Yeah, I Hate You Too, Sweetheart.

Chapter 5 - Laila

  

    Laila

       The last thing I would've expected was for me to end up spending the entire day with Justin Richards, of all people….in a pool, no less. At first he insisted on playing sprinkle, sprinkle, splash, a version of duck, duck, goose that was played in water. Of course, this didn't really work since there were only two of us. And when Justin said splash, he really meant dunk. My face was burning from all of the times I'd gotten chlorine up my nose, and my neck was kind of achy.

   After that fantastic game, we tested each other to see who could perform the most impressive dives off the highest diving board. Justin insisted that because he had longer legs he’d be able to do more acrobatic tricks than me, but I insisted that I’d stay in the air long because I didn’t weigh as much as he did.

 That argument lasted about a good fifteen minutes.

  Then we got into a fight because Justin insisted that his belly-flop was much more impressive than my front flip once we finally managed to drag ourselves up onto the diving boards after our fighting.

  After our disastrous attempts at diving, Justin wanted to play sharks and minnows. He quickly changed his mind after I kicked him in the face when he grabbed at my ankle. I had to grudgingly give him credit since he somehow managed to move through the water with much more ease than I thought a person of his size would.

  But where he managed to move quickly and quietly through the water like a predator would when hunting its pray, I made up for in speed. It was safe to say that I was the one who finished a lap around the pool first instead of Justin Richards.

  By the time we were practicing our back strokes and doing laps around the pool, the sun had already begun to sink behind the purple-capped mountains in the distance, and the air was growing colder.

  "I'm cold,” Justin said blankly as he stared up at the darkening gray sky.

 “Then get out,” I said, like it should have been obvious.

It was - obviously.

Justin dunked me for what felt like the twenty-seventh time that day because he apparently thought that would be so fun. 

  "Would you stop doing that?" I snapped at him, coughing and spluttering after my head broke the surface of the water.

"No.”

   I rolled my eyes and huffed out a sigh, swimming towards the edge before heaving myself up out of the pool.

 I’d had more than enough of Justin Richards to last me a life time.

  "Aw, are we really done in the pool?" Justin whined, still floating about in the pool. “I missed you after all these years and you’re leaving me already?”