Same Time Next Year

Chapter 32 - Year 8

Noah

I stood still for a minute facing the back door of the beach house, stunned after Elle slammed the door in my face. "Shit," I swore once I realized she had locked it also.  This wasn't like her. We'd spent the last couple years working on our relationship and it had been a long time since she'd shut me out like this.  Elle has always been a little hot headed and still flies off the handle on occasion.  Although, she usually calms down pretty quickly these days. We've learned we need to communicate better, it's never good for our relationship when we don't. I definitely hit a nerve with her, although I still don't understand what made her so upset.

After trying the door one more time, I decide I better get my butt inside and talk to her.  I know the easiest place to get into the house is from the side so I make my way over there to see if I can still climb up the side of the house. I just hope I don't fall and break something. That would be fun to explain to everyone at work next week. Although that may also win me some sympathy points with Elle, so maybe it would be worth it if she's as pissed off at me as she seems.

I had walked around the house a couple times, trying to find the best way into the house. I knew which way used to be the best, climbing directly into my bedroom window. But usually I had prepared for that by leaving the window unlocked. I really didn't want to have to break a window to get in, although I suppose I could deal with that.

I remember the old shed that's around the corner from the pool. It was mainly used to keep pool toys in it but I think my dad used to keep some things out there, so I decide to check for tools. Maybe I can figure out how to get in without breaking anything.  I'm sure it's unlocked since it doesn't really have anything of value inside.  While I look around the shed, I let my mind wander to that weekend I mentioned to Elle earlier.  I know she doesn't believe that weekend meant anything to me but I meant what I said about it.

It's crazy to think back on what a waste that weekend was.  Elle and I had two full days and nights at the beach house to ourselves and were too stupid to realize how we felt about each other in order to take advantage of it.  Or maybe we both realized how we felt about the other person but hadn't yet figured out the feeling was mutual.  Regardless, if that weekend would have taken place just a few months later, sometime after our fateful kiss at the kissing booth, Elle and I would have taken full advantage of that much privacy. 

Instead, I wasn't happy at all when Mom first asked me to spend the weekend with Elle. I had plans and the last thing I wanted to do was hang out with the female version of Lee. But to my credit, I was used to the Elle who never left Lee's side. I realized while we were in the pool the first night how much different she was when she wasn't around Lee. I'm not even sure what it was, if it was me not having to deal with Lee or if she actually acted differently with Lee not around. Regardless, I didn't think much of it at first. I was just glad that my whole weekend might not be ruined after all.

Even after having fun together in the pool, I was surprised by how much I liked spending time with Elle the next day.  It wasn't at all like most of my interactions with other girls.  Or my interactions with Elle when she was with Lee.  For the first time, I started to pay attention to Elle as a girl, instead of just one of the Lee and Elle pair.  As we walked down the beach on our way home from lunch, since she was too chicken to take my bike out, I noticed how bright her eyes were as she talked about how she thought the soccer team would do this year.   Or how pretty she looked when she smiled, while she was telling me about Lee's freak out when she beat him at their newest video game.   So I let the whole Flynn facade fall away and found myself acting like me for the first time in way too long.  We joked and goofed around like we had when we were kids.  But once I picked her up to throw her into the ocean to get her back for pushing me in, I realized how much things had changed between us since we were kids.  She had always been like a little sister to me, since she spent so much time with Lee.  But these weren't brotherly thoughts I was starting to have about her.