Wherever You Go [Katy Perry Fan fiction]

Chapter Six

My eyes were at the moment set on the peacefulness of the sea, as I sipped on my tea that sat warmly in the palms of my hands, my elbows resting on the table in front of me. A smile was plastered onto my lips, loving how good the feeling was of being at home. It felt so normal, like I was living back in beautiful Santa Barbara one again.

I study my surroundings, the tall palm trees that casted shadows onto the pavement before the beach, the sun that hung over the sea as its rays were beating down on the people below it, and how the children were splashing around in the sea without a care in the world. Then as I'm admiring the happy faces, my smile slowly fades away from my face. I freeze in position, my lips glued to the mug in my hands, the steam rising from the hot liquid and sticking to my skin.

I slowly pull the mug away from my lips whilst my eyes send messages to brain of what they're seeing. My lips part as I lick them moist, feeling the hurt, let down and sadness fill my body, but also at the same time, I feel the love, the need... the want. I crave his touch. I crave Stephen Jefferson.

His brown hair is shorter than how it used to be, but it all still sweeps to one side. He doesn't have braces anymore, just a set of perfectly aligned teeth that sparkle when he smiles. I watch him as he runs around on the beach with his friends, shirtless and kicking a ball between his feet. He's older now. 19 years old in fact, and soon to turn 20.

When I watch him sprinting across the sand with the ball, dodging through the people attempting to tackle him, before swiftly shooting the ball into the net. Ste jumps, his arms in the air, and it almost makes me laugh. I bring my cup back up to my lips as I giggle.

It's at that point, as I admire him celebrating his goal, that a familiar face, a girl who used to aggravate me more than any other human, bounces over to him cheering. She locks her arms around his torso, burying her head into his neck as she laughs. I feel sick rise to the back of my throat, then my jaw drops completely as she throws her arms then around his neck and kisses him. The most heartbreaking part of it all is that he's actually kissing her back; his hands are locked around her waist like they're supposed to be there and he laughs with her into their kiss.

I couldn't bare to watch it anymore, so I removed my eyes from the sight. She'd finally got what she had always wanted. She got Ste.

I calmly take a sip of my tea, "You didn't mention Ste was dating Mia Danforth," I say to Alex, and she looks up at me guilty. Her eyes full of pity and sadness, like she's sorry. She knows exactly what I just saw.

She swallows the coffee in her mouth, "I didn't know how to."

"Her of all people," I say through a laugh, knowing that all along I suspected something like this to happen.

"She's still the same Mia she always has been. I don't know what he sees in her."

As I manage to force my eyes to look at him again, I see that she's disappeared somewhere and he's continuing his game. He stands with his hands on his hips, watching where the ball has headed. For a couple of seconds, I'm too lost in staring at him to realise that he's staring right back.  And he's looking me dead in the eye. And he smiles. And he lifts his arm in the air and waves. And I'm frozen in place, but somehow unable to look away. And...I miss him.

I break off the eye contact and stare down into my now empty mug, panicking over what had just happened. Alex looks at me curiously, probably wondering what I'm thinking in my mind.

As I open my mouth to speak, the jingle from the door stops me. I pause. My head spins to the left, searching for the brown haired boy out of the window that I had been looking at before. He's not there.