Ocean Blue & You

June afternoons

June arrived with even more scorching hot days than before. It was unusual for the weather in England to stay this hot for so long, but now it was almost usual for us to walk out of our cool, air-conditioned classrooms to the sweltering heat outside. All anyone wanted to do was flop under a shady tree with some iced lemonade (or better still) run down to the beach and dive into the cool, salty sea. This thought became more and more appealing as the days dragged on. Lucky for us, the sixth year had finished their constant studying and mock exams. Unlike the rest of the school however, who were cooped up in classrooms, pouring over their papers and trying to take their minds off the cool sea, or what they wanted to do after school.

Anna, Faith and I now spent most days coming in for a lesson or two, and then taking the rest of the day off to relax at the beach or lounge around at one of our houses together, talking of not much, and not doing very much. This was the great advantage of being a sixth former, because, apart from the fact that there was a lot of studying, at this time of the year, instead of stressing over end of year exams and having six lessons a day, we had one or two, and the rest were free periods where we were even allowed to leave the school for whole afternoons or mornings. The teachers still pressured us to revise now and over the summer holidays, but we barely obeyed. The majority of us had the sort of attitude of "we'll worry about A-levels next year, when we're actually taking them," and none of us really cared much for school at the moment.

It was the Monday morning after the Friday evening I had spent with Jack, and as usual, Anna and Faith were dying for a full detail recount on what happened. Anna (as usual) was shocked and excited, muttering words of surprise and excitement, and Faith was being her usual cheeky, teasing self whenever there was a conversation about, or I even mentioned Jack.

"So, did you kiss?" Faith asked, grinning at me like she knew something.

"What? No!" I said, yet for a moment on the rock I really felt some tension between us that had nothing to do with nerves and all to do with kissing, but I made sure not to say this aloud to them. "We're just friends, and anyway, it's our first 'date thing'. It's not like we're actually on the terms of 'dating'," I said, doing inverted commas with my fingers. Faith still continued to grin mischievously regardless.

"I bet you wish you were though," she said. I ignored this, preferring not to answer, even though I knew she was right.

"So tell us everything that happened then," said Anna eagerly shuffling up closer to me and wrapping her arms around her knees, fidgeting excitedly.

"Well-" I began, "I first came to the beach, and was worried, because I didn't see him there. But then like two minutes later I realised I was being kind of paranoid because he was right around the corner."

"Ugh Posy..." Anna sighed, shaking her head and laughing.

"Anyway," I continued, "we walked down the pier to the edge, and he told me about his family. He told me his parents were divorced."

"Oh," Faith murmured.

"Yeah, and what's worse for him is that his dad is still living in California."

"Really?" Anna gasped, "that must be hard."

"Yeah," I agreed, "and I really felt sorry for him. He thought it was all his fault because he wanted to move away from Art college. So I told him that it wasn't because his Mum had already considered here as an option, since it was by the beach in England, and were moving anyway, and eventually he believed me. I hope."

"Oh God, I can't imagine my Mum and Dad living in two different countries. In two different continents!" Faith added, staring at the grass, as though trying to imagine herself in Jack's shoes.