The One Summer I Didn't Hate

74 degrees

“Took you long enough.” Summer said to him as he walked up to her. His lips slightly twitched upwards when he finally spotted her leaning against a wooden railing, half because he couldn’t believe he actually came and half because he couldn’t believe she actually waited for him.

“Oh come on, I’m only 15 minutes late.” Hugo smiled sheepishly at her and she rolled her eyes, shaking her head.

She turned around and walked toward the beach, gesturing him to follow her. Hugo followed her reluctantly and walked beside her. The wind blew against them as they walked in silence. Hugo took a quick look at the red headed girl next to him.

A grey oversized sweater now hugged her upper body, the same pale yellow colored strap from earlier peeked through the collar of her sweater. Her hair blew in every direction because of the wind but she didn’t seem to mind as she continued to walk absent-mindedly beside him with her hands behind her back.

Hugo shifted his gaze away from her and to his surrounding and only noticed how he hasn’t bumped into anyone this whole time. There weren’t many people around, he saw only a few groups of people walking in different directions here and there but nothing like how it was earlier. The sky was a mix of blue and orange with a slight hint of purple as the sun was staring to set in the horizon. 

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Hugo spoke up, breaking the silence between them.

“Shoot.” She replied.

“You’re not going to skin me alive and feed me to the sharks, are you?” he blurted out.

Summer laughed, it was soft and cheery and something Hugo wouldn’t mind hearing all day. “No, I’m not gonna skin you alive. That’d be gross and inhumane.” She said after her laughter died down. “If I wanted to skin you, I’d kill you first and then skin you.”

Hugo snorted. “Oh, well that’s good to hear.”

Another laugh escaped her lips. “Just relax, I’m not going to skin you or feed you the sharks. I’m against littering anyway.”

He shook his head in amusement and cleared his throat. “So, anytime you’re going to tell me what we’re doing?”

“We’re almost there.” She simply told him.

“That doesn’t really answer anything, but okay I guess.” He muttered and sighed, still not able to wrap his mind around the fact that he’s going out in the middle of summer with someone he just met only three hours ago.

Hugo could imagine how Jack would react if he knew about this. He was almost glad the loud, 17-year-old playboy who he called his best friend was in Australia for the summer and not here trying to literally drag him out of the comfort of his house like last time. If he was here he’d probably say something along the lines of “I thought I’d never live to see the day” or “oh my god, did you hit your head really hard?” Hugo sighed in relief that he didn’t have to deal with any of that this year.

After a while of walking, they finally reached the noticeably empty beach. Hugo spotted a group of people in the distance talking and laughing near a fire pit that was being lit. There were around five to six people sitting around the fire pit and none of them he recognized instantly.

“Adam!” Summer shouted as they slowly approached the group of people. A boy with dirty blonde hair that fell across his forehead and sunglasses – who Hugo guessed was Adam – turned his head to their direction. A grin appeared on his face as he spotted the both them walking towards them. He quickly stood up and lightly jogged toward them, he was wearing a navy blue shirt with a white tank top underneath along with a pair of shorts and some sandals.

“Hey, you made it!” The seemingly older boy greeted Summer and pulled her into a friendly hug. Hugo stood awkwardly in place as he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

“Are we late?” She asked him.

“No no, we just lit up the fire a few seconds ago.” Adam smiled, pushing up his sunglasses and placing them on top of his head. “Ava and Rory are getting some drinks, and um-” His eyes flickered over to look at Hugo. “Uhh, who’s this?”

“Oh right, sorry.” Summer tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear.  “This is Hugo. Adam, Hugo. Hugo, Adam.”

The two boys shook hands, uttering a “hey nice to meet you.” and a “yeah, you too.” at the same time.

“Well come on then, I’ll introduce you to the others.” Adam shot him a friendly smile and gestured them to follow him back to the fire pit.

“Is this your plan of making me like summer?” Hugo slowly asked.

“Yup. We’re having a traditional beach campfire.” She smiled at him.

Hugo gave Summer a hesitant ‘are you sure about this?’ look. Summer laughed in response, “Come on, it’s gonna be fun.” She said to him and started to walk away. Hugo let out a loud sigh and reluctantly followed them to the group of unfamiliar looking people.

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the reason why this took a while to write is bc a) school's started for me and b) school sucks. so writing a chapter is pretty hard these days but I'll still try to write when i can.

the next chapter should be out either tomorrow or the day after but no promises bc really lets face it, i suck at promises.

and also holy shiz this book almost hits 2k reads asdfghjkl you guys are amazing;///;

it's 12am here and i fell asleep like twice i think writing this so point out any typos or grammatical errors and what not so i can change 'em!

Stay awesome, 

-E

p.s sorry if this was terrible ughgh