Friendly Dating 2 - Ethan

Chapter 5 - A Boy, a Girl and a Bridge

I did it!

I sent Kira a message asking her to meet me at the bridge after school, and I am now sitting on that bridge, my legs dangling over the edge, waiting for her to arrive. This is not good! I'm having some serious second thoughts about Burlap's plan that sounded so workable earlier. I'm going to go up in flames today and probably burn all bridges that lead to Kira... starting with the one I'm sitting on now.

This bridge in the wooded hills near our school is a popular hang-out spot for the kids from our town. There's a brook rolling downhill underneath it, forming a small pool before flowing out again. Parts of the bridge and the area around it are nice and shady, perfect for hiding from the sun. The forest has many comfortable pockets where we can sit around drinking beer, or dating couples can get to know each other a little better. If you carry on with the path across the bridge, it winds up the hill to a huge pool and a waterfall low enough to jump from.

Resting my forearms on the low railing of the bridge, I lower my chin onto them and watch my toes as they play in the water, running into and from the small pool below me. If there were fish in this stream, they could potentially think that my toes were worms, and when they come up for a nibble, I could just grab them.

I'm totally going to suggest toe-fishing at the creek running through Scarlet Park to the guys. There are some fish there. Thinking about catching fish with my toes when I don't even catch fish using a rod, a net or anything else (I don't fish) still seems more natural than thinking about Kira and what I'm going to say to her when she arrives.

If she arrives.

I've been sitting here on the wooden bridge for about a million years now. I have splinters in my butt, and my toes are starting to freeze; if some lost fish shows up and tries to nibble on them, they'll just break off in the water and flow away. 

Is she blowing me off?

I won't be surprised if she decided not to come (she usually shows up when she says she will) because this is weird, I admit it. Kira and I don't exactly hang out together on purpose. When we do hang out, it's usually because we were in a group and got separated from them while having one of our missions where we try to sabotage each other and then forget we're in a group. Sometimes we accidentally end up at the same place at the same time and then just stick around... No, I'm not talking about my planned accidents... well... those too...

We don't send each other random text messages either, especially not in class. Actually, Kira doesn't use her phone in class at all. She's a good little girl, and there are rules against that. Kira is very good at following rules... as long as those rules make sense to her.

I actually used that fact and the one where she's sitting directly behind Little Miss Jail Warden to my advantage. I swear, if there aren't any rules, Lara will make up a few random ones and then force them on everybody. She doesn't seem to get that when I'm riding on my chair with my feet on my desk, I'm already aware of the unwritten rules against it. I just don't care.

She's big on unwritten rules, that one, and I don't even care about the written ones!

Sending Kira loads of messages and seeing her try to ignore them while Lara twitched in her seat when she heard the phone buzz and got ready to spin around and go all class monitor on Kicks was kinda entertaining. She never learns that trying to enforce her will on Kira just leads to sarcasm.

Ah, Kicks! So predictable... in some ways. I just love it when she glares at me, her lips going all pouty and her cheeks flaring red. So pretty!

I'm an ass, I know.

I chuckle at the memory of our message exchange during our last period of the day, and then I sober up with a heavy sigh. I won the battle, she's on her way here... via Egypt, she's taking so long... and I have to do what I've set out to do but am now not so sure that I'll be able to do. I'm almost hoping she doesn't show up.