where the water meets the moon | e.d.

twenty-eight

ethan

june 9, 3:04 pm

i think i might've said something weird in my sleep last night, because addison is avoiding eye contact with me at all costs.

oh no— did i say something embarrassing about myself? sometimes i do that, but usually it's just around kendall or grayson.

but even when i try to strike up a conversation, she just awkwardly smiles and moves away from me.
i thought we were friends again, why is she avoiding me?

"hey, ev," i furrow my eyebrows down at the data table. "you put in all these dates wrong."

"oh, sorry," he frowns and moves to nudge me out of the way and lean over the table to fix them.

i use this as my time to approach addison, who is scribbling in a notebook, leaning up against the wall next to avery and the boat controls.

"i need your help outside," i jab my thumb behind me, pointing to the deck.

she looks confused. "with what?"

"just, um... i need help with..." i try to come up with something random as she impatiently looks at me.

"addy go help him count the diving gear," avery grumbles out, still focused on steering.

"but we don't even dive until next month—"

"i'm sorry, did you hear me correctly?" he interrupts. "i said go take diving inventory. thank you."

she glares at the back of his head, but pushes past me and out the door anyway. i scramble after her.

the scuba equipment is kept in a large closet on the side of the boat, but the walkway is too small to count it there. so we'll have to bring it all out, mark down what's missing, then put it back.

"can you grab the clipboard off the wall?" she asks, trying to tug out a couple oxygen tanks.

a green clipboard is hung up on the side wall, giving a definition of everything in here and how much of it we should have.

"well?" she looks at me. "just gonna stand there or are you going to help me?"

i tuck the clipboard into the waistband of my jeans and quickly grab a bunch of random diving regulators.

we take them out to the deck and place them carefully down. she frowns at the pile starting.
"why are we doing this now? we have so much time until we start to actually do hands-on stuff."

"hey, is there something that i—"

"and that's when your girlfriend will be here, so if we start to do stuff now she'll be totally in the dark about everything and—"

"if i said—"

she kicks the equipment on the ground a little bit and scans over it as she keeps talking. "why does avery have such an attitude today? did you hear how he talked to me? god, what a grumpy old man—"

"addison!" i exclaim loudly.

this grabs her attention. "oh, what?"

"did i talk when i fell asleep last night?"

her eyes widen only slightly and she swallows before shaking her head. "n-no."

she's lying.

"please just tell me what i said. if it was embarrassing it probably isn't true, but i just want to know anyway."

"you said that..." she trails off.

i raise an eyebrow as she shifts uncomfortably.

"you said that you used to have an imaginary friend," she finally spills out. "and um... his name was meatloaf."

this makes me laugh, since i've never had an imaginary friend named after a gross dinner meal.

"that's why you're acting so weird around me?" i ask, starting to smile. "nah. meatloaf didn't exist, but i'm sure he would've made great company."

she forces up a smile and sits down to measure the air in the oxygen tanks as i go and get more gear.

something tells me she's not being fully honest about what i said, but i can't seem to care about it anymore. there's too much equipment to count.

"avery!" addy yells when i get back, looking down at the clipboard and pushing her hair back from the wind.

the door is cracked open partially, so he lifts his head up and looks out the front window at her.

"half of these tanks aren't even filled! we'll have to get new ones."

now i'm starting to be glad that we took inventory before the last possible moment. if one of us went under with a half-filled tank, i don't know what the outcome would be.

"nice catch," i nod, taking a seat next to her and messing with the dive computers.

she stills tries to avoid my eyes and focuses her attention on recounting the scuba masks.

yeah. she definitely didn't tell me the full truth.