Spending A Summer With You

Chapter Three: Thoughts

By Rose Love Me Or Hate Me

Something rubs against my door. " Sesshoumaru, are you awake?" I don't answer. The doorknob turns only so far. It is locked. I can feel myself building with anger. Rin want's to talk, to stretch out on my bed with her tinkling glass in her hand and tell me about her childhood. She want to talk on and on and on until she falls asleep on my bed, limp and snoring. And I'll have to find somewhere else to go.

" I know your are not asleep," she say's as if she was reading my mind. " I heard your hair dryer just a moment ago." But I say nothing. " Sesshoumaru I'd like to talk to you. Sesshoumaru?" She sounded as if she might cry. I didn't care about her human tears. " Sesshoumaru?" and then I hear in the deepest quietest voice what I known all along. " You hateful demon." And she move away from the door and down the hall.

My life is like a movie, I think. A thriller, and this is the part where everyone take a deep breath. I put her from my mind like turning off the hot smoky light in the projector. She's gone. Out of my mind. And all that's left is a kind of strange exhilaration.

What now? I walk around my room. It's been a long time since I've been here. Since last summer. I forgot how it looks, how it feels and now, standing in my room again, it's like I never been gone.

I am not ready for sleep yet. Rin is gone. The hall light is out beneath my door. I'll play some tapes. Some rock maybe. And hopefully I will fall asleep.

o0o0o0o0o

When I got back to the cottage that nigh, only Kaguya, my mother's golden retriever, was there. He was sleeping in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, and he lifted his head to see who was it. When he saw me, his face spread into what my father like to call a smile and his head dropped back down on his front paws with a sigh. Mommy had's came home yet and father wasn't due out for a while. This was my first unstructured summer, no summer school or flute practice, no day camp or lifeguard instruction or miles of lanyards, no sleep away camps of hot bunks and soggy spaghetti. Just sweet summer days of unstructured, unbordered, undisciplined hours of time.

I had fantasies of a summer romance, a lifeguard who read books or a young vacationing college student looking for a honest women. I had promise everyone that I wouldn't interfere with mommy's work, I would make her lunch each day if she wanted and keep out of her way. I was old enough to be on my own without chaperones, counselors, or watchdog." You will be bore out of your mind," my father had warned."You'd better get a job at the Pridley or something." But mother had understood it was find with her. She didn't mind having me around. And it was cheaper then camp.

The cottage had it's own peculiar smell, like wood and ocean bug spray and towels. I pulled the string over the kitchen table and the room blase to life around me. I didn't like how the place looked at night, with the dark windows, and with no curtains or shades. The wood-paneled walls that looked so nice and warm in the daylight, looked depressing and poor at night. Or was it just that I had spent a few too many minutes pool side with the prince of Shikon Island?" " Ha!" I said out loud, searching the shelves of the refrigerator. " And I guess that makes me the court jester'd daughter." I slammed a heavy glass on the table and filled it with iced tea. Not the greatest choice for bedtime, but I didn't care, I didn't have to get up at any special time, didn't have to get my rest or sleep soundly. Actually, I even thought of staying up all night, so I would,'t miss a thing that first night.

I dropped my bathing suit to my ankles and kicked it aside. I slipped my nightgown on. I pulled my hair out of it braid and toweled it. I grew dizzy with my own roughness and finally sat on the straw rug on the floor, tossing the towel aside. With my hair like brambles and my jaw already to tight, I made myself sit up straight. I crossed my legs Indian fashion beneath me and rested my wrists on my knees like a guru. I tried to feel it, what it must be like to be him. But I knew my were scraped, my face was splotchy and flushed, and my nails were bit to the quick. I didn't move.

I just sat there, my hair dripping down my back my thigh muscles aching, my nail growing ever so slowly on the tip of my fingers. Enough. Enough self-pity. No sulking this summer. Like a ghost slipping out of it earthly body, I left the image of Sesshoumaru Takahashi there on the floor and, rousing myself, padded back on the ladder-stairs.

The cottage had an old porch around two side of, 'it, an extra room that was all screen and air. I lit a small lamp near the sofa and looked around at the old wicker furniture, dark green and scratchy. The chairs and the sofa had cushions that felt like they were stuffed with straw, but they were comfortable. I sank into the sofa, squirming and adjusting till a nest formed around me. I had brought my book, my iced tea: and with sesshoumaru temporarily released from my mind and body, I was perfectly content. The lamp drew a circle around the pages of my book, and despite the iced tea, my eyes grew heavy and I faded out.

I don't know how long I was sleeping, but I woke to hear voices. I knew my mother routine. She was sitting in a car near the cottage, talking. I didn't know her friend on the island yet, but I heard a voice that sounded as if it had been bottled in the Brooklyn, and a laugh that was light and swift. She always did this after her AA meetings, carried on the talk, drew it out, like humming a broadway tune when you leave the theater. She took it with her. Made it last.

I willed myself to stay sleeping, I didn't move. Father trotted onto the porch fully awake and excited. Through heavy eyes, I watched him press his nose to the screen and moan a long, slow woof. I could hear the car door open and good-night exchanged. The car rolled back out the drive, sending beams of light across the porch. Kaguya ran form the porch to the back door, were I could hear my father rough up, his love. " how are yall doing? Keeping an eye on things, are you ?" she spoke loudly, but her voice dipped to a whisper as she stepped out into the lit porch and saw me there. "Shhh, now" she said to him. I heard her pat his hollow- sounded chest. I expected her to ruffle my hair, shake me, and tell me to move on up to my own bed. I hug precariously on the edge of sleep and wakefulness, waiting for her. I heard her click out the light. I open one sleepy eye and saw her looking out into the night with father head presses against her leg. She was very still and quiet, my eyes closed . I forgot he was there until I felt her cover me with an afghan and leave me there to sleep.

I listen to her footstep through the cottage. The bathroom door, the water running , the sound of her mattress creaking, her shoes dropping. And even though my body was asleep, my mind was sharp. I heard every sound, felt every inch of my body, smelled the honeysuckle, felt the warmth behind my knees, and then from across the road heard someone calling to me, telling me about a love he'd lost, and I thought with a familiar tugging, " Oh, yes, that's what I want, a love, even a sad one, even if I had to lose it. I want a sad love this summer."

I don't own Inuyasha, I don't own this story, I don't even own myself. Believe me, someone lock me up and is forcing me to write!

soooooooooooooooooo how did you like that huh?

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