What Do You See?

23

"God! Sebastian get out of the centre. I said height order!"

"But I'm the best looking of the lot." He whined.

We've been trying to take a picture of the Kales for the past half an hour. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't going as planned.

"And stop making funny faces Hardy, you're coming out as a blur!"

"I keep feeling like I need to sneeze or cough." Hardy whined.

"Hey, flip this! I'm going in the water."
This was said by Clayton, the guy assigned to using the beach umbrella as a reflector.

Everyone grumbled in agreement and dispersed.

"You literally took like fifty photos." I said with a laugh.

"Yup. Got at least twenty of a single pose." We laughed for a bit and we settled into a quite, comfortable state.

Raising my head from focussing on Rosie I asked, "Can I ask you about Grenda?

She thought for a moment, closing the magazine in her hands.  "Okay. What do you want to know?"

"Well, do you know that she's not... real?"

"Of course I do. It gets lonely when your father is always on business trips. I was homeschooled before I went to high school, and one of the perks of being homeschooled by an old lady, is that she was always falling asleep. I watched a lot of tv in that time and there was this show, 'Fayth and Paula'. I loved Fayth. She was the perfect companion. She was loud and funny and really pretty and I was always her. But I needed a Paula, the calm, motherly friend who advised and helped everyone. I couldn't steal the character though, so I made up my own."

"I guess that's understandable, but most kids forget about or move on from these things."

"I know. It's just that, when my mum... passed on, I needed a way to remember her. Eventually, Grenda began becoming like mum... and I just couldn't seem to part with the idea of letting my mother go."

"Does your doctor know?"

"God no, if they knew, I'd be cured and then I'd have to go back to bring homeschooled. I like the company at the institute. I Just play up this role to stay here."

"I think if you told anyone else, they'd keep you for a different reason."

"I think everyone has a bit of insanity, some just hide it well. Kind of like nervousness."

"Seems like you're becoming quite the doc yourself."

We sat in solitude for a while, watching the others play around in the water. They didn't go that far in, instead, they were attempting to make a human tower in the water. Poor Clayton was left out of the scaffold to catch if anyone falls.

"Kitty, so why do you act..."

"Naive, immature? Is it weird that I kind of crave attention because, you know, I've always been kind of lonely?"

"No it's not. Maybe you need a boyfriend."

"Haha, I told you. Your dad is the only man I'll ever need."

"I told you, that's gross."

"You ladies better be saying how I'm gorgeous not gross." Sebastian yelled from the water, no doubt attracting disgusted looks from the relaxed sunbathers.

Kitty rolled her eyes, smiling nonetheless. She went back to looking at the pictures she had taken, adding filters and texts to enhance it, making look like it's a scene from a movie poster.

"I'm going to go in for a bit." I said, my stiff joints groaning.

The water was... ice. As soon as I tested it out, I hissed and jumped back. Faster than lightening, I was hauledint the deeper part of the water, the busier part.

Recovering from the cold shock, I stood up, glowering at at my prime suspect, Clayton.

"Clayton! I swear, if you hauled me in, you will gave more than my wrath." I shouted at a rather confused Clayton.

"But I-"

"Yeah man! Haven't you heard? He'll hath no fury like a woman scorned." Theo cackled behind me in a very pathetic evil laugh.

Before I could even spin around, I felt the tips of Theo's iceberg fingers touch my stomach. He spun me so we were chest to chest, nose to nose...

"I kind of like you a lot, but I'm very gathful when it comes to doing dares."

I screamed as the wet sand was poured on my head and as it slithered achingly slowly down my back and trailed down my legs and into the water.

Pulling on a fake smile, I couldn't think of a better way to get sweet, sweet revenge.

"But Theodore," I said pulling him closer, "You were right. He'll hath no fury like a woman scorned." With that, I released a good handful of sand into the back of his shorts, causing him to squirm and jump around.

Everyone was laughing manually at our stunt,  as if they were watching the whole scene. Who even cares? It was just us for that one, ever so short moment.

When it got towards the afternoon and all the snacks got depleted, the wind began picking up, hinting at the storm ahead. Packing up everything we brought, we were ready to head home... well, to Theo's home.

The car ride back was much shorter than when we were coming. And after  listening to Harry Styles Sign of the times on loop, we were all exhausted.

Pulling into the garage, Fresco helped unpack, complaining to Clayton about how unfulfilling the Juventus vs Real Madrid match was. He claimed he was a devoted Chelsea fan, and no other team matches their calibre.

The rest of us were too exhausted to entertain his story. Sebastian just crashed on the sofa, barely interested in anyone. Kitty passed out on one of the beds in the other rooms. Hardy and Lisa joined Sebastian on the couches. I was heading to the spare room when Theo pulled me to his room.

"Did you put Rosie down?" I asked, my voice already thick with sleep.

"Hmm." He said, "When I finally get to be with you... alone... were too tired."

My eyes were already shut, but I reached up to his face, pulling it slowly, closer. I could feel that his eyes were closed too, and in that sleepy haze, we kissed. We didn't care how sloppy it was it how slow it was, we just knew that it was right.

His hand shifted from my lag to my lower back, pulling me towards him, then travelled slowly up to my face, playing with the ends of my hair.

"I think I might be starting to more than like you." He whispered and then we both fell asleep.

***
Hey!

It's been so long. I feel like I've forgotten my characters, but now that I'm back, I've missed them. Even though this story is so amateur and doesn't really impress  compared to true potential, I still want to write it. God, I am pathetic.

Anywho, I won't be able to be updating regularly, because I'm still in school, and it's the beginning of one of the most important exams for the year (Mid year exams) and I should be studying for physics or something, but I'm distracted and I'm probably going to lie to my mother about how much I studied when I actually wasted half the day.

I do have some other stories that I'm holding back from publishing because I'm really thoroughly making sure that they are perfect. Once I'm sure about those stories, hopefully soon, I shall publish them.

Until then adieu!