10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love

Liz Goes Over

            “Hey,” Elizabeth said quietly to Vincent as she stared at the waterfall’s spray, twinkling in the moonlight. After she had calmed down a little, Elizabeth had gone outside to cool her face.

            She was cozily wedged between Andre and Vincent, and after short chats and long silences, Andre had slowly drifted off to sleep. His head lay on Elizabeth’s shoulder, and his blanket was tightly wrapped around him as his chest rose and fell.

            “Yeah?” Vincent replied without moving his gaze from the midnight sky.

            “You didn’t kiss Annie after all, did you?”

            He snorted. “Absolutely not.”

            Silence.

            “I’m sorry.”

            “It’s fine, really. I’m the one who should be sorry for not exposing that witch earlier. It came to you as a huge shock, didn’t it?”

            “I just… I haven’t had a girl as a friend in a long time, and I guess my head was in the clouds. How could I have not noticed?” Elizabeth scowled as she pulled her blanket tightly against her, still too embarrassed to look Vincent in the eye. He turned to look at her with soft curiosity.

            “Why haven’t you had any girl friends?”

            Elizabeth’s face darkened at the reason, and after a long silence, she turned her torso to face Vincent, punching his head. Vincent squinted his eyes and glared at her like “What the heck!” as he nursed a bruising spot.

            “It’s because of complete testosterone fueled, extremely desperate, pretty boy MORONS like you!” Elizabeth hissed. “I didn’t always pretend to be ugly, you know!”

            “Oh, that,” Vincent muttered as he looked away with embarrassment. Right; Liz was the hottest girl he’d seen in a long time, and she attracted guys like a magnet.

            “Idiot.”

            Vincent didn’t reply for a while, finding patterns in the ripples of the waterfall. After a few moments, Vincent whipped around with a strangled look on his face, blurting out a desperate question.

            “Do you wish that you never met m-” His face suddenly softened.

            Elizabeth had dozed off; leaning against the tent as her chest barely rose and fell, looking like a child who had fallen asleep during a long car ride home.

            Vincent chuckled with a grin he couldn’t explain as he heaved himself off the ground, gently cradled Elizabeth in his arms, and carried her to bed. Andre watched with one eye open as Vincent stepped through the tent flap.

            The gap between the two, Andre thought grudgingly with the same stupid smile Vincent was wearing, was narrowing bit by bit with each passing day.

***

            Elizabeth just stared at the ring of girls who were nervously staring back at her. Vincent glowered at them, ignoring Andre’s elbow jabs trying to get him to be nice.

            “We honestly didn’t know,” the red head of the group said tentatively. “And we’re REALLY sorry.”

            “So,” Elizabeth said with an almost sarcastic tenor as she bit into her cold sandwich, “you came to apologize for something that you never said to my face.”