CHAPTER 23: MIDNIGHT SWIM
Saturday, June, 3rd 2017 - ???, California
Harry parked the car on the side of the street behind us. We sit in silence, simply enjoying each others company. The only sounds are the waves that roll up the beach only to disappear the next second and a few cars rushing by in the background. Every now and then a bird appears and chirps.
A refreshing breeze blows around and makes the warm night slightly more cool. A salty taste lingers in the air. Harry and I sit on the small stone wall and stare out at the ocean. I dig around in the dry and warm sand with my bare feet.
"When do you wanna go back?" Harry speaks up and when I turn my head to look at him, he still gazing up at the stars.
"Go back to where?"
"Sam and co. You know, join the others."
"We've been gone for like two days. I don't wanna go back yet."
"But your birthday is tomorrow. That was the reason why we all went on this road trip in the first place," Harry explains and finally looks at me, "Sam planned this for you. This is his birthday present for you and we...we just left."
"If you regret leaving so much then you can go back to them. I don't wanna see Sam right now. He gives me a headache." I mumble and look away. It feels like Harry's green eyes burn holes into my skin.
"You don't love him, do you?"
"I don't think I do anymore." I shake my head, "I don't think if I ever did."
"I don't think—I think I don't love Jess either." Harry confesses quietly and I hastily look at him but he turns his head away, denying eye contact with me.
Harry doesn't love Jess? They always look like they are in love so to hear now that he doesn't even love her is shocking news. Harry himself seems embarrassed to admit it.
"Not at all?" I ask carefully. I can't blame him for fooling Jess when I did the same to Sam.
"I care for her. Jess is sweet and my parents love her. She is a great girlfriend, a bit clingy. I had fun with her but—," Harry stops himself, "I don't think I was ready to fall for someone else yet so that's why I don't love Jess."
"So you've been in love before?" I ask him with wide eyes and Harry nods. His hands rub over his knees before he starts fiddling with his fingers again.
"Yeah, it was more like a major crush, I guess. She didn't feel the same for me but I couldn't really stop crushing on her." Harry admits and his cheeks turn red from embarrassment. He stops fiddling with his fingers and instead hides his face behind his hands. I laugh and pat his back.
"Why are you so embarrassed?" I laugh and try to peek behind his hands.
"Because it's pointless to talk about." Harry groans and lets me take his hands away.
"You're cute." I tell him giggling and take off his fedora to put it on my head.
Just when Harry started to drag out his "Heeey" I run away. Harry is quick to get up from the tiny stone wall we sat on and to chase after me. I giggle and keep running away as I unbutton my blouse and let it drop to the floor. When I look over my shoulder, I see that Harry stopped chasing after me when he stood in front of my blouse.
"Why are you undressing yourself?" Harry questions and picks up my blouse. I keep walking backwards, ready to run away when he chases after me again. But Harry doesn't so I have enough time to take off my shorts.
"Stella, this is a public beach and not our room. You have to keep your clothes on." Harry tells me frowning and I throw my shorts towards him.
"Estelle, put your clothes back on." Harry commands but I can recognize the smirk that is stealing its way onto his face.
I can hear Harry yelling my name once again but I just run into the ocean. I walk into the water until the water reaches up to my belly button. That is when I spin around to see that Harry still stands there with his feet in the warm sand, holding my clothes up.
"Join me." I yell and motion him with my finger to come closer.
Harry hesitantly looks around before he pulls his shirt over his head and then his jeans down, leaving him in his black boxer briefs. Casually, he walks into the ocean and I run towards him as fast as the water allows me only to tackle him to the ground.
We both laugh out loud when we sit on the ground where the water is flat. Waves crash on us as if we were stones. I adjust Harry's hat on my head before I get up and run further into the vast sea.
I come to a stop when the water reaches my breasts. I look up at the sky and realize that the night sky has something mysterious that wants to be discovered. The stars that are splattered across the sky look like an artist wanted to use some sort of glitter on a painting but ended up sprinkling it everywhere. However, the stars are, compared to the moon, just small holes in the sky.
Suddenly I sense a strong presence behind me and grin. Harry grabs my hips and pulls me closer against his muscular body. His lips press down on my shoulder and slowly make their way up to my neck. I spin around in his loose embrace. I slowly lean in but Harry tightens his grip around my waist only to lift me up and throw me into the water. A loud screech escapes my lip but Harry on the other hand laughs loudly.
When I come back up to the surface, Harry is holding his stomach and has his eyes squeezed shut. I splash him multiple times.
"Stop splashing me!" He laughs and splashes back. Harry opens his eyes and then go wide, "Where's my hat? My hat!"
I touch my head to check if I really lost it or if he was just messing with me. But there really is no hat on my head. I spin around and narrow my eyes to try and look for Harry's fedora. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the night I see a black thing floating around on the surface of the water. Harry seems to notice it in the same second as I did because he swims the crawl to quickly get to his hat that continues to float away from us.
"Harry, come back! That's far enough." I say. I don't even want to imagine how deep the ocean has to be where Harry is right now, "Harry, come back, you idiot!"
But he keeps swimming and swimming until he finally holds his beloved hat in his hands.
"Harry, you idiot, come back right now!" I scream slightly scared. He is way too far in the ocean. What if the water current is too strong for him to swim back here?
"Harry." I yell again.
"I'm coming, I'm coming." He replies and I hear that he is out of breath.
It takes him way longer to swim back here but I grab his hand to pull him with me when he finally is in reach. He puts his hat back on his head and tries to catch his breath.
"That was dangerous, Harry!" I scold him and gently bump his chest with my fist.
"You were the one who lost my hat."
"Because you threw me into the water."
"But you stole my hat in the first place." Harry argues back.
I chuckle and shake my head, "That scared me. I was afraid you wouldn't be able to swim back here."
"Well, you shouldn't underestimate me," Harry chuckles, "Let's get out, shall we?"
I nod. Harry walks ahead and I quickly jump onto his back and wrap my limbs around his body. Harry stumbles forward but quickly gains his balance back. I giggle and take the fedora from him again to put it back on my head.
"Stella." Harry sighs and holds my bare thighs to carry me out of the water.
"Harry." I mock him and then start laughing.
"Give me my hat back."
"Nope." I tell him and Harry exhales loudly.
He carries me to the pile of our clothes. The sand sticks to my wet feet and somehow I get sand on my legs, too. I put on my shorts and my blouse but don't bother to button it. I slowly feel my clothes getting wet as well since we had nothing to dry our bodies with. Harry puts on his trousers because he used his shirt as a towel.
"Really, Harry?" I say when he hands me his shirt. Harry looks up and sees that I already put on my clothes.
"Shit, sorry." Harry laughs and I roll my eyes before we walk back to Harry's car. On our way, I pick up my shoes that I've left near the stone wall. After we got in it feels uncomfortable to sit in the car seat because of my wet clothes.
"Everything okay?" Harry asks amused as I shift around in my seat.
"Yeah, everything's fine." I tell him and shiver when he starts driving. I quickly roll up the window and even turn on the heater. I get goose bumps when the fresh airflow hits my wet skin.
"I haven't had this much fun in a while," Harry tells me quietly while he has his eyes on the road, "Not only today but yesterday, too. I know it didn't look like it but I really had a lot of fun going to the zoo with you."
I smile at him, "That's great. I'm glad you're having fun."
"And now I understand why you wanted this. Sometimes unplanned things are the most fun," Harry continues, "and you laugh a lot. Usually, you only laugh so much when you're either drunk or high. It's nice to see you sober and happy at the same time."
"I haven't had so much fun in a long time either," I tell him, "You know, we have fun when we hang out and go out but this is kind of different, isn't it?"
"I think I got it." Harry smiles and pulls into a street that seems to lead us away from the city.
"Where are we going anyway?"
"I don't know," Harry shrugs, "but isn't that the point of our little trip here?"
"But I wanted to change or like use a towel!" I complain and look down at myself, "I'm soaking wet, Harry!"
"Maybe I should do something about this then." Harry smirks and looks at me for a second. I feel him putting his hand on my knee and slowly going higher. He wiggles his eyebrows and I just roll my eyes.
"Not this kind of wet, dickhead," I respond and slap his hand away, "That's why no one likes you."
Harry laughs, "You like me."
"No, I like your cock." I say and Harry's jaw drops slightly. He seems offended and a bit hurt but also a bit confused on whether he should take this as a compliment or not. However, his countenance softens when he hears me laughing, "Kidding, you're quite cute."
"You're so reckless." Harry shakes his head and his curls that are still dripping from the water swing around his head a bit.
I open the glove box, knowing Harry has a hair tie somewhere. Too my surprise, he doesn't have one hair tie somewhere hidden in his glove box but at least twenty of them flying around. I take one and put my hair into a pony tail, then take out a mirror from my bag that rests on the backseat to wipe away my smeared make up.
Harry accelerates the pace of the car and I unbuckle my seat belt to climb into the backseat.
"Estelle, what are you doing?" Harry asks and puts his hands on the side of my behind to push me a bit away from his face.
"I'm trying to climb into the back of the car because I wanna change clothes."
"You can't open your suitcase while I'm driving."
"Then just stop the car."
"I'm on a highway. I can't just stop the car."
"Then I'm sure you have a towel in your bag as well." I say and zip his bag open. I dig around and finally find a towel.
Harry's small car doesn't offer a lot of space so I have a hard time undressing myself down to my underwear. I dry my body and then lean over the backrest of the backseat to search for a shirt in Harry's bag. I look over my shoulder and catch Harry staring at my behind through the rear view mirror.
"Stop staring, you perv. Eyes on the road." I laugh and wiggle my bottom a bit. Harry coughs embarrassed. When I found a shirt I pull it over my head and climb back onto the passenger seat.
"You're not wearing pants, Stella." Harry reminds me.
"And? Does this distract you, Harry?"
"No, no. Not at all. Just wanted to make sure that you knew that, too." Harry tells me and clears his throat. I laugh briefly and then look out of the window. The street lights make it impossible for the stars to be seen.
After a while I get bored looking out the window and instead turn to look at Harry. He looks good when he is concentrated but he is furrowing his eyebrows again. And he plays a lot with his lip when he drives.
For a second my thoughts drift to Sam. I wonder what he is doing right now. I haven't looked at my phone ever since Harry and I left. I got to have thousands of missed calls and messages from Sam, Jess and my mother. They all probably worry about us. But even though I keep thinking about them, I don't regret leaving.
I like who I am with Harry. I seem to be a cleaner, much better version of myself. I'm still me but there are less drugs and alcohol involved. Harry manages to make feel drunk when I'm sober. I feel happy and invincible when I'm with him. This is the greatest feeling that someone could possibly arouse inside of me. Sam has never managed to make me feel like this but Harry has managed to make feel like this in only a matter of days.
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