Stairways | A Surviving Summer FanFiction

Part 60 - Caught

You drop the cup you're holding and it clatters to the floor, causing Ari to pull away and turn in your direction. He looks surprised, but not as surprised as Summer looks when someone opposite you says her name. You look ahead - it's Abbie and another woman who you're guessing is Summer's mum, Margot.

Ari keeps his eyes trained on you, and you watch a guilty look cross his face before he looks away, towards his mum who has her arms crossed as she raises an eyebrow at her runaway son.

You don't know what to do. You feel a weird feeling in the pit of your stomach, like a burning sensation as you start to breathe heavily, but your heart is pounding. You take a step back, tripping slightly on some tree roots but you regain your balance and keep moving towards the dense patch of trees to get away from the others. A part of you hopes Ari will come looking for you, but as you hear Abbie's frustrated orating, you realise he's probably being shipped back to Shorehaven pretty quickly.

"Nothing you can say will make a single bit of difference." you hear Abbie say.

"Mum-" Ari starts, but his mum is not letting up.

"Get in the car!" she demands, and Ari reluctantly does what he's told. As he opens the door to the front seat, he looks around, perhaps he's looking for you, but he stops when he hears Summer's mum.

"We're going back to Shorehaven, picking up your things and then getting the next flight home." you hear Margot say from her car. You pause and watch Summer and her mum interact - this is the woman she's been trying to get away from all summer after all. But she seems reasonable enough.

"But I thought we were staying for at least a couple more days!" Summer says, however her mum already has the car door open, a signal for a daughter to get in.

"That was before you guys pulled the escape act." Margot responds monotonously.

Summer makes to get in the car, before simply throwing her bag down on the front seat and taking off towards the beach. In your direction.

"Summer, where are you going?" Margot says loudly.

"Just going to catch one more wave; I'll be right back." she calls over her shoulder.

You try and take some deep breaths as you see Summer making her way in your direction, trying to calm yourself as you wipe your watery eyes.

When Summer turns the corner, carrying her board under her arm with her wetsuit over her shoulder, she sees you and immediately stops.

"You have every right to be mad at me," she says tentatively. "But just hear me out before you start yelling or something," You say nothing, which she seems to take as a signal for her to continue. "I know I've been acting really weird to you, and it's because of this that I was."

"Because of what, Summer? What even is this?" you say, cringing at your hoarse voice.

"I guess I just realised I had feelings. For Ari. And then I felt guilty because I was trying to get you two together earlier this summer, and I thought maybe if I give you the cold shoulder you would hate me already so it wouldn't be so bad when I told you," she says. "And just to be clear, that is not how I wanted to tell you."

"Then why'd it happen?" you ask; the image of Ari embracing her with their lips pressed together keeps resurfacing in your mind.

"I don't know! He'd just won his heat, and I just..." she sighs. "I have no idea why I did it, okay? I guess I just got caught up in the moment, or whatever." she mutters - it's like she feels embarrassed for what happened. Maybe she does genuinely feel sorry for doing it, but at the moment it's hard to believe with that image still swimming around in your head.