Summer Fling

Chapter three:

      
Picture: Ty Montgomery

Ignorance is bliss. They say some things aren't worth knowing. Things you wish you hadn't heard or someone hadn't told you. Like when Eden told me  Kevin Smalls, the germ-filled, smelling dirt face sneezed on my bowl of soup right after I ate all of it. Or like when you sister tells you that your mother thinks your father likes another women....
Sometimes your mind is better off not knowing things. Sometimes the peace of mind that lays in the unknown saves you from your own scary and crazy thoughts, because crazy can be scary.
But then there's things you have to know. There's things someone has to tell you no matter how much it's going to hurt you. Like when my friend saw Reece Belk, my boyfriend, kissing a girl he met at a bar. Or when your immature cougar aunt tries to go for your sisters boyfriend.
So as of right now I wish I was ignorant to the fact that Ray got a girlfriend. That he had taken up the months i'd spent smashing things out of anger with a bat and chugging down bottles of liquor, he instead had spent this time playing bachelor.
Did it hurt? Just as much as it would if I got hit with an eighteen wheeler.

I couldn't sleep that night. My brain was wide awake due to my thoughts jogging a whole marathon. I look over to Alex who's laying next to me snoring so bad that I was 2 seconds away from giving her 20 nasal strips to paste on her nose to eliminate her nasal congestion. No joke.
By 12 o'clock I stand up grab my shoes and a sweater. I open Alex's room window and crawl through. Making my way out as quietly as possible, although you'd need to break the hell out this place to hear anything beyond Alex's awful snoring.
I walk through the familiar streets, a soft delicate wind bowing thought my auburn hair. I walk my way through the back alley of a hidden abandoned restaurant. A spot only two souls know of.
I hop onto the ledge located at the back of the restaurant. My feet hanging 4 feet off the ground.
I close my eyes breathing in the clean, fresh air. Opening them up to look out to a dark blue sky full of twinkling stars. If I could, i'd buy the sky from this small town. Looking at it made you believe wishes made on stars came true. With numerous shining stars invading the only space left in the sky, it even made you believe in fairy tales. Anything magical. Cause that's how this sky looked. Magical.

"How is it that when the atmosphere throws gas it makes beautiful stars, yet when us humans do it no one seems to like it." A voice behind me booms.
I instantly recognize who the voice belongs to. And when I turn my head over my shoulder to the boy walking up behind me, confirmation hits.
"What are you doing here?" I ask
"Raelynn Mitchell, knows exactly how to make a guy feel wanted." he answers with a sarcastic grin.
I hear his footsteps as he walks over to ledge.
I turn back around to look at the sky way above me as he climbs up over the ledge and sits right next to me. I instantly feel his warmth and my nose automatically picks up on his signature cologne. His hand is so close to mine, they'll touch with the slightest move. His thighs only centimeters away along with his long legs hanging off next to mine. It's these little things that make me almost forget how much I dislike him at the moment. Ray Prescott, never knew how easily he could cloud my mind. And till now, I didn't either.
"So, whats keeping you up?"
"And why do you assume something's keeping me up" I raise my eyebrow in question.
"I know you Raelynn Mitchell."
He made a chill go through my body in the way those words rolled off his tongue.
"Are you gonna tell me what's keeping you up?" I ask, turning over the question to him instead.
"Who said anything about me not being able to sleep?"
"I know you Ray Prescott." I mimc him, trying to also imitate his deep rich voice but failing with ease to do so.
"That is definitely not how I sound, but I enjoyed the effort." he says smirking in the most mocking way possible.
"You're right, your voice isn't that deep." I say, looking over at him.
He lightly tilts his head back and chuckles.
"Funny, that's not what other girls think." he says, using that same devil smirk he always has plastered on.
"Really? Cause I thought I heard one say she couldn't tell her voice apart from yours."
It was true that no one actually said that, but it had gone too far that I had to keep going. Someone once said you've got to live life with no regrets, and I definitely didn't want to regret scaring the man out of Ray Prescott.
"Damn, you sure that was a girl?" he asks with a raised eyebrows and a beam.
A chuckle escaped my lips.
"You tell me, you're the one who took her to the back seat of your car." I say, wide grin plastered on my face.
Now this was partially true. I mean what girl hasn't been in the back seat of Ray's car? That womanizer has had every single person in this town with boobs enter his back seat. Sick facts.
"You're bluffing Mitchell."
"Man, who knew Ray liked to keep his options open. Wait till people hear about this." I say smirking so hard, i'd like to think i'm giving The Famous Ray Prescott Grin a run for it's money.
"It'll ruin my reputation with my women." he whispers, eyebrows furrowed in thought. "Damning hell, I'll never get laid again." he speaks in all seriousness.
"Oh don't you worry, studies show that .6 percent of the population is made up of experimental women. Oh and for future reference they like to emphasize the MEN in women." I say, bitting my tongue from the laugh fighting to come out.
"Future reference my ass. I love my women. Always have, always will. I will not take anything other than that." he says shuddering in thought with a face full of disgust. He takes out a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his gym shorts, opens it and takes out one cigarette.
"I thought you quit." I say eyeing the cigarette between his thumb and index finger.
He glances over at me and glances away to take out his lighter.
"Old habits die hard."
"So will you if you keep smoking." I state back.
"How fun will life actually be if you live to think about dying?" he responds inhaling a puff of smoke and releasing it not long after.
"How fun will life actually be if you live half of it with lung cancer?"
He looks over at me and smirks.
"Touché. So are you going to do something about it?"
I watch as he inhales and closes his eyes as he blows out a puff of smoke.
Throughout this time I couldn't fully wrap my mind around how nonchalantly Ray was acting. Like normal. Like he didn't stop talking to me out of the blue, or I didn't just come back after months, or I didn't just walk in to a new girlfriend. And most of all, how I went along with it.
"Not this time." I say grabbing the cigarette in between his two fingers and putting it up to my mouth. Taking in a puff and releasing a cloud of smoke after. Enjoying the relaxation and familiar satisfying taste in my mouth but tasting regret not much after.
I turn to see his eyes on me and I hand him the cigarette back. He takes it and puts it in his mouth. I look down to where he put the cigarette. Those lips. The same familiar lips from last summer.
I looked away faster than you move your finger away from a burning plate. And internally scolded my eyes for their betraying action.
"Like you said, old habits die hard." I say. As of now, meaning more than just smoking. Ray was now an old habit I had to quit. And even though I used to smoke, I had a feeling quitting Ray was going to be way harder than quitting smoking ever was.

"Can I ask you something?" Ray speaks randomly.
"Give me a dollar and we'll see." I say turning my head to look at him as he takes the cigarette out of his mouth and faces me.
"How bout I let you keep having some of my cigarette and call it even." he bargains.
"I guess."
He runs a hand through his soft, wavy rich brown locks and leans over to place his elbows on his knees.
He turns his head towards me making straight eye contact. I knew from this moment that whatever he was going to ask wasn't going to please me at all.
"Why didn't you text or call to tell me you where coming back?"
Bingo. There it is. The uncomfort, the dread, the panic, and the pain. All busted into the air we were breathing. The air we were sharing.
Humans only accept what they want to deal with. And I didn't want to deal with how complicated me and Ray are, and that was enough to grab the cigarette and put it back in my mouth. I inhaled the living hell out of that stick before answering. Longing out the answer to his unwanted question.
"My phone broke." I reply.
Was the answer stupid. Check. Was it enough to shut Ray up? Slight check. Was Ray going to believe it? No check.
I have better luck finding a leprechaun on the other  side of a rainbow.
I took another inhale of the cigarette and after releasing the smoke I grab the cigarette and put it out.
"I wasn't done with that." he speaks.
"Yes you are." I say getting up and hoping off the ledge.
"Where you headed?" he asks.
"Home. Before and Cassie and Alex realize i'm gone."
Lie. I was trying to escape. Trying to leave before this conversation got any more serious. Because I was scared of serious. Because I wasn't ready for this conversation. And people only lie for two reasons. To protect the ones they love or to protect themselves. And trust me, I was protecting both of us.

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