I Do Until I Don't

Chapter 24

The wind is filled with salt, drying my lips and covering my skin with this amazing feeling. The long sundress I'm wearing flies in the wind, and so those my hair. I feel like Pocahontas minus the raccoon and the cool tattoo.

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Fannar asks behind me. I spin around to face him. His hair is all tousled up by the wind and his tied-die t-shirt is flowing into the wind.

I smile and look at the view as I say, "I just don't get how people can possibly want to go to war when there is so much they will destroy. Can't they see how beautiful life is?"

We're on the top of a cliff, picnicking with Alex and Sabrina who are tanning a little farther away. There aren't many people where we are; only the locals know about this little cliff. It's further away from the boardwalk and the shops, but the view is worth it.

"Some people are blinder than blind people," Fannar comments on my previous question.

"That's sad."

Fannar reaches out for my hand. I forget, for a moment, that he is doing this all for show. Together, we join our friends resting on a picnic table. Alex is earing a bright orange bathing suit and tropical flower t-shirts. Sabrina has on a black floppy hat and a black dress with all blue accessories.

"I wish I could live here," Sabrina lets out in a sigh. "I want to marry some hella rich guy and buy this cliff and build the prettiest mansion ever and live there forever."

Alex raises his glass of lemonade. "Amen."

"Wanna go to the movies later?" asks Sabrina. "There's his really good movie... I don't remember the title... and it has great reviews."

"I'm in," Fannar says. He wraps an arm around me and looks at me with this adorable expression on them. "Wanna join?"

If we were really dating, I would have kissed him or would have at least booped his nose, but it's all too strange for me. Even if we're only pretending. So I just look away and smile. "I'll see what I can do."

"I can't." Alex gets up. "Got this date with this bomb ass girl I met at the ice cream shop."

"Bomb ass" makes me flinch a bit. It's not exactly how I'd like to be described if, hypothetically speaking, Alex and I end up dating.

"You can date her any other day," Sabrina points out.

"I can see the movie any other day as well."

Sabrina doesn't have something to reply to that. A silence installs itself between us, allowing me to listen to the crash of the waves on the rocks below us.

"I have to pee," Fannar says, unwrapping my shoulders with his arm. "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, someone kidnapped me."

Sabrina jumps out of her beach chair. "I'm coming with you. I know where the bathrooms are. And no one will ever dare kidnap you if I'm with you."

Alex scoffs. "I think it's the other way around."

Sabrina puts her hands on her hips. "What? A girl can't defend herself?"

"No, she can. It's just that─"

"Don't finish your sentence," I recommend him. "There is no good answer."

Alex smiles. "Indeed, there isn't, Fannar."

Sabrina and Fannar leave to find a bathroom, leaving me alone with Alex.

Alone.

With Alex.

"Fannar and you seemed to have hit it off," Alex says once his cousin and friend are out of sight.

"Yeah... He's nice. I guess you were right."

"Always am."

He smirks. His eyes meet mine and it's like my stomach explodes with butterflies and everything inside me is just KABOOM! I wonder if he knows the effect he has on me. I wonder if he knows that I used to cry myself asleep at night, wondering how on earth I'd ever get over him, wondering if I'd ever settle down because no one was as amazing as him.

"Do you remember," I start, inhaling hard to stop myself from bursting out laughing, "that time in Florida when you tried to seduce the saleswoman in order to buy a pipe underaged for your Halloween costume which was ten months away?"

Alex smirks. "Oh right. That was so funny."

He isn't smiling, though.

"Did you do it? The costume thing?"

"Nah. I changed idea at the last moment. I went as Jack from Titanic and my ex went as Rose."

"That's adorable."

"I guess... What is it with girls and Jack Dawson?"

If I were drinking pina colada, I would have spat it out.

"You're kidding, right? Jack is, like, the most amazing person the world has ever created."

"You know he's fictional, right?"

"I do. But it doesn't change the fact that every boy-liking-girl and boy-liking-boy wants to have a Jack Dawson!"

Alex runs his hand in his hair. His beautiful, perfect hair.

To help me not lose my mind, I open my bag to take out a sandwich. It was Julia's turn to make them and, on my ziplock, I can read:

For the record, this was NOT made with love.

I laugh a little before I remember that I'm angry at her.

I feel Alex looking at me, so I take my eyes off of the ziplock note.

"You haven't changed," he tells me, staring at me like I'm some scientific research and he's the scientist.

"You told that to me before. Is it a good thing?"

Alex laughs. "Yeah. It is."

"Then good." I look at him, staring straight into my eyes. "You changed."

He frowns, and that's how I know I took him off guard. "Good or bad thing?"

"Not bad. Not good. Just..." I pause to find the right word. I just find, "different."

His eyes gazing in mine are so captivating that I have to look away. Maybe he didn't change, maybe it's just us, together. Something's off. It's not deep talks and funny moments. It's catching up and small talk. It's not a bad thing, per se, but it is quite destabilizing. I don't want us to become strangers. I don't want us to end up being these people that see each other once every five years, smile, and look away even though, in the back of their minds, they know each other's secrets. I don't want what we have ─ had? ─ to fade away.

"Do you think I could get that girl?" Alex asks, nodding towards a girl taking a selfie in front of the ocean.

"I thought you had a date?"

"I do. I'm just asking."

For some reason, I feel tears reaching my eyes. "You can get anyone you want, Alex."

His facial expression shifts from calm to smug. He gets up and goes talk to the girl. He comes back a few minutes later with a snap chat ID.

What if what we have ─ had? ─ already faded away? What if I'm caught up in the memories and not him? What if we end up being the kind of people who say how have you been instead of how are you?

"So," Alex starts again, sipping his drink. "How have you been?"

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Who are you rooting for? Alex or Fannar? 

Leave a comment if you feel like it, I'd love to have your feedback.

Have a lovely and magical day ♥