Strawberries and Whipped Cream

Chapter 7 - Pluie (1)

The wind was stronger that day, moving the palm trees from left to right and making people rather stay inside of their homes than going outside where a storm was brewing. It apparently didn't rain a lot this time of the year around here, but today the dark clouds told a different tale. Baba was at home, watching her soaps and even the other teenagers couldn't be bothered to go down to the beach and drink, even if not many people were there and it wasn't all that cold. Just windy. 

But we stood up on the hill by the lighthouse, where usually many tourists would go to visit the small church or grab a drink at sunset, but today it was almost empty, even the artists that usually sold their work here where many culture-interested people would be, stayed at home and sat this day out. In Germany, this would be a regular summer day, a nice one even, where many people would be seen lingering in the grass of every park, playing with their kids, but the south was not used to this lack of sunshine and perfection. 

We had packed a backpack with food and water as well as books and our laptops, before you drove us over to the spot you knew would be empty, so we could be alone with our thoughts and have, I suppose, a small picknick.

The bench we had chosen to sit on was overlooking the ocean that was hitting the rocks of the shore harder than I had ever seen it do here before. It was like the sea was trying to gain power and swallow the land that it had not yet been able to reach and make it its own. 

Behind us the leaves of the trees were desperately trying to hold onto the branches as it was not yet their time to leave, but the weather was trying to rip them apart like a cruel mother, who did not like her son's relationship with his new girlfriend, because she was jealous, a phenomenon I had seen once too often without it actually being addressed.

But we weren't ripped apart, in contrary. We had unpacked the food Baba made us prepare, since the peaches and croissants we had packed did not seem enough for her and she was afraid we were going to starve up on that hill. You played some music that I came to adore, mostly because you shared it with me not because it was particularly my kind of music. I didn't mind listening to it and to this day I sometimes get out that record that you had given me once when we were in your uncle's house, lounging on the cold stone floor and you had it playing. 

It was your own, you had a record player of yourself in Paris, a gift from your mother to your eighteenth birthday and when I had said that I loved the music, you told me to take the record. I cherish it and when I listen to the sounds of Mac Demarco, I am right back on that floor where everything seemed so complicated and miserable and yet it was a healing time in my life, as absurd as that sounds.

You had your little blue notebook and a pencil that looked like you had it forever, mostly because of the design. It had a mermaid's tail on the back and pearls that made a sound each time you let the tip glide over the paper, forming a new thought, a new word. I myself brought my laptop, typing something you and your presence encouraged me to write. It was nothing specific, they were thoughts filled with hope and anxiety about my youth and love, in which I did not really believe anymore. 

I had been in love before, but I was young and the man unreachable, so the question as to if that counted at all or not remained. And since then, my heart had been a cold and empty place where no one was at home. I had love to give before, I always thought so, but since nobody, not even my parents, seemed to really want it, I just hid it away and forgot about it. But it felt like my heart was warming up. At least I felt attraction towards people again or, in this case, you.

Since the night that we had kissed for the first time, that time that our hair fell into our faces, making us laugh, the sounds of the bed making us freeze as to not wake my grandmother and the clumsiness brought us happiness and comfort, nothing seemed to have moved forward. You weren't teasing me or anxious, so I had to make the first move, no, it just seemed like all we were able to do, all you wanted to do or thought I was able to give, were brief kisses.