The Boy I Hate

Twenty One.

If someone had told me I'd be willingly walking home with Charles Turner from community service a couple months earlier I would have laughed. Yet here I was - not even going to my house but to his. Granted it was for my shoes, but it's not like I particularly cared for those sneakers. It would be ignorant to pretend I would go through the trouble to get them back if I wasn't interested to talk to him.

We were in a familiar stride, walking side by side with the tide along the beach. The breeze pushing off the waves lessened the scorching heat and made being outdoors slightly bearable. I thanked god I wasn't a sweaty person. I couldn't, however, say the same for Charlie.

He used his wife-beater to wipe his forehead. "Are your feet okay?" He asked.

"What would be wrong with my feet?"

He gave me a dead-pan look like it should be obvious, "you ran for a mile with no shoes on, correct?"

"Oh," I laughed under my breath. "Mostly they were just dirty. Luckily, I have access to running water so that wasn't a lasting problem."

He excelled through his nose, how you do when somethings funny but not that funny. This left me unsatisfied. I couldn't tell you why but there was this new urge to impress him haunting me. It seemed now we were in limbo - too damaged to be friends but having already been through too much to be anything less. We were complacent. I wasn't one to settle.

Only an hour or so before I'd agreed without words to give it time, but I wasn't the type to sit around and wait. I needed to convince him it was about time we picked up where we left off as kids.

So if words couldn't get him laughing, perhaps a splash could. I tested the theory, casually sticking my bear foot into the water to flick it up towards him. We held our shoes in our hands (walking through sand in tennis shoes is quite an unpleasant experience). He dropped his pair to the sand as soon as the predictably freezing water landed on his nose.

On instinct I threw mine into the sand as well; I figured I wouldn't make it out of this dry. He gave me a warning look. "Shoving all sorts of garbage in my shirt wasn't enough for you? You need to splash me too, huh?"

I mocked innocence with a shrug, backing up to get out of his zone of reach. "My foot slipped."

That's when he lunged, grabbing me by the waist to toss me over his shoulder. I remembered the view like it was just yesterday he ran me out of the school we set on fire. This time he was sprinting into the water and laughing. "Oops my both my hands are slipping," he dropped me.

I was thankful nothing important was in my pockets because I was immediately swallowed by water. In a way it felt good - contrast to the heat I'd been picking up garbage in for hours - but mostly I was shocked and slightly angry. Sure, I had started the splashing war, but it was meant to be a little fun ice breaker. I was not supposed to end up soaking wet.

So when I emerged from the water with wet hair and probably running makeup, I pointed at him accusingly. "Oh, you are not getting away with that."

He bowed dramatically, plucked both our shoes from the ground, and bolted. Of course, I ran after him, but I was in the water pretty deep and the waves were working against me. He had a head start.  Still, his head start was no match for my middle school track career - pre cheerleading. I was able to get him only so far from the water. The real issue would be getting him in. I locked my arms around his torso and began pulling. Surprisingly, I was moving him. The problem was that I was moving with him. By the time I got him in the water the only way to get him down would be to go down with him. So, I stopped holding my own weight, submerging both of us. After all, I was already wet.

This time we both emerged together, laughing like we hadn't before. The war wasn't over, though. We continued splashing, drowning, and wrestling in the water. We only called it a truce when were both shaking because of the cold water. That didn't stop me from hitting him with one last ditch splash before we got out.

We were, thankfully, shortly away from Charlie's trailer at that point. So, soaking wet and lightheartedly bantering, we made it back. We didn't even get to the door before Teresa popped out with a baffled expression. "Charles? Marshmallow? Did you two get eaten by a whale?"

"Actually," I but in before Charlie could say anything. "Your nephew is an asshole and decided to drown me. For absolutely no reason."

He shoved me with an extended arm. "That is the farthest thing from the truth."

She smiled, amused. "Oh whatever, just get your freezing butts in here."

Dry clothes, hot chocolate, and a washcloth to get rig of my melted makeup later, I was sat on the edge of Charlie's bed chatting with Teresa whilst he showered. The muffled pitter-patter of the water could be heard from where we were sitting. She asked about my mom, and I told her horror stories of the last few months.

The conversation took a weird turn when she asked the one question I didn't have an answer to.

 "What happened between you two?"

I sipped from my mug, knowing what she actually meant but answering how I wanted to anyway, "we were just wrestling by the water and things escalated."

She looked boredly at me, "you know what I mean. You could hardly look at each other the last time I was in a room with the both of you."

I looked down, unable to make eye contact. "I don't know." I didn't understand why I was acting so bashful. "I'm assuming you know the whole childhood story?"

"Yeah - I mean - I think so."

"Well," I shrugged. "Neither of us knew the whole story, and now we do. I guess it just makes you look at things from a new perspective."

She narrowed her eyes at me, moving from her spot on the kitchen table to sit next to me on the bed. "Are you sure that's it?"

I raised my eyebrows at her, not understanding what she was getting at.

That's when we heard Charlie clear his throat from across the room.