I Found You // Clay LaBrant

20

"LET'S GO SWIMMING!" Chandler yells and runs past me in his swim trunks.
I laugh and run with him to the LaBrant household. We get there in less than a minute and we're out of breath when we get there.
"Somebody is eager to swim, Clay smiles at me. I ignore his smile and run to the backyard and hop onto Jack's back, which causes us both to fall into the pool.
"Really, Adalyn," he starts to laugh really hard and splashes me with water.
"Uhm, Jack, who is this," a girl snips at me and walks to the edge of the pool.
"Jealous much?" I ask and pull myself over the edge of the pool and walk over to Cole, who is doing a younow.
"Somebody is feisty," Cole laughs and I wave to the screen.
"Aye, what did we say last time about being nice when Adalyn shows up," Cole makes a frowny face and caresses my face.
"Weirdo!" I exclaim and stick my tongue out at him.
"Let's play chicken!" Jack suddenly yells and picks me back up and places me on his shoulder. He jumps into the pool and surprisingly lands straight.
Clay gets on Cole's shoulders and the match is about to start.
"But I'm not-" I'm cut short because cold hands push me off of Jack and we both fall, causing us to be submerged by water.
Suddenly, everything comes back to when I almost drowned as a child and lost my memory.
I stop breathing.
Everything goes black and I begin to hear to females scream my name. One being my adoptive mother, Hannah. The other, my real mother.
"ADALYN!" they scream in unison. I hear a groan and somebody falls into the waves, I think.
Cold hands pick me up and I'm brought out of the water, but I still can't see. Everything is pitch black.
Next thing I know, I'm awake in a hospital room with Hannah beside me and I don't remember anything .
I wake up on the hot concrete and spit up water. Clay is sitting beside my crying and everybody is looking at me, relieved that I'm awake and breathing.
"I'm so sorry Adalyn, I didn't think you'd fall. I never meant to hurt you, I'm so sorry," Clay cries and picks up my hand.
I look at him weirdly and try to sit up. I instantly regret it and become dizzy.
"It's okay, Clay," I whisper and try to ignore my major headache.
"I'll carry you inside and fix you something to eat," he says and helps me up. Everybody stays silent and watches us walk into the house.
"Clay, why all of a sudden did everything come back?" I ask. I shouldn't be talking to him about my problems, but he's the only person , besides the whole LaBrant family, who knows what really happened.
"What came back, Ady," he asks and hands me a sandwich.
"My memory of when I almost drowned," I say and tear a piece of the sandwich off.
"I don't know, I really don't," he sighs and hands me a glass of apple juice. Isn't he obsessed with this stuff?
I eat the sandwich slowly and sit in silence. Awkward silence.
"Clay, why all of a sudden do you have a mood change towards me?" I ask.
"Adalyn, you're the only girl I've been nervous around and I don't act like my normal self around you because I'm scared you'd reject me," he sighs and takes a sip of apple juice and shoves a donut into his mouth.
"Oh," is all I can manage to mutter.
"I'm going to go back home," I speak and stand up abruptly.
In effect because of that I fall and Clay comes to help me stand up.
"Take it slow, Adalyn. I'll walk you home if you're alright with that," he says and holds my hand.
This feels right, but it feels wrong.
---
When we get to my house he insists to stay with me and the awkwardness from earlier is gone.
"Do you want skittles?" he asks and throws a bag at me.
"Well thanks, Clay!" I laugh and open the bag, popping a few into my mouth. Clay comes back a couple minutes later and it looks like he robbed my pantry of all the junk food.
"I'm a growing boy!" he laughs and ignores my weird looks.

Maybe I did judge him too quickly.