Our Summers

Chapter 5

***

After I felt like I'd cried long enough, which was silly to be honest, even I didn't know why I was so affected after I was able to get my tears out, I paced around the room trying to brace myself for what could possibly happen after I went back out there.

The party had started and it was a surprise to me that no one had called me to join it out yet.

Through the thick wooden doors of my family's present bedroom, I could hear some gentle bossanova music playing. It wasn't the usual for parties but I remembered that they were adults and they've lived a life of joys different from mine.

I didn't know if the other people in this house was aware of what had happened. With August and Pace. Or even with what Anderson had just told me.

My gut twisted with the thought but at least only one of them were my true worries.

Anderson was special to me. He was the little boy who'd always wanted to make me happy, even if he was a year older than me. He was the boy who'd defended me when Paige fought with me and I was battered and bruised to the core. He was the boy in his family who always took extra time when picking out my Christmas and birthday gifts, always choosing what he thought that I'd like best even when he ended up getting me the long outgrown arts and crafts kits I once longed for in the toy stores.

I would always love Anderson in a way that was different yet definitely more special than the way you'd love a boyfriend.

The thought that that was what Anderson had exactly wanted was strange.

If all that happened....

If all that happened, everything would change.

Anderson would be my boyfriend, my first one, at sixteen.

Our families would probably be weirded out but maybe they'd see that the possibility wasn't always so far away. If it did happen, if they realized we were serious, it wouldn't be bad. I knew they'd be accepting at the end.
Anderson was already like family, I knew that couldn't really change. Nothing could change that.

While Pace was the guy everyone admired, Anderson was everyone's safeguard, we all trusted him. He was the guy who would always be there for you. And he was just as charming, if not more than Pace.

Anderson was the guy everyone went up to when they had problems. And I didn't wish any different now, I wished he was here for me to be able to talk to with about my situation, it was ironic.

But maybe, that was it as well.

He couldn't comfort me now, but maybe I could.

I didn't know how exactly, but I hoped as I went out to the party looking for him, it would come clearly. And right.

While how I apologized to him a while ago wasn't really one of the worst possible scenarios that could have happened, it wasn't soft either. For someone who had high hopes or had fallen deeply in love, which I'm not assuming that he did, but there was always that possibility, it could be a low blow.

I caught sight of the blonde patch of hair out in the garden.

As I approached him, I slowed my pace, looking for the right way to enter the conversation.

I was about to call his name when I realized he was talking to someone.

Not just anyone. A girl.

And while I had no problem with Anderson mingling with the opposite sex, I felt my heart weigh down a little as I realized this wasn't just any girl.