I'll Always See You

Chapter 8 - If They Don't Play Pop Punk, Is It Even a Party?

Monday rolled around as much as I willed it not to. I tried not to think too much about Grayson and my embarrassing incident but it wasn't working so far. Things seemed pretty normal around him at school and he blessedly didn't bring anything up. I could only imagine the shitstorm Lisanne would have caused in her excitement if she'd heard about something like that. Nope, I'd tell her about that little thing on my own time. 'Oh yeah, the guy I denied feelings for, and still vehemently am doing so, is like, super super hot underneath those loose shirts and jackets. In case you couldn't have already figured that one out.' I could almost hear it.

The rest of the week was as uneventful as could be. First essay assignment of senior year, check. First test? Not yet, but scheduled for next week, yes. Fourteen days down. Friday afternoon after school Lisanne waltzed up to me at the lockers and fixed me with a stare. I turned to her reluctantly.

"If I ask you a question, you have to say yes," she said promptly.

I blinked a few times. "Maybe?"

She shook her head. "Not an acceptable answer. Promise you'll say yes."

"If you're going to ask me again to go cliff-diving in Colorado with you like you did last year, I'm still saying no," I responded tartly. "It didn't work the first time so it probably won't work now."

"I actually don't even know if you can cliff-dive in Colorado," she said, shrugging. "I totally made that up. I'd forgotten all about it. We should find out."

We started our walk out of the school building.

"Anyways, will you? Say yes?" she continued chattering.

I sighed. "Okay, ninety percent chance, just because you're getting on my nerves. Unless it's illegal. What is it?" I asked resignedly, pulling my backpack further up onto my shoulder.

"There's a little tiny party at the beach tonight and you have to come with me, please. It wouldn't be any fun without you there." I stopped walking and just looked at her. She giggled. "Okay, I kind of expected that, but you said ninety percent chance, remember?"

I sighed dramatically again, desperately racking my brain for a valid excuse to not go, and coming up with nothing. I finally threw my hands up in the air. "I'm not staying long," I told her. I really did not want to be there. But if I turned her down for one more thing, I wouldn't even be able to blame her if she took off and never talked to me again.

"Yay! Don't worry, neither am I," she bubbled happily.

I shook my head. "Remind me to thank you some day for putting up my antisocial ass," I said begrudgingly.

She totally ignored my comment, already on her phone. Lisanne in herself was an interesting character too, I thought. She ran circles around everyone in school as far as smarts went, I knew that, and she pulled off nice, pretty and popular as icing on the cake.

She had already gone her separate way when I met up with Matt. "What's that look for?" he asked me right away.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't even ask. Long story short, guess who's going to a party tonight?"

************************************

Five thirty rolled around way too fast and I wasn't even close to done with my homework. Already remembering why I didn't do parties, I let Lisanne into the house and couldn't even stop her from helping me pick out an outfit.

"I'm capable of this, you know," I said in a weak defense of my abilities. She nodded sweetly in agreement, but she continued to hold up shirts next to me, saying otherwise.

"I really can," I argued, finally grabbing the fourteenth or fifteenth shirt she help up in exasperation. "That's the one. It's fine."

She nodded again. "I was going to say, this one doesn't suck."

I threw it on, grabbed a light sweater just in case, a book if I needed to retreat into a metaphorical corner by myself, my phone, and tossed them all into a bag.

Not fifteen minutes later we got out of her car at the beach and I stared horrified at the small mob that had already gathered under portable tents. I tried to get right back into the car but she had already locked the doors.

"No, no no, you said a small party," I said, realizing the futility of my words as they came out. Some sort of rap music poured from speakers that I couldn't see and people I was pretty sure I didn't know ran across the beach in what was left of the midday light. When I looked back Lisanne had already found her boy toy and they had linked arms.

"I'm going to go say hi to some friends," she said. "I'll find you in a bit!"

I stayed by the car, clutching my bag awkwardly and staring at the sea. Hopefully if I looked long enough everything else would disappear. What only seemed like a few seconds had probably turned into a few minutes when someone spoke from behind me.

"I didn't expect to see you here." A simple sentence had me jumping out of my skin, hopping in the air about six inches. I whipped around in time to catch a low, rough laugh from Grayson.

Clapping a hand to my chest, I glared at him. "You scared me," I said blandly.

Not even an apology. He just shrugged. "Matt didn't mention you'd be here," he said.

"I didn't exactly ask Matt to broadcast it to the world," I retorted. "And he didn't say you'd be here either." I could have figured, though.

"Last minute decision. I'm guessing that someone dragged you here, based on where you're standing right now." He crossed his arms over his swim shirt. The bright white shirt contrasted with the dark board shorts sitting low on his hips and I swallowed, for whatever reason.

"Isn't it too cold to go swimming?" I had no good answer because I had definitely been dragged here.

He flashed a grin. "It's only September. A little chill's good for you. Wakes up your bones."

"I'm going to make Matt use a blow dryer to thaw you out if you freeze." "An old blow dryer prone to shorting out," I tacked on for good measure.

Grayson took in my shirt and jeans in a single glance. "I take it you are not going to be doing any laps," he surmised.

I shook my head and rummaged around in my bag, fishing out my worn book and holding it up. "I have other plans. Ones where I'll stay dry and reasonably warm."

"Ah. Have lots of fun with that," he said, playfully clapping me on the upper arm and running off towards the beach, blending in with the throngs of other swimmers effortlessly.

Trying not to think on the fact that just him brushing up against my arm had me pausing for a second, I found a rock closer to the car than to the party and sat down, figuring I'd catch up on a couple chapters before the sun started to sink in the sky.

********************************

Lisanne wound her way over every now and then, consistently swarmed with people form our high school and others. She effortlessly seemed to balance the crowd, leaving no one out and saving a smile for everyone. Seemed exhausting to me. She tried introducing me to a couple of James' friends but they all had 'tool' written across their foreheads, at least as far as I was concerned, so my book took first priority. Every now and then I'd glance up at the beach and watch the people playing on it and swimming. A white swim shirt was easy enough to follow in the orange-ish pink light as it bobbed in and out of the water. Giving up on watching shortly after losing sight of him for the umpeenth time in the water, I read until Lisanne grabbed me to leave.