Summer Hearts

Chapter 3

                “What happened in here?” Kayla’s mom gasped, seeing the mess of glass on the floor and the shattered window.  She stepped into the room.

                Kayla grimaced and looked up at her.  She didn’t want to get Eli in trouble, but she didn’t want to take the blame either.  Her eyes noticed the baseball on the floor at the same time her mother’s did.  Mrs. Harrison sighed and walked over to the window, clearly glad she had sandals on her feet.  She looked across the street at the boys sitting on the baseball field with nothing to do.  “Which one was it?” she asked.

                “He left already.  I’ll pay for it, Mom.  It was an accident,” Kayla stated.

                Her mother looked around at the unpacked boxes.  “Kayla, didn’t I ask you to unpack?”

                “Yes.  I was drawing.  You know.  It’s that thing I do to keep from becoming too emotionally unstable and depressed because of the fact that I have no friends.  Sound familiar?”

                “Don’t be so dramatic.”

                Kayla sighed.  “Can’t I just unpack tomorrow?  I was packing all last week.  Don’t I deserve one day to have fun before being shoved back into the world of cardboard?” she bargained.  “Please, Mom.”

                After a moment of silence, Kayla heard the words she’d been dying to hear all morning.  “Fine.  You can go.  Just make sure you’re home by 6:30 for dinner.  Your father hasn’t seen you in a week.”

                “Thank you, ma’am.  I’ll see you later.”  Her mom rolled her eyes and walked out of the room and back down the stairs.

                Kayla grabbed her cell phone off her bed and practically sprinted from her room and down to the front door.  She grabbed the keys off the small table set up next to the door where Tylor had dropped them earlier.  

                The black S.U.V. sat in the driveway with a nearly full tank of gas.  She could go just about anywhere.  She could explore.  But she wouldn’t.  No, perfect little Kayla wouldn’t disobey her parents.  She would go to the pool and be home by 6:30.  She sighed and started the vehicle.  She irritated herself sometimes.

                The drive to the pool was uneventful, minus the fact that she almost missed a stop sign.  She pulled in between two faded yellow lines in the small parking lot and grinned.  The lot was nearly empty aside from her car.  She had the pool mostly to herself.  “There goes my plan for meeting people,” she muttered under her breath as she hopped out of the vehicle.

                She paid the entrance and locker fees.  After her things were placed in the tiny square locker, she put her hair up in a pony tail that ended at her shoulders.  She squinted up at the sun, thinking about how she should have brought sun screen.

                The pool contained an elderly woman walking around the shallow end in circles, a few mothers watching warily from the plastic chairs as their children got increasingly closer to the deep end, and a young man swimming laps back and forth across the pool.  Kayla decided to join the young man and swim a few laps.  She looped the key around her ankle, climbed aboard the diving block, and gracefully dove into the clear water.

                She sliced through the water, bringing back memories of her childhood.  She had been on a swim team one summer.  The coach had always commented on how great she looked flying through the water, like the water parted just to let her through.  She had always felt like she was flying.  Having her head under water tuned out all the noise of the world and she enjoyed the silence.