Graveyard Shift

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

By the time it was night, I was left outside with Daren. "Look, I know we're both guys and all, but don't take this wrong way."
"Dude, I just don't have a thing for gingers. I'm sorry," I said and laughed. He scoffed and placed his palm to his chest.
"Well then; I never!" We both laughed. "Seriously, though, dude," he sighed out before lying down on the sand. "What's it like?"
"What's what like?" I asked dumbly. I knew what he was saying, but I could pretend I didn't. I could pretend I didn't love her.
"Love and shit," he said, trying not to sound sentimental. He turned on his side. "Is it possible to just love someone out of nowhere?" He asked.
I pondered this and finally shrugged. "I don't know about love like how Julia and Nick got it. And I don't know about love like how your great grandparents have." I said first then gave a little breath as I looked at the lake, lapping gently at the sand. "But I know about unreciprocated love," I shook my head, "and that shit hurts."
He turned around and lay on his back again. Daren stared at the sky and his chest rose slowly before falling again. "What about sudden love; something you don't even expect to happen?"
I looked at him for a moment. "What do you mean?"
"Like," he tried to gather his thoughts, "Like you just see her and kind of feel stupid because your stomach gets a few knots and then you kind of lose your breath, but try to hide it."
I chuckled, "Like Anna?" I asked. He glanced at me momentarily and did not reply. His eyes were slightly worried and I shrugged. "Look, I didn't mean what I said ear-"
"Yes, you did," he said. "You don't say anything you don't mean." We were both sitting on the cool sand now. "And I don't know exactly what I mean."
"Well, I think that you have to know someone to love them, so I guess I can't really say much about it."
"Well, it's not that I don't. I mean, it just kind of hit me."
"Daren," I said as he furrowed his brows at the water. "Are we still talking about-"
"Just forget it," he said. "It was stupid to ask."
"No-"
"Will," he said and looked at me pleadingly. I nodded. "Are you going to go to bed?" He asked.
"In a little bit, just not yet."
He nodded and stood, dusting himself off. Daren walked to the tent, but before he stepped inside, he said, "Will," and I glanced back at him, "thanks."
"Of course," I replied.
***
I was being shaken awake and felt myself jolt and felt my breathing go erratic. I looked around and it was all dark, dark, dark. My eyes blinked rapidly to adjust until I finally saw her face. My heart didn't seize its rapid beating. "You scared the crap out of me." I breathed out.
"Sorry," she then said. "I just came out here and then I saw that you were sleeping."
I rubbed my eyes, "Do you know what time it is?"
"No, not quite sure." She replied and sat next to me. "I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier, William."
I looked at her and felt my chest tighten. Maybe I was too young for love, maybe I didn't really understand, maybe I was selfish, but I felt it inside and seeing her in the moonlight, next to the dead fire, a few feet away from the lake, sinking into the cool sand, I heard my heart pounding through my chest and I wondered if she could too. That frightened me to the bone.
"Will, have you ever been kissed before?" She asked.
"What?" I asked, baffled.
She looked at me seriously, "Have you ever been kissed before? Like, really, really kissed. The type of kiss that people write in stories or film on TV or make in a movie."
"I mean," I thought, "I mean, not really, no. I've been kissed once. I was seven and she was nine."
She kind of laughed and I took a shaky breath, her smile taking it away. "So, you're a player boy. Taylor Martin, I would have never guessed," she joked.
I laughed lightly, "No, I didn't even understand what happened until afterward and I immediately ran away and felt like if any of my friends saw they would start laughing. I felt like I committed a sin." She laughed her wonderful Eleanor laugh. And I liked her laugh. It wasn't sexy or anything; she kind of snorted if I were to be honest. I just liked it so much, though, because it was her laugh. Her laughter showed what she enjoyed. "Girls had cooties; it wasn't my fault." We both smiled. "Why do you ask?" I asked.
"I was just thinking about mine." I felt a pang of jealousy in me. We were both quiet momentarily before she looked me in the eyes and said, "Why do people choose bad people?"
"We don't get to choose the people we really have in our lives." I quietly said. "The people we meet are the people we would've met eventually anyways, I think. If I hadn't met you when I had, I would've met you later on somehow - even if it were just for a second." She looked at me. "Regardless, you would've changed my life somehow; made a type of impact on me."
"William, if I ask you something right now, will you be one hundred percent honest with me?" She suddenly asked.
I swallowed, "I don't know." I answered honestly. She nodded once.
"Why do you like me?" She asked. I felt my heart speed up. "Like, I don't understand why someone like you would want to be friends with someone like me at all." I calmed down. I mean, it was pretty evident that she knew I loved her already (considering earlier), but for me to have to describe why was a whole different matter.
"What do you mean why do I like you?" I asked. I was perplexed. How could someone not like Eleanor? Eleanor Demetria Trip was Eleanor Demetria Trip; the same girl whose smile and laugh made others envy her; the same girl who smiled broadly at me before I even knew her name; the same girl who went on adventures alone when nobody else wanted to; the same girl that made one wonder what such a person with a brilliant mind and brilliant face could be doing asking a question like this.
"I just am so dramatic and bipolar and I am not fair to you in this relationship, let's be honest. You tell me everything and I don't tell you anything. Anna and Kris don't even know that much about me." I stared at her. My brows creased with my forehead. "Daren told me that he was telling you I don't actually confide in you and you were defending me and that's why you fought." I closed my eyes gently. "Will, it's true." She said. My eyes opened again. Her blue eyes stared into mine and they looked watery. Eleanor didn't do this sort of thing. She didn't say stuff like this. She had never snapped out of herself so much before. Then I realized, she was being herself. "I just do whatever seems like the right thing to others. I pretend to be this happy, adventurous girl. I pretend I do everything I can to be myself; different. But I'm not." She sniffled and suddenly shook her head, looking down. She was crying. "I am pretentious. I like to be liked and have people notice me and that's all I ever do. I am the exact opposite of what a person who is trying to be themselves should be."
I coughed quietly. "Eleanor," I said. She slowly looked up, and wiped her face while sniffling. "You're the exact you that you are. Nobody is more you than you are. You're different because you're you and if that means you're some pretentious, dramatic, cliché teenage girl who doesn't like cliché endings, then that's who you are right now." She sniffled again. "But nobody doesn't love that Eleanor because that Eleanor is who you are." I smiled gently. "It's impossible not to be completely infatuated with Eleanor Demetria Trip and everybody here knows it." I said.
She swallowed and her eyes fluttered closed like how they do in those cliché movies she watched (even though she didn't like how unrealistic it was) where the girl is crying and it's in the middle of that sad part of the story. And no actress had anything on her. Eleanor was not perfect and the exact definition of someone completely imperfect.
Eleanor was just a girl. A girl that was crying and professing how she felt to someone she felt she was being unfair to. Yeah, maybe it was because of pity, but that was okay. Nobody was actually perfect; we were imperfect and I was finally starting to see it. I was starting to see why I actually loved her; starting to see why I lived for living. She was beautifully imperfect; scars finally showing on the outside.
"I'm tired," she suddenly said quietly.
I nodded, "Me too." We both got up and dusted ourselves off. "Goodnight." I said as we both parted to our separate tents.
"Goodnight." She said. "Thank you," she then said. "I really don't know what I would be doing if I didn't have you around, William Taylor Martin." She smiled at me. It was that smile she gave me when she was perplexed, but in a good way.
Once inside the tent, I saw Daren sitting up, wide awake. We smiled at each other through the dark. "Why didn't you tell her?" He whispered. "It would've been the perfect time to do it, but you didn't."
I nodded and sat next to him. "I did," I said. "I just told her it in a crowd of people."
"Why?" He asked. "I mean, I honestly think she would have fallen in love with you just now if you said it. I know it sounds stupid, but I actually think that. And I know I'm kind of stupid, but I'm in IB, so I dunno. I'm a teenager; I can connect."
I smiled at him, "I fear rejection," I said.
He nodded and we both lay down. "Hey," he then said as both of us turned our backs from one another.
"Yeah?" I said quietly.
"You think Kris would go for the stuff you say to Eleanor," he asked.
"Um," I said. "No. I don't think so...I mean, yeah, no. She'd go for a nice smile, though, I think."
"Then I'm screwed." He said.
"Hey," I suddenly said after we both went quiet.
"Yeah," he said.
"Did you fall in love with Kris?" I asked, the night taking over my eyelids and brain.
I could tell it took over Daren too, though. He was breathing lightly and I soon fell asleep after as well.