| CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
| it's you
ɴᴏʟᴀɴ ᴍᴜʟʟᴇɴ
It had become really hard to know what he was thinking lately. There were fragments of moments where he was smiling, his eyes were sparkling and he was practically stuck to my side. But then there also were these moments where he stared with dull eyes at the plain white ceiling, nearly unresponsive to anything I said.
"Are you hungry?" I asked him for the second time in a row. He looked at me, and shook his head.
He continued fiddling with the comforter between his fingers.
"I couldn't sleep last night," he admitted.
"And why do you think that is?" I asked him.
"It's like my brain wants to sabotage me."
That feeling wasn't unfamiliar to me. Self-sabotage was the thing I was best at after all. The constant doubts on whether I was good enough for anything.
"Things were so perfect until they weren't. I woke up in the middle of the night and suddenly I'm just..."
He sighed and looked at me. "You know what? I'll be fine."
"Are you sure?" I asked him. I reached out for his hand, and he took it without hesitation. He nodded.
"I want to see the beach," he told me.
I grinned and pulled at his arm, trying to get him out of the bed.
"Come on, then. Maybe we can get in the water for a bit."
"Get in the water?"
"Yeah, let's go," I said, pulling harder. He finally succumbed and let me drag him out of the bed, but not without dramatically rolling onto the floor. I guessed he didn't think it through, because he groaned as he hit the floor with a loud thump.
"I thought you liked me," he said, looking up at me from the floor, rubbing the part of his arm on which he fell.
"I'll like you a lot better once you get up off your ass," I said, and he finally got up, slowly but surely.
He held into my hand as I dragged him outside, and I watched him as after our few minute run, he stood on the edge of the stairs, looking down at the beach.
"I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it," he said, a smile growing as he looked at me. "I meant that in the best way possible. I haven't seen a beach in years."
The beach had a staircase going down to it from the yard up here, these stairs were the only way to get into the beach that didn't require a boat as the rest of it were all rocks. The beach had basically become private this way, especially since no one really knew this place was there, apart from the cleaners and my parents.
"Then that means you haven't been in the water for a while either." Neither had I, but mentally I was already jumping from excitement.
"It's gonna be cold as fuck," he said as we made our way down. He squeezed my hand tightly and walked down carefully, like he needed my support.
"I thought you wanted this," I challenged him.
"I did, but I forgot how cold the water would be," he said.
"We could just dip our feet in," I suggested. He nodded, and we finally hit the sand. I took off my shoes first, and I closed my eyes as my feet hit the sand. Oakley followed as I already was walking towards the water. I didn't mind the cold, but Oakley was still standing at the very end where the water couldn't quite reach.
"Come on," I said, waving at him to come. He looked at me with eyes wide open, like the water scared him, so I walked back up to him.
"It's cold, but it's nice," I told him, taking both his hands in mine and slowly guiding him in. He shivered as the water came to his ankles, lightly wetting the fabric of the sweatpants he was wearing.
"It's really not that nice," he told me.
"I think it is," I said, standing closer to him. "You don't like it?"
"That's not it," he said. "I like this a lot. I like being here with you and I like you. This is just... it's cold," he said with an awkward chuckle.
"Okay, we can leave," I told him. "Let's have breakfast, then."
I was about to walk away, but before I knew it, I was pulled into the deeper end, and now I was suddenly on my knees, everything up to my waist in the water as Oakley laughed—as though he wasn't also wet up to his knees.
"Oakley! You said it was too cold!"
He continued laughing, so I did the only thing I could think of: I pushed him. He fell backwards into the water and for a second he disappeared underneath it, but then he came back up, the frizzy mop of hair now laid flat with curls dripping off.
In revenge, he pulled at my leg, and that's how our war began. Both of us laughing and shivering as we pulled each other in and tried to make it back out.
Everything was perfect. The sun shining down on us, the very cool water, the person. It was all perfect until his face contorted in a scrunch that looked rather painful.
"Are you okay?" I asked him, forcing my legs through the heavy weight of the water to get to him quickly.
"Mhm," he said, nodding as he walked out of the water. But right as he did, little spots of red liquid spread over his t-shirt around his abdomen. It looked gruesome, and if it hadn't been for his calm demeanor, I would've been freaking the fuck out. "Ow, fuck," he swore, quickly walking towards the stairs.
"Hey, slow down. Did you cut yourself on something?" I asked, catching up with him. He nodded, and I grabbed his arm and put it around my shoulders so I could carry some of his weight.
"Yeah," he said, putting his free hand on the place the stain was currently growing. We sat down on the stairs, and he kept his hand on the cut.
"Let me see," I said, gently pushing his hand away, but he shook his head.
"It's not that big of a cut. I'll be fine," he told me.
"Yeah, but we don't want it to get infected. Let's go wash it out and put a bandaid on it," I suggested. He looked at me, his dark brown eyes piercing through me, but he nodded.
"Yeah, fine. Okay," he said, and I helped him up the stairs.
We made our way to the house slowly, and I dragged him into one of the guest bedrooms, whichever one was closer, and pulled out a first aid kit.
"Let's wash it out under the shower first," I told him, checking to see if everything I needed was in the box. None of the bandaids the kit provided looked large enough to cover the wound, judging by the pattern it had left on the shirt. But there was some gauze, and some cotton pads, so we could treat it with those.
"Can I see it?" I asked him, turning around only to find him standing there with his back facing me.
"I'll be fine," he told me. "You're still drenched in seawater, you go take a shower in your bathroom and I'll take care of this myself."
"Are you sure?" I asked him. He nodded, so I left the bathroom and brought him a change of clothes which I left on the spare bed before doing as he suggested.
•••
"What do you want for breakfast?" I asked when he came into my room.
"What are the options?"
Before we left my house, I actually got to raid my kitchen for some food. Not everything, as my mom also needed to eat, but enough to get us through a day without having to go grocery shopping.
"I've got everything I need to make pancakes, or we can keep it simple and do some eggs."
"I'm kind of craving a sunny side up right now," he said. "Do you need help?"
"Can you help?" I asked him, to which he nodded awkwardly. "You can sit back and relax, I'll take care of breakfast."
"When my dad makes my breakfast, he makes me do at least one thing myself, even if it's just pouring some water," he told me.
"Well, I'm your—" boyfriend, I almost said. I caught myself slipping just in time, but my face heated up quickly. "I'm not your dad. Today you sit here and chill out. Especially after that cut."
"It was just a scratch," he said. "But thank you, because I am a horrible cook and would probably burn down the entire kitchen."
He sat down at the small round dining table, pulling out his phone as I prepared his breakfast. Oil in the pan, an egg, with the bread in the toaster.
"You sound like you know what you're doing," he said as I cracked the egg in the pan.
"Frying an egg is probably the easiest thing ever," I told him. "What does your dad usually let you do?"
"It's things I can't fuck up, like crushing the garlic, or putting water to boil," he said. "Where did you learn to cook anyway?"
"I mainly taught myself. I didn't have any interest in it until I was sorta forced to do it."
He frowned, resting his head on the table as he looked at me. "How were you forced?"
"It's my own fault. I didn't like my babysitter when I was ten, so I convinced my parents I was responsible enough to be home alone. We all forgot that meant I had to cook my own food, so I followed those step-by-step tutorials for my favorite foods until they became habit, and then I started experimenting with it more. I only started baking once I got older, though. It's a lot more precise."
Our eggs were finished right when the toast was, so I assembled our food on the plates and poured Oakley some hot water for herbal tea, which he apparently hated but was used to drinking after.
"It's phenomenal," he said with a grin full of halfway chewed toast. "Simple, yet sophisticated. I love how it's crisped on the edges, perfect salt to pepper balance, amazing."
I smiled, realizing that even though most of my friends had eaten something I'd baked before and praised me for that, I never had anyone praise anything I'd cooked. My parents never paid any mind to it, and I didn't recall ever making Ava or Keith anything. "Seems like food critic is also still in the books for you."
He shrugged. "I'm fully convinced I'm amazing at everything I do."
"That's a lot of confidence you're showing there."
"I can do anything I put my mind to. Most kids brush their parents off when they say it, but I always took that to heart."
His parents seemed like such a hard contrast with mine. They encouraged him to pursue what he wanted whereas mine seemed indifferent. I could've ended up doing nothing and they wouldn't have cared, as long as I'm alive.
"Your parents sound amazing," I told him.
"They are," he said. "They might not always understand, but they try."
We finished our breakfast in silence, and Oakley got up first.
"I know I need to go home, but I really like this. I think I would've liked this to be forever," he said.
"I knew you'd love this place."
"It's not just this place or the beach, it's you. I like being here with you."
I smiled. It was embarrassing how these cheesy things he was saying could make me this happy.
"Then maybe I'll take you here more often."
•••
After Oakley and I reached my place, we sat in my car for a little longer.
"Do you really not want to stay for dinner?"
"I can't. Apparently I have some meeting tonight with my label, talking about where to go from here."
"What? You didn't tell me about that."
"Mason just texted me about it." He leaned his head back and groaned. "God, I really don't want to do this."
"At least don't make them talk you into doing something you don't want to do," I said. "You're human, not a robot."
"I know. Thank you. I'll just go home and talk to my mom for a bit before going there." He opened the door, and only now that a light breeze hit my face, did it feel like the end to our little adventure.
"We'll talk later," he promised me, getting into his own car. I watched as he started, and watched him leave, before I finally got into my house with a smile on my face.
"I didn't see your car," I told my mom, who was sipping on some drink on the couch.
"Who's the friend you keep bringing over?" she asked, ignoring my comment about not seeing her car.
"What?"
"The car in the driveway."
"You could always just check the cameras," I mumbled. I didn't think she'd care much about my privacy, but apparently she did at least a little.
"Would you want me to?"
That was a great point.
"It's Oakley," I told her, looking up from my food. "I met him when shooting Genevieve's music video. Just went to the beach house with him."
"The singer that couldn't finish the tour?" she asked.
"Yeah, his manager and record label are both shit."
"Hm, I'm glad you made a new friend," she said, though clearly there was something else too. Her sentence was open ended.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Okay," I said. Apparently it wasn't important enough for her to really talk about it. "I've been invited to a Halloween party at Genevieve's." Oakley invited me since his birthday was the day after. He said she'd make it some hybrid Halloween/birthday thing since he was turning twenty.
"Are you going?"
"Yeah, I think so. It's on Friday. I don't have anything planned on Saturday, do I?"
"No, you're free to go. But don't forget, Sunday you have that audition." It was the audition I'd told Oakley about. I didn't get much practice during the weekend, but I could work on it during my breaks.
"Maybe you should invite some friends."
"Oakley is going," I told her.
"I mean, some from work. It's important to network, remember?"
It had been ingrained in my head ever since I was five years old, and it's the reason my mom makes me leave my phone behind every single morning, but it's been progressively getting harder ever since.
"I remember," I said. "I'll ask Maria." I could sort of consider her my friend. It didn't seem like she had much of a Kylan-painted view of me like Mylo did. Maria seemed more careful, taking anyone else's judgment with a grain of salt and putting in efforts to make her own.
"If you ask her, I might allow you to take your phone to work again," my mom said.
"Thanks," I said. I'd been so used to it by now that it didn't matter that much anyway.
She didn't say anything else, so I walked away. It was fine though. I was nothing new.