Random of Random

Fireworks and Sparklers

I watched my feet as we walked through his yard. It  was nice out, actually. Not too hot and not too cool and the sky overhead was dark and twinkling with stars, the moon glowed down in us. “Hey, are you okay?” Alec asked and I looked up at him.

Alec’s brunette hair had a glow to it as the tiki torches light up the huge patch of land on which all of our houses were built. His blue eyes looked down at me, amused and concerned at the same time, and I saw myself reflected in them. I saw how I looked in his eyes. I was the nerd girl on the volleyball team that just so happened to be his neighbor. I was petite and small and fragile in his eyes. And most of all, I wasn’t Rachel.

I looked away from Alec and kept walking, up the stairs and onto his deck. I leaned against the railing and looked down the way into the Richmond’s yard where my dad was helping set up the fireworks. Alec’s pool below us was reflecting the moon’s light and the water cast blue designs over my arms and face.

“Sometimes,” I started after what felt like a forever long silence, “I want to spike a volleyball in your face. You know? Because you just seem to know how to press all my buttons until I snap.” I was quiet again, my eyes moving from the fireworks to the pool. The water was clear and I could see eight feet down to the bottom where a couple sinking toys rested.

“Kasey,” Alec was a few steps away from me, leaning against his house and watching me curiously.

“And sometimes,” I continued, a small smile forming on my lips as my mind projected memories from the summer onto the pool surface. When Alec and I first met, when he threw me in his pool, the few times when he’d complimented me. “Sometimes I just want to kiss you.” The smile dropped off my face and my mind projected an image of Alec with Rachel’s arms wrapped around his neck and his lips locked on hers, a memory of Alec with his face red and just an inch from mine as he yelled at me. “But I know you won’t kiss me back.”

I was quiet but I felt Alec push off the wall and come towards me. He gently took my arm and turned me to face him. His eyes were confident as he looked at me from the five inch difference and those wonderful blue eyes that so often held me captive searched my face. I have no idea what he was looking for, but he must have found it because he smiled down at me-an actual smile. “And what makes you think I won’t kiss you back?”

His hand raised from his side and brushed my cheek. His one finger trailed from my left temple down my jaw until he held my chin gently between his thumb and forefinger. “Maybe, all summer, I’ve wanted to kiss you but I’ve been scared of how you’d react.”

I moved my eyes from his. “Don’t give me hope like that, Alec.” He made a sound, like a hum or an airy groan, and I looked back at him. His eyes were half closed and focused on my lips.

“Say my name again.”

“Alec?” and then there were fireworks. Literally. The boom of the colorful displays made us both jump away from each other. I looked at Alec and then up to the sky and the red and blue colors sparkled. Another whistle and clap produced gold and purple fireflies crackling gin the sky. For a moment, I was lost in the fireworks display and smile slipped onto my face. For a moment, I forgot about the tension between Alec and I . But I knew that the second the gunpowder stopped producing colorful designs in the sky, I’d have to face him and whatever friendship we’d built wouldn’t be the same.