If Summer Never Ends

Chapter 18

Chapter 18:

            "Then what happened?" Cecily stammered on the other end of the phone. The exuberance in her voice was evident. I didn't blame her though. I got pretty excited too whenever I replayed Beth's wedding night over again in my head.

            A small smile crept upon my face. "Then there was this really quite, intimate moment. We just stared at each other for what seemed like forever. He leaned in towards me and I towards him..."

            I drifted off into the memory. Sure, I was mildly freaking out that the guy I liked almost kissed me, but it was that calm moment in the photo booth that really stuck with me. For a minute, everything was blank. It was like I was just a girl and he was just a guy, like all the shit that had happened in our horrendous lives didn't exist. That even though what we were feeling was totally wrong, it felt right in a way. I always thought that being intimate with someone meant being butt-naked in a bedroom ready to jump each others bones, but that night I realized that intimacy is letting someone see all the little cracks and broken pieces that no one else gets to.

            "Hello?! Gabriella, you better have just been cut to pieces by an axe murderer because there is no way I'm allowing you to stop in the middle of this story," Cecily whined.

            I shook my head. "Sorry, I was just thinking."

            "Mhm. Now continue."

            "So we leaned in towards each other, the camera went off, we snapped out of our little bubble, and ended up dancing without mentioning what almost happened. The end." The words rushed out of my mouth like it was the last thing I was ever going to say.

            "That's... disappointing." Both ends of the phone were silent. "Well, did you want to kiss him?"

            "That's the thing: I'm not sure if I did. I don't know if it was the wedding that made me emotional and feel horribly lonely, but there was this brief moment before his dad came that I was going to tell him how I felt. And then I was going to kiss him. At the time, I did want to. I still kind of do, but then I think about Hayden and how I don't want to ruin our friendship, all the usual crap."

            Cecily sighed. "Wow. You really need to stop this self-battling thing that you tend to do. It's getting old. Just decide to be with him or not. Just make sure you're happy."

            "My happiness doesn't really matter," I groaned, rolling my eyes. "Anyways, I should get going. I have some very important research to attend to. I'll talk to you later."

            "Okay. See you. Bye." I could hear the agitation in Cecily's voice. She didn't get the juicy details she wanted, but those details were mine.

            For a while, I sat under the covers in my bed with my laptop open. Andrew Cahill's Facebook page was displayed on the screen and I just kept clicking through his photos. He seemed to have the perfect life: a nice suburban house with a big backyard, a beautiful wife, kids, even a pretty bomb golden retriever named Sparky. I wanted a life like that, but then I remembered that I was cursed and would ultimately lose those I love.

A loud knock on my door made me jump and shut my laptop before I could even process what I had read. I lied back in my bed and grabbed a book from my nightstand, flipping to a completely random page.

            "It's me. Can I come in?" Aunt Julia called from the other side of the wooden door.

            "I guess," I replied glumly, for I was still a little upset with her. And she was still upset with me. So in the grand scheme of things, I hypothesized that she entered my lair to apologize, AKA: make Gabby feel like shit for the wicked things she has done. After these lovely chats Aunt Julia and I have, I usually end up crying.