Between You and I

Chapter Two

June 21, 2007: 5 Years Before     

The stars were bright in the sky, as if it was just a huge black sheet of paper with holes punched through, letting the light of heaven stream down for us to see. It was just the two of us, lying down on the grassy ground near the lake of Camp Summer, not saying much at all. We were just staring up at nothing and everything at the same time.

Being way past midnight, there wasn’t anything to worry about. Counselors were snoozing away with the teenagers whose parents forced them to come to this stupid camp. But I didn’t think it was stupid. Neither did she.

I felt Valentine turn over onto her side, staring at me. So, I turned over to look at her, too. This is pretty weird to admit, but I think that Val’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, inside and out. A lot of my friends called her hot and said, “I’d totally get in her pants,” but I didn’t want to call her that and say things like that about her.

It felt wrong to, you know? I wasn't gay or anything, but I didn't really mind the physical stuff. I would rather be with a girl I could actually talk to and be myself around than a girl I’d always just have sex with. 

She smiled at me, which made my insides go crazy.

“What?” I felt the heat begin to flood my face. Her brown eyes were filled with laughter as her grin grew.

“You’re so cute when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“You know-” She traced a smile in the air in front of my eyes.

“Smile for no reason.” I felt my own grin growing.

“I do that?” A small laugh escaped through her lips.

“All the time! Every time I look at you, you just smile.” A million killer bees were buzzing in me at the sound of that. Just the sound of her voice, her laugh, made me feel all weird inside. That’s why I smiled.

“And it just...” She bit her lip, trying to choose the right words to say.

“Makes me feel like everything’s going to be okay.” The grin that played on her lips grew smaller into the tiniest smile I’ve ever seen, but it wasn’t the ‘I’m feeling like my life sucks’ kind of small. It was the ‘it’s one of the reasons why’ sort of small. And in my mind, I just put ‘I love you’ after the ‘why’.

“Everything is going to be okay.” I whispered. At that, her smile disappeared altogether, and I felt her getting lost in my eyes, just like how I was getting lost in hers, and we were just freefalling into the spaces between.

“You really believe that?” My heart skipped a beat as I weaved my fingers through hers absent mindedly.

“I really do.”