Someday The Waves ✔ *Wattys15 Winner*

Chapter Twenty

Young and free in the sun,

Wheels upon the tar.

Mango Tree - Angus & Julia Stone

. . .

Friday, early September

As Poppy passed me the lights to hang up, a small gust of wind shook the leaves from the large tree at the end of the yard. Free from their old home they danced and swirled above me, as I tried to stay steady on the ladder, my hand clinging to a long branch.

"Looks like a storms a brewing." Poppy sighed, untangling the wires and checking the tiny bulbs still worked.

As much as the awful heat wave had all but sucked the life out of Pesmo and it's residents, this new change in the weather hadn't been welcome either. For days we'd had heavy winds and thick humid nights, the storm getting closer to our shores with each new morning.

For now though it held off, which relieved Poppy because as she said you can't have a summer party without sunshine.

"Hopefully it will stay away until this is all over." I joked, wrapping lights around the tree.

Jumping up onto the ladder with me Poppy took them out of hands and re-arranged them. "Higher up Scarlett, like this."

So far helping her organize the party had put a strain on my patience but I knew that she meant well. After all it was supposedly a joint event, to celebrate not only Poppy's talent at throwing a beautiful party but the closing of another long year that would see me strike out of my teens and into uncharted territory.

Because now I was twenty, and apparently no longer allowed to eat cereal out of tupperware boxes or leave my chipped nail polish on. As Poppy had told me when she threw up the blinds in the morning, a small marzipan cake in the shape of a heart thrust into my face with one single unlit candle in it - I was now starting an exciting, promising phase of my life. One that required me to look presentable, like a real adult, supposedly.

I now had to eat cereal like a lady.

I also had to agree to help her set up for the big day, and arrange delicate felt birds on the trellis tables she'd set out in the yard along with the paper lanterns she'd spent all week crafting. I didn't quite have the heart to tell her they looked nothing like the tutorial she had supposedly tried to copy.

"Okay so the lights are up, next thing on the list is to put out the cushion covers - they're on the porch, can you grab them?" Poppy instructed, running a line through the clipboard list.

Doing as I was told, I picked them up and started to lay them on the neglected wooden chairs pulled out from the garage. Of course, everything had to be just so and within moments I felt Poppy behind me, re-tying the ribbons through the chairs, looping them into dainty bows.

"So, Noah's coming right?" she asked crouched low to the ground, with me tying the cushions and her quietly adjusting them.

"He is."

"It's nice to see you smile Scarlett, I was worried your face would get stuck in a permanent scowl you know."

Poppy was right.

It was nice to smile so genuinely, without even realizing but the feeling of it coiled tight inside was even better. Just the mention of his name bought flashbacks to our night at the pool, his lips on mine, his fair hair tickling my eyelashes and how he whispered my name.