*Jame's POV*
"Oh, jibber, I have a friend, Dorene that plays bingo with me and the girls on Tuesdays, and she has a grand daughter around your age, why don't we introduce the two of you together! I mean, it's not like you're going to want to spend the whole week you're down here without anyone to talk to besides me and Max" My grandmother said as she motioned towards her overweight wiener dog. I was visiting my grandmother for a week to spend time with her. Her husband had recently passed away, and i figured she could use the company. She kept going on about meeting some girl, and i didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I reluctantly agreed and mentally prepared myself for meeting this mystery girl.
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The thoughts and curiosities of what this mystery girl would be like and looked like swarmed my brain, barely being able to focus on what my grandmother was saying. "James.. James are you even listening to me? Well never mind, I was telling you that Dorene's granddaughter's name was Storm, but why don't you answer the door and talk to her yourself, maybe you'll pay attention to her." I kinda felt guilty for not listening to my grandmother, but my guilt quickly replaced itself with an overwhelming feeling of nerves. My hand shook as I reached up to the door handle, the knob fumbled in my hands as I attempted to turn it. As the door opened my eyes were met with a girls' hazel gaze. "You must be James, hi, i'm Storm, but you can call me Stormie." The captivating girl said as she laughed slightly. Her grandmother was behind her, The elderly woman brought me into her embrace as she kissed my cheek, causing some of her red lipstick to transfer to my cheek. The four of us had a few minutes of small talk as the girl who I now knew as Storm and her grandmother introduced themselves to me. After introductions and awkward talks about college, which was only awkward when I had to elaborate as to why I wasn't going. My grandmother must have sensed the vibe because she quickly dismissed us and changed topics with the elderly woman.
"So what do you wanna do?" the beautiful girl asked me as the two of us walked to my car that was parallel parked outside of my grandmothers house. "What is there to do?" i replied curiously. "Hmmmm." she thought intently and spoke up after a few moments. "Let me drive." "Um, what?" "Let me drive, i'm from here, and i can navigate better." she argued "no way, i got this car not even that long ago, i'm not just gonna let some girl that i met less than 5 minutes ago drive it." There was no way i thought i was going to let some random girl drive my car, heck i don't even let my mom drive it. She looked at me with equal ammounts of dissapointment, and anger "C'mon, please?" I usually don't give into puppy dog eyes, but this was an exception. "Ugh, fine." I said as I huffed and walked over to the passenger side.
After a few minutes of awkward silence and me wondering where we possibly could be going, Storm seemingly was tired of the silence; "What are your dreams?" she asked me in a gentle voice. The question caught me off guard, in a way; it was so unusual for someone to ask me what my dreams were, opposed to where I wanted to go to college. I sat there for a moment before I answered the question that I'd known the answer for as long as I could remember. "I want to be in a band. I want to make music that people can relate to and make them feel not alone; I want my music to be the kind of music you play with your car windows rolled down as you scream the lyrics and you feel like you can do anything. Most importantly, I want best friends that i can pursue my dreams with." Typically when I tell people that i want to be in a band they make me feel foolish, but Storm didn't. She hadn't replied yet, but you could tell that she didn't find my dream foolish by the way she looked at me. "I like it when you're passionate about things, it looks good on you." I retorted the question with my cheeks still being a light pink color from her compliment. She smiled, as she looked forward to the horizon of the sky which resembled pink watercolor. "I want to be an Author. I've always loved writing, really. When i was little I used to narrate my life in my head as if i were in a book, even. She laughed as she elaborated. I looked over to my Left and saw her what i assumed natural wavy dirty blond hair illuminated by the setting sun, causing her frizz to be increasingly noticeable, which i found adorable. As i was admiring her the car came to a complete stop, followed by her unbuckling her seat belt and her motioning for me to follow. We were in parked in the middle of a dirt path surrounded by trees; opposed to the beaten dirt path, the only sign of anyone being there in the past 20 years happened to be a bridge that looked aged. As we walked towards the somewhat sketchy structure I noticed the slightly alarming number of signs saying that it jumping off the bridge was illegal. Just as my eyes diverted from the signs to Storm she was against the railing, looking down at the ducks in the water below. I crossed the bridge and joined her. "Do you come here often?" I asked curiously "Yeah, it's kind of like how all of my old high school classmates used to hang out in the 7/11 parking lot, except there aren't any of my idiotic high school classmates. Her comparison dissolved into laughter between the two of us. "If someone were to jump from this bridge into the water do you think they'd survive?" She asked with genuine curiosity residing in her tone "idk, probably, if i had to guess its probably only like 50 feet at the most." I replied, wondering where her sudden curiosities came from. "Well, there's only one way to find out" She said matter-of-factly as she began removing all clothing except for undergarments. "Are you gonna join me or just stare?" My cheeks turned the same color as her bralette, and although I didn't want her to think i was lame, I tried my best to come of with reasons not to do the daring act. "Did you not read the signs?, This is totally illegal!" I exclaimed my worries, but Storm quickly invalidated them. "Do you see anyone?, Nothing is illegal if you don't get caught" I smirked at her response and knew i had lost the battle. Soon i was standing on a bridge in only my underwear, with a girl equally exposed by my side. Before i had anytime to re-think the situation she grabbed my hand and we agreed we'd jump on the count of 3. "1,2,3" she squeezed my hand as we both screamed and were overcame with euphoria. what felt like less than 2 seconds passed before our skin made contact with the cool water and went under the surface. Our hands had broken the togetherness as our heads popped out of the water and the countdown replaced itself with gasps of air.
After several rounds of diving competitions off of the bridge, we both decided it was getting late and started heading home. I decided that I might as well let Storm drive back to my grandmothers', but that automatically gave me aux privileges in return. I opened Spotify and selected "Six Feet Under The Stars" by All Time Low. We were both still somewhat wet from the previous shenanigans so we rolled down the windows. We were screaming the lyrics at the top of our lungs and in that moment I finally understood what Alex Gaskarth meant by "Six Feet Under The Stars" is about a place where anything is possible; where there are no rules, where two people can be themselves without being judged. In the moment I had felt that feeling; a feeling that I had never experienced with a person before.
