Love is Free!

Hellish Heaven

Haru POV:

The waves of the ocean crashed over my shoulders as I swam out and away from Makoto's lectures. I know it's an unfair move, but he won't follow me out here.

As soon as I got to the shoreline of the peninsula I crawled out of the water and laid on the sand. This week has been hard and Mako just doesn't understand.

Rin's back.

I sat on the beach and just thought and thought until I swear I thought a hole in the ground.

Rin's back.

What does that mean? What do I do? How can I even begin to adjust to life again? I already had to once. I don't want to again.

Four years ago, Rin moved to Austrailia. He and I used to be close. Very close. We raced constantly. We hung out constantly. When I turned 12, he gave me a dolphin necklace that his father gave to him. It was his most prized posession. That was the first time I realized I liked someone as more than a friend.

Then he left. He just decided to leave and I thought I'd never see him again. I quit compettative swimming. It took me a year to even figure out how to really live again after that.

Now there's Makoto and Nagisa like always. But our swim team has a new butterfly swimmer. I don't really know how to feel about Rei. He just feels like a replacement for Rin, even though it's obvious Nagisa really likes him.

And now Rin's back and I have no idea what to do. I tried to tell Mako that, and he lectured me about how far I've come and how Rin "betrayed" me and how I shouldn't care. But how can I not care? He was my first love.

After maybe an hour on that beach, I swim back to the shore. Makoto was gone, so I got rinsed off in the public shower and started the walk home.

I stopped to get some mackeral from a vendor near the beach. And of course Rin had to be there. Shit.

I turned around before he could meet my eyes.

"Haru?" I started running. Running anywhere except here. Anywhere except Rin.

He's grown. He's several inches taller than me now with broad shoulders and a strong jawline. He's grown up. And he's hot.

I can't be near him right now. I still don't know how I feel about him. How to bring him back into my life. He obviously remembered me, but his voice gave away no specific emotion. I... I just can't accept him being here. Not yet.

I thumbed the dolphin necklace hanging from my neck as I slumped against the wall of Iwatobi. I haven't taken it off since the day Rin gave it to me except to swim.

Just as I caught my breath, the doors to the pool from Iwatobi opened and the team plus Gou walked out to it. Well, shit. I stood to leave a second too late.

"Haru-chan! We were wondering where you were!" Nagisa skipped over to my side and slapped my shoulder lightly. "Come swim. Gou made a new training regiment." I swallowed thickly and looked down at him.

"Fine. And how many times to I need to tell you to drop the 'chan'." He just laughed and led me back to the pool. Hopefully I can just ignore them all and set my mind straight.

Mako immediately started asking me where I'd gone and saying how unfair it was of me to go into the ocean before he was done speaking. I pushed past him and slipped into the pool.

I swam for hours on end without taking a real break. I wasn't tired. I just needed to get all this out of my head. I tried everything I could think of to get Rin off my mind: to no avail.

His strong body keeps flashing across my vision. His new face. His adult form. His deep voice when he called my name this afternoon.

It's nearly painful how much I care about how different he is now. He was gone for four years, so it's only natural for him to have grown up. Even so, I just can't process how much he's grown up.

When I finally crawled out of the pool, the only one left was Makoto, waiting to walk home with me. I started walking before he really noticed I was leaving, but he caught up easily.

I continued to ignore him as he again picked up his lecture and started telling me I'm acting strange and careless. Whatever. I still couldn't focus on Makoto's words if I wanted to. Rin is too prominent in my thoughts. He looks like heaven, but he seems like hell. How on earth do people deal with being in love with someone who left?

And how can I recover from that?