Late Summer Rain

The Red Comet

CHAPTER FIVE ~*~*~ The Red Comet

 

I abandoned my flip flops and ran towards the water before digging my toes into the cool, wet sand. My hair was tied up in a messy ponytail tonight – it had grown a lot longer since summer vacation started, but a few loose strands still managed to break free from my hair tie. The sky was without a trace of clouds and all that decorated the shadowy horizon was a trail of freckled stars.

Ryan was behind me of course – like the lost puppy dog that he is – and was busily pulling and tugging his dad’s old canoe towards the shoreline. I turned to him and cocked an eyebrow.  “Are you sure you don’t need any help there pretty face?” I teased. “I’m probably stronger than you are.”

“No!” He shouted and even though the darkness hid most of his face, I could still feel his determination pouring out and flooding the place. “You stay right there! Don’t even move a muscle!” He hollered. “I’ll show you just how strong and manly I am!”

I shrugged and let it slide. Ryan started behaving that way a couple days back after I inevitably won him in an arm wrestling match. He couldn’t seem to get it over his head no matter how many times we calmly talked about it. He’s determined to show me that he’s the stronger one and I just got lucky that day, not once, but five times.

After what feels like forever, he finally managed to heave the canoe all the way to the shore. He turned around and beamed at me before rolling up his shirt sleeve and flexing his arm muscles. “Check out these guns!”

“Oh!!! You’re soooo manly Ryan!!!” I cooed and then dramatically swooned.

“Okay, now you’re just making fun of me.”

“Haven’t I always been?” I rolled my eyes at him before changing the topic. “So when is the meteor shower supposed to happen anyways?”  

“Probably soon. We should hurry.”

After pushing the canoe into shallow water, Ryan and I both hopped on and began paddling out into the open water. In a way, the lake at the park was a perfect place to watch a meteor shower since the lighting was subtle and the vicinity was quiet and secluded. Of course, it wasn’t like we were the only ones that knew about the meteor shower.

As much as I liked to imagine this as God’s reward for Ryan taking a leap into life and giving him a hand with his list, the truth was far from it. Apparently, NASA had known about this meteor shower months ago, and when Ryan had accidently come across this fact on the internet, he had just conveniently added it to his list.

The rest of the town had found out about it a week ago on the news and most of them were now hanging out on Crescent View Hill waiting for the show to begin. I had wanted to join the rest of them up on the cliff too, but even with my heavy pleading Ryan insisted we were better off watching it from lower ground – which frankly I wasn’t so sure about.

When we finally rowed out to a satisfying spot, Ryan pulled out an empty wine bottle from his bag and then a piece of paper from the pocket of his shorts. I watched him rolled the paper up diligently into a mini scroll before he held out his hand. “Can I have your hair tie?”

I gave it to him since I knew he’d eventually take it by force if I refused which would probably result in us going overboard and into the water. It didn’t sound all that bad, but to save myself the trouble, I gave it to him anyway. “A message in a bottle?”

He nodded and focused on the paper in his hands as he slipped the elastic over gently. “There’s something I need to say to someone, but I don’t know how. So I’m going to send this and hope that it’ll get to her one of these day.”  He looked up at me, his eyes glittering. “They say if you send a message in a bottle, your feelings will get delivered. Did you know that?”

The only thing I knew was that this person he was sending this letter to was a girl.

 

Half wanting to know, half not wanting to know, I asked, “uh... what kind of message is it?”

Ryan shrugged – his face suddenly weary. Then he quickly slipped the neat paper roll inside the bottle before pushing the cork tightly in. “How should I put this?” He mused. “I guess it’s a variation of a love letter.”

A love letter? To who? Do I know her? Are you in love with her?

 

A million questions went through my head, but I didn’t have the courage to ask any one of them. Instead I just let out a small “oh.”

Ryan laughed suddenly – dry, short-circuit chuckles that sounded like a scratched up CD. “Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.” He smiled. “Just kidding.”

I couldn’t tell if he was faking it. “Oh,” I said again. “I see.”

Bottle in hand, Ryan swung his arm back before throwing the bottle into the abyss of the lake. I heard a loud dump sound from behind me, but didn’t care to look. My heart was too busy having cramps of some kind.

It’s funny how you can sometimes believe in something so much that you shut your mind to everything else. You can go through your whole life believing in something until someone finally proves you wrong.

Ryan had just proved me wrong.

I wasn’t as strong as I had thought I was and I wasn’t as tough as I came off to be. I was starting to feel something odd towards him and I couldn’t make sense of them. Worse, I couldn’t get rid of them – I couldn’t stop feeling like someone had just ripped open my chest and given my heart a gigantic paper-cut.

So instead, I did the only other thing that I thought would slightly lessen the pain. “Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.” I echoed the same robotic laughter he played to me earlier. “It’s so quiet and boring here. See? We should have joined everybody else on the cliff. It’s probably extremely loud and crowded right now.” I beamed at him. “It would be so much fun!”

Ryan suddenly widened his eyes in shock . “Really?” His voice was scornful and bitter. “Well jeez, I’m sor-ry. I only wanted to watch it with you. I thought it would have been good enough if the two of us were together, but I didn’t realize I was boring you all this time. Sorry for pestering you all summer.”

“No. That’s not what I...”

“Forget it Dannie. It’s not like I even care. You can stop hanging out with me and do whatever the hell you think is 'fun'. I won’t stop you and I don’t want your pity if that’s all it’s ever been.”

Before I could say anything, the meteor shower started. A blanket of stars drizzled from the sky like a broken fountain of glitter. Arrangements of gold, orange and red decorated across the horizon. The sight was enchanting, breathtaking, once in a lifetime, and yet – for some reasons – all I could look at were my toes.