Nineteen

Chapter Thirty-Five

"What?" I say as I try to catch up with him, as he's already halfway down the hallway.
"A date," he repeats.

I don't answer. I'm confused.

As we walk down the sidewalk I say "where are we going?" He responds with a smile and says, "do you ever stop asking questions?"

His smile tightens my chest. He's very attractive as he is, but there's something about him.

I see his truck parked beside my car in the parking lot and it looks different. Is it clean?

I climb inside the passenger seat when I realize that I look like a total mess. He crawls in his seat right as I open my door again.

"Where are you going?" He asks.

"To change. I look horrible."

He groans. "You look fine."

I am standing outside the truck at this point.

He groans again. "Just get in. We're not going somewhere where you need to look nice. You look good."

I grin and crawl back in the truck.

We drive for what feels like forever considering I haven't been far outside of the campus. The sun is barely in the sky, leaving a dark sky behind us.

I look at Collin and the sun is glaring off of his eyes, making them a bright caramel color. His black ink is vibrant against the sun beams shining through the windshield.

We pull onto a wooden ramp behind a hillside. "Where are we?" I ask.

He doesn't answer. He reaches to the back seat and grabs a bag then steps out of the truck. I follow.

As soon as my door opens, I can smell it. The ocean.

"We're at the beach!" I squeal. I tried to hide my excitement the best I could, but it's too hard.

He smiles and waves me to come behind him. We step onto a wooden ramp and begin up the small hill. At the top the view comes into play.

The ocean is beautiful. The sun is aligned barely above the line where sky meets water, and it makes the whole stretch turn pink and orange.

He walks off the ramp into sand and I do the same. I pull my shoes off in order to feel it. It feels amazing.

He walks down closer to the water and lays his bag down. I stand and look at everything around me.

This is so nice. Bailey would have never done this for me.

I look down the beach to Collin and see he has sitting on a blanket, his arms around his knees, and is looking at me. I walk over to him, feeling the sand below my feet.

"Why did you do this?" I ask as I sit down.

He hands me a bowl and I open it to see a mix of fruits. He lays out another bowl and I can see it's full of more food.

"You said you wanted to go to the beach." He doesn't look up at me. "So here we are."

The sun sinks lower as we sit, until it's barely visible now.

"What do you plan on doing after school? With your degree, that is." I ask.

He puts another berry into his mouth. He's ate most of them. "My dad has a farm at home. I want to own one with my agricultural degree. I just don't want to go back home."

He plays with a berry in his hand as he answers. I can tell that his home isn't a very warming area. "So why are you also studying as an English major?" I'm being too nosey.

He puts the berry back into the bowl. "I like to write."

I don't know what I was expecting, but that answer wasn't it. "Oh." I can only find the words for that.