Lustrous

Chapter 30: The Pillow Wall Reconstruction

After the short lived counselling session that Anthony and I were excused from early - mostly because of our bickering and the fact that neither of us were willing to act like reasonable adults. We had both been very quiet since with neither one of us wanting to admit that we took things a little too far - Name calling, in particular - and neither of us wanting to be the first to apologize.

I wasn't proud of my actions.

I am.

I shouldn't have let him bait me like that.

You should have said more!

I won't let it happen again.

Bring on another round!

I gulped and turned back to look at Anthony. His head was down as he looked at his shoes, rocking back slight on his heels. His hands were in his pockets and his hair was messy with the beginnings of curls at his sides from the humid air.

I smiled as I saw the curls. I had never seen his hair take on the curly persona before and something about it made the sight seem that much more than just simple curls. It was something he obviously suppressed with mountains of jell. Seeing them alone made me feel something - what that was? I am still figuring out.

I supposed this was what we were, a constant stand off with one another. And sooner or later, one of us had to break, one of us had to apologize and be the bigger person.

Define bigger person? 'Cause if you mean weight, well then I think your ass has that covered.

I rolled my eyes at my inner self and pushed all thoughts butt related to the back of my mind for her to secretly dwell on. I stole another look at Anthony. He looked almost as ashamed as I was by the outburst.

Looking down, I drew a circle in the hot sand with my toe, not bothering to look at him as I started to speak. "I'm sorry about before, I know we said 'act like reasonable adults' but in my defense, you baited me."

There. I got it off my chest and the guilt was no longer mine to bare. I was the bigger person - and that had nothing to do with my butt.

"I did." He answered back. I looked up to face him with a hint of surprise. Did he just admit that? He was still looking down at the sand and rocking back and forth ever so slightly on his heels. "I hate counselling, it always gets me nervous and so I acted like a child."

I raised my eyebrows slightly shocked. "Wow, brutal confessions."

He chuckled deeply and walked over towards me. "Reasonable adults from now on." He held out his hand towards me in truce.

"Reasonable adults." I shook his hand and agreed.

We waited on the beach for another brief moment while we waited for our next scheduled activity to begin. Canoeing.

A few other couples were already on the water while Anthony and I got geared up for the small boat ride.

I hadn't exactly made up my mind about this activity just yet. Although, judging from past experiences I've had with unstable objects, and water simply on their own, let alone together, I knew this was going to be a terrible idea.

I should run now. Fake a stomach ache. Pretend to faint from heat exhaustion, anything was going to be better than sitting in a small canoe only inches off the water.

It only took us a few minutes to climb into the canoe with the assistant at the dock helping us to steady the small boat as we climbed in. Anthony took the seat at the back while I sat just in front of him, sitting mostly between his legs and facing forward.