The Amazing Summer

Out to swim

After he tried the elbow thing, he let go of my arm, and I pulled my sleeve down again, a little faster than I probably should have. He looked at me, and I could see a hint of sadness in his eyes. "Are you ashamed of them? Your self-harm scars, I mean?" I looked down, and answered slowly. "Ehhmm...Well... Not really, I just don't want my mom to see them. She...doesn't know." I looked at him again, but wasn't able to keep my gaze up, so my eyes moved from him to a tree on the other side of the river. "You shouldn't be ashamed. They're a part of who you are, and the past is in the past." He smiled at me, and I bit my lip.

I mean, I have gone through some shit in my life. People have let me down my whole life, my father is an alcoholic and a heavy smoker, I never really had any friends, and thos I thought I had, left me the second I stopped being interesting. "Hey, I know a good place to swim! Come on." I got up and followed him a little further down the river, to a huge pond at the end of the waterfall.

"This place is amazing!" The pond was really deep, and completely round, like a circle. It was basically a naturally made swimming pool. "Well?" "Let's go." We walked down to the house again, found our swimsuits, changed and walked back up to the pool. We put our towels in a natural cave, so they wouldn't get wet, stared at the water for a bit and stood on the edge. We were standing beside each other, and looked down to the ground. Then he took a deep breath. "Ok. Answer me honestly. If...I were single and I asked you if you wanted to be my girlfriend, what would you say?" I moved a little further away from him and looked down to the ground again. I took a deep breath, and answered. "Well..." There were no way I could avoid that. I had to answer honestly for once. "I would've said yes. Ok? I still like you." "And you never said anything? Why?" "You always had a girlfriend, so it seemed wrong." "You know, I've been trying to flirt with you every time you've been here." "I know, I saw it and heard it, but I chose not to answer directly." "You completely ignored it....You know I've never actually stopped liking you. You were the very first person I ever fell for, and the one I have the most feelings for." "I know."

We stood in silence for a bit, too scared to speak up. I looked from the ground to Cole, to the water and back to the ground again. "So, shall we jump in?" Cole started taking off his shirt, and walked into the water. I hesitated for a second, wondering if I should go in or not, but decided to take off my jumper and walk out. That was a bad idea. The water was really cold. Cole had already dived down and swam a little bit around waiting for me to get my ass out in the water. I stood with water to the middle of my legs, and my arms crossed. "Holy shit! This isn't fun! My stomach's disappearing!" When I get cold, I have a tendency to tighten my stomach, and that results in me looking anorexic, and like I can break by the smallest breeze. I stomped my feet a couple of times and sat down in the water. "OK! That's it! I'm not going any further than this!" I was laughing and shivering at the same time, something that sounds like a retarded turkey or pigeon or something.

Cole came towards me, smiling. And not a nice, kind smile, oh no. This was the type of smile that means something bad is going to happen. Suddenly, I couldn't breathe. It felt like I was going to faint any minute. His arms pulled me by my foot and into the ice cold water, and my lunges stopped working. I gasped for air, trying to get my body to work again. He seemed to notice my panic, pressed me tight against his chest and held me close. "You'll be alright. I'm here. You'll be fine. Just breathe. I won't let anything happen to you. I swear." His arms around me didn't actually help. The fact that I didn't know what to do made me freak out even more. I was breathing fast and tried to get away. He just held me tighter, and his warmth started to calm me down a little bit. He put his knee underneath me, so I was able to sit on his lap. I calmed down a little bit more, and pressed my head against his shoulder. After a while, I stopped shivering and he let go of me. I have to admit, I felt a little sad when he let me go, but I shook it off.

"See? I told you you would be fine." He smiled at me, and I smiled back. We swam a while, then sat down close to one of the "walls". We sat there talking for a while, then it started to get cold. "Hey, want to get up? It's starting to get cold." He nodded and we got up and grabbed our towels. I wrapped myself in the soft towel, and sat down on one of the stones to warm up a bit. Cole sat down a little bit away from me, and we both looked at the ground. I wanted to sit closer to him, but stayed where I was. After all, I didn't know if he wanted me to get closer. I stared at my feet for a second, and started laughing. Cole looked at me. "What's so funny?" I shook my head. "My feet looks like the feet of a corpse. They're pale blue. I think we should get back to the house and change back to normal clothes." He nodded and we got up to go back. I put on my jumper, just to cover my arms, but it got soaked the second I put it on. We practically ran back to get a little warm, and when we got to the house I got up to my room to get some dry clothes. Cole changed first, and waited for me outside the door while I changed. I put on a dark blue high-waist, a white tank-top and a pale blue jumper. I put the swimsuit in the bathtub with the other dirty clothes, and walked out. Cole stood outside talking to my mother, and when he heard me, he turned around and smiled. My mom went back to the living room, and I and Cole walked up to my room. I practically fell down on my bed and put my legs up against the wall and closed my eyes.