Lakeside

[15] The Storm

"I'm really sorry." I repeat myself, but it doesn't change the look in his eyes. I don't know if it's disappointment or anger. He crosses his arms and stands firmly. The sky is dark now, and all that lights up his face is the lightning. His jaw is clenched, and I feel so bad. I wish I could be brave enough to be with him.

"It's okay." He finally answers. However, the tone of his voice speaks louder than his words. I know he's not okay with it. I know he's upset that I turned him down. But he turns and walks away before I can look at him and read his expressions more.

"Ash..." I start to take quick strides towards him, and he turns back to me once more.

"Really. It's fine. I get it." He says this with a rigid jaw. His eyes aren't the light clouds that I've come to love. They are darker and bluer now. He turns away from me once again.

I put a hand on his bare, soaking shoulder, feeling the goosebumps against my hands. He stops walking and looks down.

"I don't want you to lie to me. Please don't." I plead. He does nothing, and I expect him to do something at least, but he just looks up and continues to walk forward and away from my touch.

"Let's get home." I barely hear him over the whipping wind, the growling thunder and the pounding rain. My hair beats at my face as I stand still, feeling my blood turn cold. I finally make moves towards the bikes, my body heating up again.

I get on the bike, and I pedal like my life depends on it. We took the long way, but now that it was storming we needed to get home as fast as possible, that meant going down a huge hill.

I took detours through the forest and I hoped that Ash was behind me. I was barely thinking about the way that I hated how unsecured I felt on the bike. The handles were soaked and slippery, and the chain was making weird noises. The breaks all of a sudden stopped working. I could barely see where I was going with my hair in my face, and the wind was so strong it sometimes almost knocked me over. But I wasn't worried about any of that. I was close to tears because I had just rejected my crush, even though I'd been yearning to kiss him. When his lips met mine and moved perfect against mine, I realized how terrible the match was.

I didn't know what to think. I didn't know if I should believe he really likes me. He did this kind of thing to girls all the time. It was hard to believe him, but everything he ever said to me just proved how wrong I was.

"You're a hard one not to care about."

"I told you I wouldn't leave you alone, and I won't."

"I didn't think I could care this much about someone."

"I really, really like you too."

And then you add all the times he held me and kissed me on the forehead, held my hand, even called me baby girl. There had to be feeling there. There just had to.

I started to go down the huge hill and stopped pedaling. I let my body relax and look up at the white and purple strikes stretching across the sky. I noticed that by every strike they got closer and closer, until a tree at the bottom of the hill was struck. I watched it start to tip, and I didn't really think much of it. As I went lightning fast on the steep hill with the wind pushing me, I realize that there is a possibility that tree will fall directly on my at the rate it's going, and the panic starts to set in.

Fear filled my veins. My blood went cold, and I felt like I couldn't move. My heart started to pound against the bones in my rib cage. I was going to die if I didn't do something quick.

I heard Ash yelling at me from behind, but I couldn't make out what he was saying over the stormy weather. The tree kept falling and I stupidly tried to break, even though I knew it was broken. I tried to pedal so maybe I could go faster and get past the tree before it fell, but it felt like the pedals were going nowhere, so I look down to see that the chain is missing.