He Is, He Isn't

.18.

We were working a shift together one day, just the two of us.

I was sitting on my cooler, legs hanging off.

We were fighting.

One of the lifeguards came in, took one look at us and left. Ryan had been getting so into his side of the argument that he was pushed up against my cooler, standing between my legs. I don't know what the lifeguard thought, but she left more quickly than was necessary.

He insisted that watermelon was better with salt.

I vehemently disagreed.

But my arguments fell short. I was having trouble forming words through the cloud that fogged my brain. His eyes were so close, his smile, his lips. His body heat radiated outward and flushed my cheeks pink. He was so close.

I was so distracted. He was everywhere, each word he spoke surged through my nerves, and forced my heart to pound a mile a minute. And yet he was nowhere. Nowhere close enough, nowhere near enough. Nowhere.

I jokingly pushed him away from me. If I were to do it over, I'd never let him get close to me again.

The next day we argued about decaf coffee versus caffeinated, whether gummies would be good with ice cream, and if cherry tomatoes looked more like a tomato or a cherry.

That was what our arguments were like before.