Blue Moon (gxg)

"I don't know anything about you..." (8)

After a long swim in the sea I was now sitting on the beach towel rereading the text Joe had sent me half an hour ago:

<<I miss you, how are you doing?>>
There was also a selfie of him with a volcano behind.

I rolled my eyes.
<<Still angry. But this place is nice.>>
Was my fair and short answer.
<<I knew you would like it ;) >> He texted back.

No, he doesn't know at all...
Otherwise, he wouldn't have left me here alone without even warning me about it.

As I looked at that horizon I was thinking of a billion things...
I'm twenty-three years old, Joe is twenty-six years old.
We have been together for six years now...

But sometimes it seemed to me that he didn't really know me.
Not everything, at least.

I feel like Joe only knew what I had wanted to show him in those years.

And whenever I showed a side of me that he wasn't used to, he told me things like: "This isn't you, Ellie.", "Why are you acting so strange?" , "You don't usually do that."

He was convinced things were totally black or totally white, but nothing is like that in this world... there are millions of shades in the between.

However, this was a thought that I had never fully explored with him–it just floated helpless in my mind like right now.

"The water is beautiful..." Bella affirmed as she came out of the sea.
She lay down on the beach towel near me.

"I can see that, you weren't getting out of there." I joked.
She smiled dreamily as she moved a strand of her hair over her ear.

"I would like summer to last forever. Summer all long... can you imagine that?" She said with confidence.
"I love summer too... but I wouldn't wish for it to last forever..." I whispered.

"Why?" She immediately asked.
She asks a lot of whys...

I sighed, staring at the sea, "Because I'm afraid I'll get tired of it and end up hating it. Which I don't want to..."

"Hmm..." Bella mumbled, hesitantly.
"You should never get tired of things you love." She added as she stretched on the towel.

I pondered her words a little too much... but I didn't respond.

"Anyway..." Bella continued.
"Joe mentioned that you attend college in California, what degree course do you attend?"
I turned to look at her, "English literature." I said.

Bella pulled herself up, sitting down more comfortably.
"Really?! What do you like the most?" She asked me.

Through my sunglasses I looked at her intrigued expression and I was amazed by the fact that she seemed genuinely interested...

"Being able to express my opinion freely, without being judged." I shyly replied.

Bella nodded understandingly at me.

I shifted my gaze to the sea as I speak again.
"The authors I'm studying, their ideas, values, and phrases are becoming part of who I am now..."

I had never said this sentence to anyone so explicitly and clearly like that.
Maybe it was because no one really understood what I meant.

Bella smiled: "I've been reading a lot more these last few years..."
"Perhaps it's because I search in books answers that life does not give you.
I like looking at the world from different perspectives..."
She said that with a calmness and naturalness that really impressed me.