Spoiler
Why yes, I did finish this novel months ago. Yet, here I am posting a random chapter in the middle of it. Enjoy!
Later that day, Kevin was showering so I took the opportunity to clear my head, but at this point I knew it would take a lot longer than fifteen minutes for my head to be cleared.
Ethan, Anna and Tristan were watching TV in the living room so I wandered outside and spread out on the hammock. Closing my eyes, I tried to just feel, to stop the endless flow of neurotic thoughts throughout my head. I could feel the thick white rope, cross hatched across my back. The sun warmed the surface of my skin and shone brightly through my eye lids. My bare feet hung off into the dewey grass.
Even from here I could feel the soft, salty breeze from the ocean. Then, I could feel the hot sand underneath me and my mind flew back to Tristan. Thinking about him made my heart burn and flutter, speed up like a race horse and pound against my rib cage. My hands flew to my chest as if I could slow it down and therefore stop my reaction to Tristan.
Another breeze swept through me, this time lifting up my hair and dropping it my unceremoniously around my face. I huffed a little and blew it out of my face before opening my eyes.
Tristan grinned.
"Are you watching me?" I tried to accuse him but I sounded more startled than angry. He shook his head and his eyes darted to my hands where they had been clinching my chest, as if I was trying to hold my heart in my hands. They fell to my side and gripped the cross-hatched ropes of the hammock.
"I just came out to talk to you," he said.
"Talk to me?" Why do you want to talk to me?"
"Why not?" He shrugged easily and came to sit next to me in the hammock.
I tried in vain to create so distance between us but I kept sliding down next to him until our arms were pressed together. He used his feet to rock us gently and we sat there in silence while we swung.
"What did you wanna talk about?" I asked him finally.
He thought for a second, "I don't know. Anything, vacation, the weather." He paused again but I still didn't say anything, "This morning?"
My heart skipped as if I'd been electrically shocked, "no."
"What?"
"We can't talk about that!" My tone was borderline hysterics. What was he doing, bringing that up.
"Why not?" He asked sharply, "You can't act like it never happened."
"If it never happened, then Kevin won't find out." I struggled to keep my tone even.
His eyes narrowed, "Even if it did happen, Kevin doesn't need to find out. The only way he would is if one of us told him. and I'm not gonna tell him. " I didn't say anything, I felt sick to my stomach.
"Are you?"
"No," I muttered.
And he said contently, "so it stays between us."
And then he reached for my hand and We held it together, what only we knew. I thought maybe that I loved him.
He released my hand just as the sliding door opened with a long screech. Kevin stepped out into the grass with his bare feet. He was wearing a khaki shorts and a simple blue t-shirt that matched the sky. His brown hair was wet and spiky.
"There you guys are, I tried to ask Ethan and Anna where you were but they were to bust sucking face. I woulda come out here, too. Damn are they noisy." He laughed a big, heavy, wide mouthed laugh and Tristan joined him and stood up. I forced an empty little chuckle along with them.
Kevin replaced Tristan on the hammock, sitting down quickly and making it tremble- or maybe that was just me.
Tristan shot me a meaningful look while he continued to laugh with his best friend.
<3