My Bittersweet Summer by Starla Huchton

Author:Starla Huchton [Huchton, Starla]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2015-05-31T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The trunk closed on the remnants of our picnic, and I wondered if that meant the date was over. An unexpected pang of disappointment crept over me. After the initial bumpy start, the rest of the evening wasn’t actually all that bad.

We got off of heavy topics and turned to the lighter fare of hobbies and favorite movies instead. Zach had a tiny obsession with science fiction and fantasy movies from the 70s and 80s, and a strange love for old cartoons, of which Mighty Mouse was but one. He insisted he was going to lend me his bootleg copy of the Felix the Cat movie, but I wasn’t sure if I should be excited or dreading that. I was more interested in watching the movie he mentioned with Sandra Bullock in it, but I didn’t mention it in case he’d invite me to the private theater in his house for a showing. By the end of dinner I wasn’t completely averse to spending more time with him, but I didn’t trust him nearly enough to be alone in a dark room with him.

Zach set his hand on the trunk and thought for a moment. “Sun’s not down yet, want to go to the beach?”

Looking back over my shoulder, the sun was only starting to dip below the horizon, the colors of sunset gradually spilling across the sky. It would’ve been a perfect backdrop to a romantic date, but that wasn’t what I was interested in. That was dangerous for me.

“I dunno…”

“We don’t have to go far if you don’t want to. I’m just not ready to call it a night. It’s not that hot yet, so it’ll cool off fast once the sun goes down anyway.”

I inhaled, thinking, then made my decision. “All right. Just for a little while.”

Straightening, he led me back toward the path up the hill, his hand lightly brushing my back as we started out. It might’ve been the breeze, but a burst of goosebumps down my arms made me all kinds of self-conscious about whether or not he could see them.

The concrete split in two directions, one leading back up to the gazebo, the other drifting around the hill and down the other side to the beach. The occasional call of seagulls broke up the silence in between waves hitting the shore, but the quiet between us wasn’t uncomfortable. It was possible he was working as hard as I was to fully digest everything we’d talked about so far. Reconciling the Zach I thought I knew with the Zach I was getting to know wasn’t exactly easy. I wondered if his friends knew about his Peace Corps ambition. I assumed not, since that would definitely go against the manly image of irresponsibility he put up for them. Even after everything, I still doubted the truth behind that confession. I couldn’t imagine that beneath his spoiled rotten exterior lurked the heart of a philanthropist. Zach was two different people, and I didn’t want to place a bet on which one was real and which was the fake.

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