Page 7 of Our Final Encore

“Must be pretty different from here. I’ve never even seen a mountain.”

Homesickness starts to creep into my body as I think about my former home. I miss it, but more than that I miss what my life was like before everything changed. “It’s very different. It’s awesome there, a lot cooler than this place,” I scoff.

She suddenly looks offended, her mouth curving into a grimace. “This place isn’t that bad.”

“It’s hot as hell and there’s nothing to do. The only scenery is strip malls and the occasional cow.”

Her icy blue eyes narrow slightly. “We have more than that.”

“Oh yeah? Where?”

Her mouth snaps shut, and I can tell she’s getting angry. I’m not trying to be mean, but I can’t help but feel slightly amused that she’s defending this town so much. Like it personally offends her that I don’t want to be here, it’s kind of humorous for some reason.

“Well…we have a swimming hole.”

My brow furrows, and I wonder if I heard her correctly. “A swimming hole?”

“Yep,” she pops the P at the end.

“Like, a pool?” I’ve noticed that nearly everyone here has a pool. In Colorado only rich people had pools, but here almost every house big or small comes with its own pool. I guess it’s a small consolation prize for living somewhere that’s hotter than Satan’s ass.

“No, a swimminghole.Like, a lake…type thing.” Her face flushes and she looks down at her feet nervously.

“Okay. Show me this amazing swimming hole then,” I challenge.

Her eyes flick back up at me and she straightens up. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Right now?”

She shrugs. “Why not?”

FIVE

Opal

Ilead Alex down the dusty gravel path that leads to the swimming hole, and now I’m nervous that I’ve talked it up way too much and when we get there he’ll just laugh in my face. I bet in Colorado they have big, giant lakes with clear blue water and mountains in the background. This is going to be a big let down if that’s what he’s expecting.

The little pond is only a few yards wide, and probably only six feet deep. But it’s surprisingly clean looking, and it’s in the shade of a big oak tree. A ray of sunlight shines through the thick leaves and reflects off the water, turning it a pretty greenish-gray color.

I look over at Alex, he doesn’t look super impressed, but he doesn’t seem entirely disappointed either.

He picks up a smooth looking rock out of the sand and dusts it off with his fingers. His hands are big, which is probably a weird thing to notice, but I do. They look strong, and tough, and for some reason I want to know what it’d feel like to hold his hand in mine.

“You know how to skip a rock?”

“No,” I answer.

He tosses the rock into the water, flicking his wrist, and the rock skips once before disappearing into the other side of the pond. “Like that.”

A little laugh escapes me. “That wasn’t much of an explanation.”

“Here, you try.” He picks up another rock, this one smaller, and hands it to me. I try to replicate what he just did and I fail miserably, the rock sinking sadly into the water.

“Like this,” he grabs another rock and walks over to me. He steps behind me, softly grabbing my hand in his and manipulating my fingers so that they’re holding the rock the way he wants them to. I suck in my breath and hold it, my whole body tingling like television static.What the heck is going on?

It’s not like I’ve never had a crush on a boy before. Last year I had a crush on Chase Turner. He’s the typical sporty-type guy that every girl seems to have a crush on at some point in her life. Swoopy brown hair, blue eyes.

But he and I hardly ever spoke to one another, and any time we did it was very obvious that my attraction was completely one sided. On the last day of school he and his other popular friend came up to me and told me one of the other boys in our class liked me. I stood there confused and surprised, waiting for an explanation, until both of them bursted out laughing.“You really thought someone liked you? Nobody likes girls like you.”

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