Breaking Boundaries (unordinary love story)

Chapter 23: First Date

That day in the parking lot when I kissed Rick, it was genuine. It was genuine.

But it was also just weird in some way.

It was like at that moment, everything I thought about him just changed. The adrenaline rushing through me just washed me with a new feeling, washed the bitterness out of me. It made me feel different.

That's what I was thinking about when I was walking on the beach. It was the first day of winter break. The sky was a cloudless blue and the breeze was exactly perfect. Looking out at the sea, the water shimmered iridescently as it rippled in soft waves and washed ashore.

I lived on the border of New York, so there were always beaches around. Everyone in Beachville took advantage of that, whether it was to go fishing or to hang out. In fact, New York was practically all about borders: it was heavily surrounded by bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean.

"Hey moonpie!" I heard Rick's voice from behind as he caught up.

"Oh hey," I said, nodding and smiling.

He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and I leaned into him.

"How'd you find me?" I asked.

"It's not too hard when you're always in my heart," he chuckled. "I just figured you'd be here. I had my mind on you."

"O...K..." I said.

"Look. So, um, the ice rink is open tomorrow. I want to go with you. Would you like to?"

"Cool," I said, as we gazed into each other's eyes. "Yeah, I'd love to."

"Great. Can't wait. At four?"

"Works for me."

"So, do you want to go for a swim?" he asked, nodding toward the ocean.

"On such a cold day? Forget it." I looked out at the waves, crashing onto shore, soaking the sand and ebbing. Wind wove its cool fingers through my hair as it blew at my strands. It was safe to call it a beautiful day, if only it weren't sweater weather.

"Then a walk, then."

"Yeah, sure."

We held hands as we walked. It felt nice. I closed my eyes to take in the moment, then looked up at him and rested my head against his shoulder.

"Tomorrow, I'll pick you up, if that's fine with you. I know where you live because I know where Max lives," said Rick.

"Yeah. OK. It's just...I can't let my dad find out. He won't let Max have a girlfriend so he definitely won't let me have a boyfriend." Though Max may have secretly had a girlfriend.

"He won't find out then."

"I have a bad feeling about hiding it from my dad."

"But it's worth it."

"Yeah. I'll do it. For us."

"OK, good." He squeezed me into his side, and we kept strolling around until the sun set. It was nice to be around Rick.

I ended up lying to dad the next day, which was kind of sad, but whatever. I shook off the guilt. I lied to dad and said I'd go to Sandy's when I'd really be going on a secret date with Rick.

Wait, a date?

Oh my gosh. OK, um...

I did not think of it as much of a date before that. Well maybe I kind of did, but I thought it would be more like hanging out. Now it seemed like it would be a date to me now that I thought of it. Now my palms were getting clammy and butterflies erupted from my stomach.