Bottle it Up

Chapter Six

            The first step towards fixing up the gazebo was tidying the area. I’d gone over there to survey the gazebo, and I’d noticed the unruly growth that had latched onto the wood and the ground around it. My decision to knock that off the list had come quickly.

            That’s why, an hour before my work began, I was standing in a barely there path with a trash bag in one hand, and a little gardening tool I’d found in my grandparents garage. I was prepared to take some scissors with me to clean up the wild flowers, but my grandma had just laughed at, and then handed me a trowel. A trowel was really just a handheld shovel, but I just trowel sounded a bit nicer.

            I really would’ve been better off with the scissors, because I had to dig far enough down to get the roots of the plant as well, and it was taking more effort than I had imagined it would.

            According to the clock on my phone I had twenty minutes before I needed to head home and clean up for work when I heard the footsteps. I’d heard the footsteps before, when I first discovered the gazebo. Only this time I didn’t waver from my spot. I was pulling on a weed and I knew with another tug it would come out.

            “Gray?” the voice said, amusement in it as it stumbled across me. I ignored the voice as I pulled out the weed, falling backward from the momentum I’d put in it. “Hazel,” the voice said once more, and I looked up to see none other than Mason to be standing there. I looked around me to see if anyone else was in the area, but then I remembered the day before I’m going to call you Grey. “What are you doing out here on this fine day?” he asked, leaning against a tree on the outskirts of the small clearing the gazebo was set in.

            “I could ask you the same question,” I replied, wiping my hands on my jeans and pushing myself up from the ground, “shouldn’t you be off doing mischievous things that are sure to make you late to work?” He rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything. “That wasn’t an answer,” I added, dropping the pulled weed in my hand into the garbage bag I had set on the stairs of the gazebo.

            “Well, you didn’t answer me either,” he said, and my mouth twitched towards a coy smile.

            “I thought it was self explanatory,” I replied for my answer, my eyes roaming over the area to my right.

            “And mine wasn’t?” I shook my head. “Really, walking through the woods wasn’t the obvious answer?” I shrugged, looking towards him as he leaned away from the tree. “Well, I thought it was if that makes you feel better,” he said, not moving, just standing there.

            “Nothing to feel better about,” I thought out loud. Mason nodded, watching as I scanned the area for any more eyesores. “But, in case you haven’t noticed, you haven’t answered me,” I added in a singsong voice. My eyes flitted over to him and he shrugged.

            “I like this path,” he replied, looking at the wood, “and this gazebo, although I can’t say I won’t like seeing it cleaned up a bit.” I flushed at his comment, and erected my back. “It’s been this way since when I first came here.” I nodded slowly, crossing my arms and giving him an amicable smile.

            “Well, I want to fix it,” I replied, as if that wasn’t obvious. He nodded, looking at the trash bag I had placed on the ground, filled with weeds.

            “Why?” he asked. I shrugged before thinking, because saying I saw myself in the gazebo would’ve been an odd answer. “Well, there has to be some drive in fixing up this old piece of crap,” he continued, and I frowned.