─── EVERLASTING (⌗ ♥︎! ) 一 the summer i turned pretty ❜
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The ocean was as blue as ink. The sun had barely just begun to set down. Seagulls chirped sharply as they dove and rose over the sea. And Conrad and Avery sat on top of a towel in the sand, close enough to the sea that their feet, every so often, were bathed by the waves that hit the shore. The pair of best friends had never felt more at peace than in that moment, as the wind chilled their wet skin and the sun crisped their bare shoulders.
"I can't believe I'm actually here." she whispered like one would when telling a secret, "That I'm here with you," she added, causing the boy to smile.
"I can't believe it either..." he whispered softly.
Whispering has always been their thing. Something they don't know when they started doing but never stopped. The pair would whisper to each other -- it didn't matter if they were by themselves or surrounded by people, they would whisper and talk for hours, in the same way, most people do when they are saying something they don't want others to hear. To them, whispering was a way of feeling closer to each other.
"I've spent every single summer before this one wishing you were here..." Conrad confessed, trying to avoid the girl's eyes as this was the first time they ever discussed their feelings over summer break. They always knew how the other felt, but neither dared to bring it up, "You have no idea the number of things we've done where the thought if Avery were here, this would have been more fun has crossed my mind. The number of things I'm sure would have been better if you had been there with us instead of being home where you hate so much..."
"And I spent every summer wishing I was here..."
"Even when you had Owen to keep you company?" he said with a teasing smirk, looking down at the girl, curious to see her reaction after the mention of her ex-boyfriend.
"Asshole." she laughed, punching his shoulder before taking a deep breath as she was about to admit something she had never said before, "I was less lonely when he was with me, but it wasn't the same... He knew what it was like, why I hated it there so much, but he never understood it like you do. He never- He was my boyfriend, not my best friend, and there's a big difference between those two things."
"But he was so good to you," he looked at her curiously, wanting to understand if there was a deeper meaning behind her words or if he was reading too much into it, "You two spent last summer together, and you had broken up months before it..."
"Because he knew and wasn't an asshole who forgot everything just because we broke up..."
"What did he know?" he still hadn't figured her out, which was odd, because he usually could read her so easily.
"Everything I just told you..."
"Oh," was all he could say before looking away from her, setting his eyes back on the ocean as a million different thoughts ran through his head.
