The summer I met Charlie

part 9

I turned around until I heard a splash. I don't know why I didn't want to see him. Maybe it was because he was still a stranger to me in some way. It wasn't the idea of him naked that was strange. But the idea that I wouldn't be swimming at night with Charlie, but a seal. That was what scared me to not want to turn around. I wasn't ready yet to see him actually change. So I kept my distance and looked in the direction of the cliff and its rocky sides. I could see more of the shore and how it disappeared into the water at the far end. When I heard him start to walk into the water, I was prepared to still see him standing there as him. But when I turned around, he was gone. Then I saw the little head. He was extreamly far out, but it had to be him. I walked my feet in till I was up to my knees. The water was colder then I had remembered, but I didn't care. He started to move closer to me. Until he was only a few feet away. He was definitely the same seal. The one I had seen earlier, and now that I think of it, he looked like the same one that I had tried to explain to Charlie about. The one that seemed to have "watched" me when I took a brake from my run and swam that one day. Hmm so that meant that he had already seen me... That only bothered me a little. 

His eyes were the same. It was like seeing something special for the first time. It was magic. He was magic. He was incredibly bigger then what I imagined most seals to be. He had to have been 6'2 at least as a human. How did that work? Definitely a question I was going to bring up later. 

I tried to extend my hand out to him, to try and touch the skin that now was Charlie, but right when my hand was about to touch him, he went under. Disappearing into the deep. And then, a minute later Charlies head popped out of the water.

"So too scary for miss Lena?" He started to laugh and was shaking the hair out of his face. 

"What, why would you think it was too scary for me? I mean it's just your form of normal..."

"You should see your face, you look like youv'e just seen an axe murder!" He was still laughing but something seemed to have changed. Maybe my face really was scared looking. 

"Ha! More like scared at the idea of you being Naked! Your crazy, put some pants on!" But I was laughing too. 

"So that's how you spend your time, swimming around as a seal and spying on girls in their underwear."

"I swear I wasn't spying on you. All though, I do give you props for picking up on that as quick as you did. I was expecting it to take you a bit longer then the first time of officially seeing me.

"What can I say, I pick up on those sort of things." 

"I thought you were cute you know, just saying. When you were thinking the water was really cold. You were shivering under the water. And then I couldn't help looking at you when you climbed out. It was a... er... nice sight."

"Or really, you like it when random girls go swimming in their underwear?"

"No, only you."

"Hmm well we shall have to see about that." At this point I don't really know what came over me. If it was adrenaline or if it was the fact that he had already seen, but the next thing I knew I was stepping out of the water and peeling of my dress. Revealing my lace undergarments. This time though, they were blue and grey. 

"He raised his eyebrows and then covered his eyes as if he was a little kid sharing the changing room with his mother. I dove in and shived. As south as California was, it was way too cold for me. I went to the surface and looked back to where Charlie should have been. But he was gone. And then, he was right infront of me. Hair once again dripping wet with sea water.

"Soon it will be getting close to midnight Lena, then you'll have to make a wish." I couldn't have felt more like Cinderella. 

"What do you mean it will almost be midnight! It was only like eight not too long ago! Charlie you have got to be kidding!" He looked puzzled and then he grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the water. He grabbed his clothes, not leaving me any time to really see any part of him because I was searching and trying to gather up my own. 

"Charlie..."

"Let me guess you've got to be back home. And if i'm lucky I'll get a glace slipper."

I smiled. The clock on his car radio said 11:15. I was only about an hour late. It wasn't that I couldn't be out. It was only the idea that I had left them with that I was going to be out with friends, and ofcourse they were going to ask more then one question now that I was gone so long.