Poolside Romance [Watty Awards 2011] COMPLETE

Parties, Food and a Pinch of Nightmares

Dedicated to a really good friend because she has religiously read this entire story and made it a point to call and tell me how much she loves it! :D

I always thought that there was this one perfect person for everybody in the world, you know, and when you found that person the rest of the world kind of magically faded away, and, you know, the two of you would just be inside this kind of protective bubble, but there is no bubble, I mean if there is you have to make it, I just think life is more than a series of moments, you know, we can make choices, and we can choose to protect the people we love, and that’s what makes us who we are and those are the real memories.

- Forces of Nature

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Chapter 6

As I walked back to the room that day, I was more than just a little stunned. The reality of everything was flooding back to me and I was almost sleep-walking, except for I was awake. That makes no sense.

I had two reasons for being so shocked; one being the fact that I got had gotten second place, I mean I was never any good. And secondly, the way Andrew had acted.

Why did he even kiss me? I mean he’s from an entirely different state and I’m probably not ever going to see him again. And what irritated me most was that he had just stolen my first kiss from me and he was completely indifferent about it. Not that it wasn’t the most perfect first kiss anyone could hope for; he still stole it and couldn’t help but be a little mad at him.

I mean, did he really have to kiss me if he was never going to see me again? And why did he pick me when there were a million better girls out here in the competition- million girls would most willingly date him? Honestly if anyone had seen me kiss him, they would no doubt strangle me for being the worthless, lucky one. I loosely clutch my throat, gulping at the mere thought of it.

‘There you are!’ cried Liz, startling me slightly and interrupting my train of thoughts.

‘Yeah, here I am.’ I murmured and managed a slight smile which faded faster than it came; but she didn’t seem to notice.

‘Everyone is celebrating back at the stands, for you and a few others. And you are missing. Took us a while to realize it but anyway, come on, it’s your day, this!’

‘Okay.’ I agreed, nodding and keeping a faint smile plastered on my face as she dragged me in and out of the rather sweaty crowd. It was so cold; I wondered how they could possibly sweat like this. I kept my eyes down throughout, so as to not meet his gaze at any point. I didn’t even want to say his name in my mind, in case Liz could read minds or something.

‘Who else are we celebrating for?’ I asked her on the way, trying very hard to push every thought about him to the back of my mind.

 ‘Well, there’s our under 19 relay team; they won silver, then there’s Geez, she won gold, Mariah won gold and Shane is qualified into the finals.’

‘No way was I gone that long’ I protested.

‘Yeah you were. It’s more than an hour since your event got over.’

On reaching the stands where the rest of my team was gathered, I saw that they had cleared up a lot of space for themselves and were crowded around in a tight circle, around something or someone. I pushed through Suze and Shane and looked on to what they were gathered around. Not so much to my surprise I found out that there was plenty of food of all sorts lying there, half empty.

 Cake, biscuits, chocolates and chips which would probably be enough for an entire feast could be seen lying around.  And this was even after they had emptied the packets of half it's contents. It was sort of embarrassing in a fun way, the feast. They started cheering so loudly for our school that everyone soon had their eyes on us and not the people swimming out there. But not one of us truly cared. And much to our astonishment, none of our teachers came to stop us either.