Summer Continued
I couldn't believe that we had been in Hawaii for almost two months now. Its amazing down here, the flowers, the smells, just everything. One word to describe Hawaii is tranquil. I will have to remember all of this for when my life gets turned a little to far upside down I can always just go and hide in my memories.
John taught me how to surf in July, it was a lot of fun. It took me a few tries, but I got it. The whole experience was cool, but the best part was finally getting up on the board and hearing John cheering behind me. Afterward, John, being the pro that he is, had me get up on his shoulders, and we surfed in like that. His mom didn't seem to happy about it, but his Gamma was. Yeah, John's Gamma came down a few weeks after we did, she seems to like me a lot more than his mother. On the fourth of July we laid out on the beach in our sleeping bags. I was worried about the tide coming up and soaking us, but John reassured me that we were indeed far enough back the tide wouldn't even touch us. As the sky filled with all of the beautiful colors from the fireworks, John's mother pulled up a chair next to us, which totally ruined our plans. But later that night we made up for them on our balcony.
As August rolled around, John had pulled out a picture of me before Hawaii, as I was brushing my hair in my bathroom mirror. I looked at the picture and was shocked at how pale I looked, and how dark my hair was. But the most shocking of them all was that I had gone almost the whole summer without a cigarette. I had forgotten all about them until he had showed me that picture. I pulled my hair back, and looked at myself now. John wrapped his arms around my waist, and whispered in my ear that I looked so beautiful, now. I turned to face him, and rested my head on his chest. I told him how wonderful it was here, and that I didn't want to go back to Chicago. He agreed, and we went for one last walk on the beach. It was weird, over the past two months, I had not really noticed the sand between my toes or how warm the sun felt on my face, or even worse, how John just looked into my eyes, as if searching for something. That was the scary part, I didn't know what, and then sometime he would chuckle to himself, and shake his head.
Back in Chicago I couldn't believe how plain everything was here. It was still summer, but it wasn't a Hawaii summer, much cooler, and no ocean smell. As soon as I got home, Susan came over and we talked. Turns out that she and Mark had gotten a little serious over the summer. Maybe a little to serious from my stand point, but I wasn't going to tell her, she and Mark had been moving at a quicker pace than John and I. Lucky for me Maggie had been taking her meds most of the time, and Eric was able to spend almost every day at home with her. Sometime Chloe, Susan's crazy sister, would come by and take him to a carnival, but other than that, he had been in good hands. After a weekend to myself, Susan and I had to go school supply shopping. School was starting in a week.