𝐼𝓃𝒻𝒶𝓉𝓊𝒶𝓉𝑒𝒹

Chapter 31- The Camp Night

Cris's P.O.V.

It was a crazy fucking day.

For the hundredth time, I thought about it:
I never thought that one day, a certain person and I would end up in some motel, away from the main city, and eventually end up with a truce somehow. Or, well, end up being friends.
Pretty fucking surprising, especially if that certain person was Charles Walker.
It was one of those things that I never saw coming.
But it felt like one of the good things that I never saw coming. And that's hardly ever happened.

Serendipity would be the right word.

It was surprising, too, the way that in the flow of an easy conversation, I inadvertently revealed a small part of myself to him, something I would laugh at yesterday. There was an air of camaraderie which came with a feeling of goodwill and homeliness. That just... never happened with me.
And for the first time in my life, I craved to know more about Chase, I craved to know what sort of a person he really was behind that cocky persona of a popular high school playboy and basketball star.

I craved to know if I could ever find out his secrets and the normal shit that friends usually do.

And that game of tag? Honestly, what was happening to me all of a sudden?
I didn't care for now, but I feared the future outcome.
And what if we somehow ended up...

I shook my head physically to get rid of my thoughts, and gazed heavenwards to take my mind off any subject which would prove to be contentious among my thoughts.
The sky always looked beautiful in the evening. I gazed at the sky, squinting my myopic eyes.
Fiery orange and pink clouds with an indigo outline were set against a background of darkening blue and light orange, with the last rays of the sun- a fierce orange ball, poking from the west, poking it's head above the horizon as it set.

I remembered when I read the book, Heidi, at the age of 9, there was a line which said that when Heidi looked at the nature surrounding her home in the afternoon, then the mountains and trees behind which the sun was setting, looked aflame with fire. When Heidi had asked her grandfather if the mountains and trees were really on fire, as it looked so with that bright red outlining of them due to the sunset, he had told her that that was how the sun bid farewell to the nature it hid behind, during the sunset. By casting the last rays of itself on nature.
That, honestly, was one of the most imaginative perspectives I'd read before. That's why I'd never forgotten the line.

There was a good drizzling in the late afternoon due to which the rich and almost addictive smell of petrichor stung my nose as I sat on the plastic, synthetic logs. Petrichor is probably my one favorite smell in the world. Natural, indescribable, and lovely. And so damn earthy.
I also wondered why Chase wasn't traumatic at the sight of rain, but then I felt like an idiot when I reminded myself he was only scared of the thunder.
Which reminded me of how hectic last night felt.

Which reminded me of him picking me up in his arms from the swing chair in the balcony, then me snuggling with him in my sleepy state.
Heck, my heart still bubbled and fluttered tremendously and my face felt warm as the memory of his strong arms around me still left me dazed in feelings...

... Fuck hormones.

I turned to look at Chase, who was leaning by a tree, on his phone. We'd bought some extra clothes from that thrift shop, and he was wearing what he had bought. It was a tight turtleneck beige sweater and a pair of black tracks.
As he leaned on the tree with a leg propped up against the trunk, I noticed how the tight sweater brought out his basketballer self's muscular features quite... nicely.
I mean, I know how much the basketball teams of our school, both the girls' team and the guys' teams, work out. And if you're a captain of a team, then it sometimes seems you may be more buffed up and even taller than the rest of the team. At least, I saw that in Chase.