' he asked.
I nodded and as Michael took a step forward, I stumbled forward as well.
The semi-cold water of the ocean cooled down my feet and I was surprisingly relieved.
'How far do you want to go?' Michael asked, when the water reached half way up our calves.
'Knee deep I think?' I replied. We kept walking, or in my case stumbling, until I was knee deep in the water and then we stopped.
'Alright, the beach is very clean here so you don't have to be worried about deadly Rays or stonefish but if you spot something that's swimming in your direction you need to move back as fast as you can. Shark attacks can actually happen in knee deep water. Though I've never seen a shark around the island before.'
'That makes me feel awfully safe.' I grinned as I let go of Michael's waist and looked at our feet in the water.
'Sorry,' Michael laughed 'You don't have to feel threatened by it I just need you to be aware of it. You'll be fine don't worry. I'm gonna go see if I can find you a branch so you can get yourself out off the water when you want to.' He said, before carefully letting go of me.
I nodded and watched as he turned around and made his way to the forest.
A sigh left my slightly parted lips as I sat down, the water reached just a little below my collarbones and I couldn't be more happy to feel the water wash off all the dried up sweat and dirt that was sticking to my body.
A few minutes passed and Michael came back with a big branch before announcing that he would be gone for about an hour to an hour and a half.
I watched him as he left and as soon as I felt he was far enough away I pulled the dirty shirt and underwear off my body and used them to sit down on.
I watched the ocean spread out in front of me.
The soft, innocent waves making me sway back and forth every once in a while. It was very calming and enjoyable and I felt surprisingly free.
Eventually I decided it would be best if I would get out so that me and my clothes would have some time to dry before Michael would come back.
So I quickly leaned back to "wash" my hair and sat back up.
I tried scrubbing off a few stains that I had created in the shirt but most of them didn't leave completely.
When I was done, I grabbed the branch and used it to pull myself up and stumble back out of the water. It wasn't practical at all but I knew there were no other options.
I could wait for Michael to come back and have him help me out but I wasn't really planning on showing him my naked self again.
Once I was out of the water, I decided to drop my clothes on the small step there was in front of the cabin and let it dry.
I felt vulnerable now though, I felt much less safe then when I was in the water and after contemplating whether or not I should go back in the water, I couldn't really find a reason why I shouldn't.
I couldn't put my clothes on yet anyway so if Michael were to come back now he would see more then if I would still be in the water.
So I clumsily stumbled back and eventually sat back down in the ocean again.
The water wasn't cold but it was cold enough to feel refreshing. Cold enough to slow down your worries and cold enough to make you feel relaxed. Especially after a hot, busy day like this. Though I felt like a lot of days where like this and to be honest I didn't know if my leg could take much more right now.
Both my legs hurt from using them almost non-stop for the last 2 days. Especially my right leg, the damaged one, felt weaker than it did before.
For some reason, this made me think about my parents.
When I had just had the accident and the doctor said my leg might be paralyzed forever, my parents had kind of...disowned me for a while. They hired a nurse to take care of me so they didn't have to do it themselves.
They had started seeing me as a burdain and I didn't want Michael to feel the same way.
Of course he didn't know me before I had the leg brace but either way, my right leg couldn't handle as much walking as it should be able to and because of that, the muscles in my left leg weren't what they used to be either.
Even after the doctor told us that it would be best for me to start walking more and allow my body to get used to more activities, my parents insisted on having someone bring me to school and take me back home, when I was at school I was not allowed to walk the stairs, I had to be in my first class 5 minutes early and leave 5 minutes after everyone else because they were afraid someone might bump against me and I'd fall over. And I did fall over, but that was mostly because by the time I was sick of all these rules, the muscles in my legs had gotten used to this routine, I no longer needed to be aware of other students possibly bumping into me so I stopped developing those skills. I didn't have a good balance anymore and I blamed my parents for that.
Sure they thought they were taking care of me by making these rules, but it didn't help me.
It also didn't help that they didn't allow me to walk to the grocery store or to the mall. That would've been a good excersise. The doctor even suggested that I started taking a lot of short walks. But my parents always thought they knew better.
Maybe because of that it was even harder for me to walk through the forest here.
Maybe I wouldn't be this tired if they would've listened to the experts, and to me.
Sadly though, these were just "Maybe's" and the reality was that I couldn't walk the forest for 2 days and I'd have to tell Michael.
I didn't want to tell him, I didn't want to seem weak or as if I was exaggerating.
Was I exaggerating? Maybe I just felt like this because I was tired from walking all day.
Maybe I would feel better tomorrow.
Besides, I didn't want to spend my day just sitting inside the cabin again. I wanted to do something, I wanted to be useful. But Michael would probably not allow me to come with him again if I admitted I was tired.