The brooding clouds and menacing waves had frightened me away from my usual spot, but instead on to a bench which was a distance away. The wild wind attacked me as I huddled myself into a ball and wrapped my teddy bear styled jacket across my knees. I hated this weather, it made me feel all different types of emotions; anger, worry and also insecure, as if it was natures way of telling me I'd done something wrong.
I grabbed ahold of my headphones and ran my fingers through them in attempt to untangle them. The wind also tried his best to help but unfortunately caused more of a riot than necessary. I huffed, shoving them back into my pocket and instead hummed to myself, the tune of 'City Lights' by Haevn.
Reece perched next to me with a grin plastered onto his face.
"You sing?" He questioned, but I shook my head instantaneously, I wish I was gifted with that talent, but unfortunately not.
"I just like music, I don't like the sound of my own." I laughed.
We both stared into the view, the clouds turning more indigo and the waves hurdled towards the cliff in rage. I no longer felt safe perched on top of them. The clouds too whizzed passed us, as if they were competing in a race. The sky grumbled at us both, and I looked at Reece, frightened of what was coming next.
"One thing that frightens me is thunderstorms," I spoke in a rush, hoping Reece would catch on and chauffeur me away into safety; instead he looked at me and laughed.
"Then why are you out here?" He chuckled and I shook my head.
"Can we go?" I spoke as the sky illuminated white in a quick sweep.
"I think it's beautiful," he spoke as he gazed longingly at the stormy scenery.
"I think it's petrifying," I stated, and again he laughed.
"where can we go?" He asked,
"My car," I said in a instant, not that it'd be the safest place to take shelter, but I think I'd feel more at ease inside of there.
"C'mon then," he spoke, standing up abruptly.
We speedily walked towards my car which was parked at the bottom of the cliff in the only car park there was. It overlooked the sea which was beautiful and I use to have fond memories with my friends, where we sat in one of their cars and ate crap food from the kebab shop and blared pop songs out of the tinny speakers.
I unlocked the silver Mini and we sat inside, Reece stared at the left side of my face with great fascination, I looked over worried, but he smiled back as if to tell me not to worry.
"do you know how to tell how close a thunderstorm is?" he asked, I shook my head. I never held a great interest with them, they scared me and I wanted to minimise them out of my life as much as I could. I couldn't tell you why they scared me, I just grew up with the fear. River would come into my room and we'd use to hide under the duvet singing our thunder song to make it disappear. We liked to believe it worked, but really we'd sit there for hours until it finally went away.
"so when you see the next struck of lightning, you count and see how long it takes for the thunder to come." He spoke, I looked at him with great amazement, "What?" He laughed, his cheeks flaring red.
"How do you know that?" I asked,
"My parents use to tell me, I don't know how true it is, but they always use to count with me and my sister when we use to get scared." He claimed, "let's try it,"
We sat in the car and watched as the rain aimlessly fell onto the window screen and dribble down to the bottom. A flash of lightning took me out of my trance, and sent panic running through my veins.
Reece began counting aloud, and I watched him and every number that fell from his mouth. A loud boom of thunder erupted through the car and it felt like the ground was collapsing below us. My eyes widened and I stared at Reece, shaking.
"Hold my hand," he said, his hand jutted out in front of me. I hesitantly placed my hand into his and he laced our fingers together. "Now I want you to squeeze whenever you feel nervous," he spoke, and instantly I gave it a tight squeeze.
He started laughing and looked over at me with a reassuring glint in his eye.
The rain drowned my car as water cascaded down the windows leaving a marble effect sprawled on the window screen. The wind threw with all its might against the car, and I couldn't help but squeeze Reece's hand with all my strength.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"sorry, the wind scared me," I apologised, but began laughing, realising how weak I must have sounded to him.
"there's no need to be sorry," he spoke. A streak of white startled us both, and both of hands squeezed together.
"I feel as if there's someone out there trying to frighten me, as if I've done something wrong. I feel like this is nature's way of telling me," I looked at Reece.
"What's wrong Shiloh?" he spoke over the rain, over the roaring wind and over the sadness of the night.
"I just feel like I've done wrong, like I'm in the wrong,"
"With what?" he asked again. I realised what I was doing, opening up and exposing my true self to him, showing him the flaws in how i lived, and I realised he was the only person who I'd told, since the incident had happened.
"with my friends, maybe I was too harsh Reece," I spoke, squeezing his hand with every word I spoke.
"have you seen them since?" he asked, and I shook my head. "Is that why you picked the beach, because they never come here?" He asked, as if he was travelling through parts of my mind and knew exactly what was going to happen.
"one of the reasons," I said. The other reason l would tell him with time.
"At least the thunderstorm is going away,' he spoke, ending the conversation in a good place.
"how do you know?" I asked,
"I've been counting, it's been over a minute since our last boom of thunder, so the storm is around sixty miles away," he calculated, which made me suspicious, I wasn't sure how accurate this mechanism was of his, but the storm was very much still here.
"Hey, you know what I'm scared of?" he said, I shook my head. "living up to everyone's expectations. It's so hard to please everyone, I just want to please myself and do what makes me happy." He said and I couldn't agree more.
"Not feeling good enough is a horrible feeling. I've been there and I'm so happy I escaped it before it got viscous." I spoke.
"You're brave, Shiloh." He spoke, with a squeeze of the hand, but he didn't know the half of it. I'd just been living my life, taking it as it comes, some patches of it have been torture and I didn't think I would be able to cope with it and continue being me, but at the moment I'm in a good place and they sunshine is finally shining in my darkness, and blinding it away.
YOU ARE READING
beach//reece bibby
Roman d'amour"You're like a daisy; you've been trod on and become so closed up with every gloomy day that passes, you need to focus on the brighter ones so you can bloom," he spoke as he twiddled a daisy between his fingers. "A daisy?" I questioned, my voice hoa...
