"Hey Vic, where're you going? You just got home from school." I hear Mama ask from downstairs.
I've been lying in bed all day, not wanting to move. I keep thinking about going back to school and it's making me so anxious.
"Beach." Vic replies.
"Honey, can you take Kellin with you? He seems really upset and hasn't gotten out of bed all day." Mama asks.
"Yeah, of course." Vic chirps before I hear footsteps up the stairs.
Soon the door opens and even though I'm facing the wall away from the door, I know it's Vic. I feel the bed dip down as Vic lays down next to me and his arm slides around my waist.
"Hey you." He chirps in my ear.
He's in a good mood which is great. He stopped ignoring me after what happened yesterday.
"Hi." I whisper.
"I missed you today." He smiles.
"You did?" I ask, a smile tugging on my lips.
"I definitely did. And guess who got suspended?" He grins.
"Who?" I mumble.
"Alex. I told Mama what he did to you and she called up the school." He explains.
"Did you tell her what he does to you?" I ask.
He pauses.
"No." He sighs.
"Vic, she should know." I murmur.
"I don't want to worry her anymore. She worries enough." He mumbles.
"She worries because you don't talk to her." I say matter-of-factly.
"I'm having a good day, can we not talk about this, please?" He asks and I nod.
"Sorry." I mumble.
"It's okay. I'm going to the beach and you're coming." He says changing the subject.
"I've never been to the beach." I mumble turning around so I'm finally facing him.
"Obviously because you lived in Oregon. I'll...take you to my...favorite spot. Have you been crying?" He asks and I shrug looking down. Is it that obvious? "What did I tell you?"
A smile falls onto my face and I blush slightly.
"That I'm too gorgeous for tears." I murmur shyly.
"Exactly. Now why have you been crying?" He asks rubbing my cheek with the pad of his thumb.
"I'm just scared about Monday." I shrug.
"Don't think about Monday, okay? We'll deal with Monday on Monday. Right now we're going to have some fun, yeah?" He asks enthusiastically and I nod smiling. "Good, let's go."
He gets up and I follow him as we walk downstairs. We leave the house and get into his car and he drives off, I'm assuming towards the beach.
I smile at the happy grin on his face. I like seeing him happy. I hate it when he's sad.
We pull up at the beach and Vic and I get out of the car. He grabs towels from the trunk before we start walking on the beach. There's not many people here today. Vic's walking towards a wired fence, confusing me but I follow anyway. When we get to the fence, he pulls on it, revealing a hole in the fence where the wire has been cut. It doesn't look like you're supposed to go in there but Vic does anyway and I follow with no objections.
We walk along, through trees and bushes and when we come out the other side, there's a sandy pier. My eyes go wide as Vic grabs my hand and pulls me over to it. About six feet down there's water.
"Pretty cool aye." Vic smiles and I nod. "I come here a lot to think. It's where I went the last week. I'm not sure how many people know this is here but I've never see anyone here before so it's like my own private getaway."
"It's really, just wow." I say in awe.
Vic shoots me a charming smile before he starts taking off his clothes. I have to look away when he takes his shirt off because his body is just so perfect and I shouldn't be thinking about him like that. He strips down to his boxers before he runs and jumps off the pier into the ocean. I look down and he grins as he resurfaces from the water.
"You coming in or what?" He asks with a chuckle.
"Uh, I can't swim." I call back embarrassed.
"It's okay, I'll make sure you don't drown." He chuckles.
"I don't know." I say a little scared.
"You'll be fine, trust me." He smiles and I nod.
I trust him.
"Okay." I call as I begin to get undressed.
I feel a little self-conscious. Vic is really hot and I'm frankly not. He's tan and I'm weirdly pale. He has muscles and I'm scrawny. Maybe this isn't a good idea.
"Hurry up Kells, you're missing out on some fun!" Vic calls and I sigh as I finish getting undressed.
I walk over to the edge of the pier and cover my stomach as Vic looks up at me.
"Come on. It's okay, you can trust me." He says.
I nod and then jump in. I go under water and my heartbeat speeds up but I rise up to the surface and Vic grabs me, pulling me into his arms. I squeal excitingly and wrap my arms around his neck tightly. I can't believe I just did that.
"Viccy don't let me go." I squeal through a laugh, holding onto him tightly as he laughs.
"I won't." He grins and I smile as he carries me through the water just enough for my legs, my butt and a bit of my stomach to be in the water.
I glide my hand through the water watching it make ripples in the glistening ocean. It's so beautiful.
I can feel eyes on me so I look back at Vic only to see him staring back at me blankly. I'm about to ask him why he's staring at me but in a split second his lips are on mine and my insides are exploding. He kisses my lips gently and I want to kiss back but I can't, it's like I'm frozen. There's so many feelings going through me right now and my heart feels like it's going to burst.
Vic pulls away though and looks at me with fear in his eyes.
"I-I, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have, I'm sorry."
He's scared and he's rambling so I push my lips to his to let him know that it's okay. He wastes no time in kissing me again and I follow his lips with mine, not exactly sure what to do because I had only kissed a guy once and I was young. We kiss for a really long time as Vic softly strokes my face and my stomach flips more than it ever has.
When he pulls away, he rests his forehead against mine and his eyes are still closed. My heart races a million miles an hour as I wonder what he's going to say and do next. What if it was just a mistake? He said that he likes girls. What if he was playing a prank on me? Oh god.
He opens his eyes only to push his lips back to mine in a slow short kiss. He pulls away once again and gives me another fearful look. I sigh softly and rest my head on his shoulder.
"What are you thinking?" I mumble, just wanting to know what's going through his head.
"I'm just hoping that you're okay with that." He mumbles. "And I'm hoping that I didn't freak you out because I really like you. And I'm thinking that it was very rude of me to kiss you like that without asking and that I'm sorry."
I process everything he said and I swallow hard.
"Wait, you like me? Like not as a friend?" I ask feeling my stomach clench.
"Yeah, I do. I'm sorry." He whispers.
"No don't be sorry. I like you too, I just thought you were into girls." I explain.
"Uh, do you want to go to the shore so we can talk?" He asks and I nod.
He carries me to a small strip of sand under the pier. He then puts me down.
"I'm going to go back up there and grab our towels then I'll be back." He says and I nod.
He then disappears to get the towels and returns very soon, also with a bottle sunscreen. He lays them down on the sand then he takes my hands and we sit down.
"I got you sunscreen. You're so pail. You never went outside much, did you?" He asks and I shake my head. "Then the sun is probably going to burn you alive. You should put some sunscreen on."
He hands me the bottle and I feel some tension between us as I begin applying it. I reach around my back, where I can feel the sun hitting most but I can't really get all of it.
"Uh, I can help." Vic murmurs.
He takes the bottle from my hands and I give him a nod.
He squeezes some sunscreen onto his hand before he spreads it across my back. He's being so gentle like if he pushed any harder then he'd break me. His fingers linger a little longer than they should on one spot and then I realize that he's touching the welts from my dad's belt. I intake a sharp breath and flinch a little as he begins tracing them. He drops his hand when I flinch.
"I'm sorry." He apologizes.
"It's okay." I whisper.
He puts down the sunscreen seeming to have finished so I turn back to him.
"Okay, so I don't like girls, never have. I lied to you because I panicked and I'm sorry." He explains.
"It's okay but why didn't you just tell me the truth?" I ask. I'm not bothered that he didn't tell me, I'm just curious as to why he didn't.
"A few reasons. I don't want Mama and Papa to know and I was scared that you were going to tell them. I'd feel bad too because I didn't want to ask you to keep another secret but I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell them." He says looking at me hopefully but also scared.
"No of course not." I say reassuringly and he lets out a sigh of relief.
"Thank you and there's another reason. Alex and I used to be best friends then I told him that I was gay and he hated me. He thought I was into him, which I wasn't but he told the entire school that I was and now everyone hates me and I get bullied and beat up a lot and I was just scared to tell you because I didn't want to lose another friend." He concludes and I frown.
"Alex hates you because you're gay?" I ask, teary-eyed and Vic nods.
I wrap my arms around him and close my eyes tightly, stopping the tears from falling.
"He hates you and you get bullied for it and you can't talk to someone because you don't want Mama and Papa to know so you bottle it up and hurt yourself." I choke out, putting all that together pretty fast.
"Kellin, it's okay." He whispers and I shake my head pulling away.
"It's not. Not even nearly." I sniff.
He sighs and lies back on the towel.
"Come here." He whispers, opening his arms.
I move into them, lying down and resting my head on his still wet chest as he wraps his arms around me.
"I'm sorry that I distanced myself from you. I realised that I really like you and I thought you wouldn't like me back so I just wanted to distance myself and see if these feelings went away." He explains.
I smile and start drawing circles around his bellybutton.
"It's okay." I whisper.
"So do you actually like me back?" He asks and I nod, smiling up at him.
"Like a lot." I blush.
"Well, can I kiss you again?" He asks and I nod, leaning up a little more so he can press his lips to mine.
My stomach does flippy things as we kiss. I don't think it'll settle down any time soon. Vic soon pulls away and looks at me with adoration, a look that I only dreamt to see.
"You really are gorgeous." He murmurs and I blush more than I ever have.
"Really? I am?" I ask in disbelief.
"Yep, you definitely are." He whispers before placing a kiss on my nose.
"But I'm like...not." I mumble confused.
"What do you mean? You're incredibly fucking gorgeous." He says sounding as confused as me.
"You're like really hot and I'm nothing like you. I'm weird and pale and I'm too skinny. My hair's really gross and my eyes are just plain blue. I'm not gorgeous." I explain.
"Kellin, your skin is like porcelain. It's really clear and it's beautiful. You might be too skinny but that'll be fixed after you eat normally for a bit. Besides, it doesn't affect your beauty in any way. I happen to really like your hair and your eyes are just plain blue. They're a beautiful turquoise on a normal day and on a rainy day they turn a beautiful gray and on a really sunny day they sometimes go bright green. Plus they're really big and they have a little twinkle in them when you smile. You're gorgeous." He explains making my heart skip a few beats.
"Thank you, I didn't know those things. I thought I was just really generic and boring." I mumble truthfully.
"Oh darling, you're anything but boring." He grins and my breath hitches as he says darling.
He tilts my chin up and presses his lips to mine again. We kiss for a while and Vic gives me another adoring look when he pulls away.
"You know for someone who has only ever kissed someone once, you're an amazing kisser." He says and I blush again.
I was really scared that I'd do something wrong.
The next few hours fly by. Vic and I talk and kiss and it feels like we're the only people in the world. We watch the sun set then it gets dark and Vic suggests that we go home. He drives us home, we stop at McDonalds on the way and by the time we're home it's late and Mama and Papa have already gone to bed.
We go up to our room and just as I'm about to get into my bed, Vic tugs on my hand and pulls me close to him before he kisses me again. I don't think I'll ever get used to him kissing me. When he pulls away, he pulls me over to his bed and we get in. He holds me close to him as he stares into my eyes.
"Kellin, will you be my boyfriend?" He asks and I want to squeal but I don't.
I press my lips to his and kiss him quickly before I pull away.
"Yes." I whisper and he grins before kissing my forehead.
"Get some sleep." He says and I nod but it ends up taking me hours to fall asleep because I can't get him off of my mind.