"Wait, so you're saying that this Calvin guy, your first love, just pops up again three years after abandoning you?"
"If you want to put it that way."
I sat perched on the edge of the dock of Harmonica Town, short legs dangling freely over. The tranquil ocean breeze wisped my short locks of hair up, strands that had gone astray whisking over my cheeks transiently. The tangy scent of ocean salt pierced the abrasively chilly autumn air. To my right sat Toby, his fair silvery-blue hair mimicking the frenzied pattern of mine. His navy blue over shirt, that he'd recently donned to battle the increasingly icy fall weather, fluttered noiselessly in the wind.
He spoke. "And you guys are dating now?"
"I don't know, actually," I admitted, a blunt needle surging against my uncertain heart, as I voiced the unrelenting thought that hadn't ceased to niggle at the back of my mind ever since the whirlwind of khaki and warm brown had tumbled back into my life two weeks ago. I clasped my fishing rod tighter between my awkwardly gloved hands, the frigid autumn air seeping through to prick at my fingers anyway. "That's the thing about Calvin, I guess," I pondered aloud, wondering if my thoughts would make more sense when thought out verbally, "I never really know where I stand with him," a small smile crept up my lips, a product of my unsolicited reminiscing, "even after all these years."
"Sounds like you should just come out and ask him."
"That's easy enough for you to say," I rebutted defensively, tugging forcefully on my fishing rod, "You've been dating Renee since forever."
"Last I checked, a season and a bit isn't forever," he chuckled gently; a gesture I'd came to know as a trademark of his. A small rosy tint came to rest on his cheeks, gleaming serenely in perfect complement to his fair skin.
"Besides, even if I did ask him, I don't think he would give me a straight answer."
"Why's that?"
"That's just the kind of guy he is, I guess," I sighed, melancholy.
"He sounds like a stand up guy," Toby joked, calmly reeling in a catch. I grinned, punching him lightly on the shoulder to signify my false offense. He remained oblivious to my action, clamping the struggling fish he'd caught in between his large hands, a sympathetic look veneering his jade eyes, before he detached it from his hook and lobbed the flopping Goby back into the ocean.
"Why'd you do that?"
He shrugged casually. "Felt bad for it. It could've been the father of a Goby family. The breadwinner. I didn't want to leave its poor fish family in the lurch."
"You're an idiot," I chuckled, poking my finger against his smooth temple – a result of never having worried about a thing in his life – and promptly proceeded to follow suit, throwing the Goby I'd just reeled in back into the ocean as well.
"Why'd you do that?" He mimicked.
"Could've been the mother Goby," I played along, a part of me beginning to believe in this Goby back-story we'd spun, "I didn't want to separate the mother and father Goby. They deserve to be together, don't you think?"
"Who's the idiot now?" He chortled accordingly, jade green eyes turning into slits as laughter engulfed his face.
"Still you."
"Wow. I guess they're right when they say you've got to see it to believe it."
I stood on the field of my farm, hands busied with the tedious watering of my fruitfully sprouting fall crops; the sun beat down relentlessly, in spite of the chilly autumn air that periodically breezed needles along my skin.
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
The epitome of fall stood by the picket fence that surrounded my field, all warm brown and bronze mingling together. Pumpkins and lattes and dried leaves. Caramel and full moons and wisdom.
"It means that you do good on a farm," Calvin's cool voice called out, lips parting to expose his yellow-tinged teeth, perfect in all their crookedness. He slowly advanced, tossing an ochre-coloured object into my hands as he finally neared towards me.
"It's an amber," he answered my unvoiced question, "Got it from a bunch of stuff I just got refined. It's the colour of your eyes."
"How cliché," I smirked, the mass of the gemstone weighing my perspiring palm down.
"It's supposed to represent courage," he continued, remaining blissfully oblivious to my previously unsolicited thoughtless comment.
"Courage, huh?" I murmured contemplatively. To hell with it.
"What are we?" I blurted out, before I could impede myself. My heart quivered in anticipation for an answer I didn't want to hear – although I wasn't sure what it was, exactly, that I wanted to hear anymore.
A sigh seemed to emit itself from his mouth. "C'mere, kiddo," Calvin gestured over to the vacant space next to him. Compliantly, I treaded over to my farm fence, letting it support my substantial weight. I rested my glove-encased hands on its ridges, gnawing apprehensively on the smooth inside of my cheek. I waited for Calvin to speak.
"I'm not going to play games with you anymore, okay? I'm going to tell it to you straight."
I nodded anxiously, waiting for him to continue.
"It's been great being with you these past two weeks," he started, eyes focused on a distant crop of grass, "but I'm not getting any younger."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
His chapped lips parted to emit a barely audible sigh. "It means that I want to get married."
Of all the answers I'd anticipated myself for, that hadn't been an option. An anvil plummeted on my heart, the emaciated arteries it dangled from hacking loose. "Oh."
"I figured that's how you'd react," he responded solemnly, calloused fingers going to slide over mine. "We may be older now, but the age difference hasn't changed," his coarse fingers curled over mine, fragments of cracking skin from the edges of his fingers digging slightly into my palm, "and I can't be waiting around a couple more years for you to be ready."
"I get that."
"You'll always still be a kid in my eyes," he chuckled, squeezing my hand faintly. Warmth surged up my arm.
"I'm not eighteen anymore, you know," I retorted by instinct, leaning closer to him – half for comfort, half to accentuate my point.
"Well, it doesn't really matter, anyway. Let's just enjoy it for what it's worth – for now," he murmured, throwing the last portion in inaudibly.
He never answered my question.
Calvin slung his arm – clothed in a coffee-coloured leather jacket – over my shoulder, as we entered the Brass Bar; the entrance bell tinkling, fairy-like. We took a seat in a secluded booth, Chase making his languid way over to take our orders.
"Kathy, what happened? Get a bad haircut?" I jested faux innocently to Chase, referring to how he'd seemingly replaced Kathy for the night.
"Bad haircut?" He repeated, offended. A barely conspicuous smile spread across his intense face; his eyebrows furrowed as he glared at the notepad he held in his sylphlike hands, blunt pencil positioned between his svelte fingers. "What do you want?"
"I think I prefer Kathy," I mumbled, turning my gaze to my menu.
"Be careful," the peach-head cautioned, amethyst eyes glaring dourly at me, "Just because we're friends doesn't mean I won't hesitate to poison your food."
I noticed Calvin had turned suspiciously quiet. "Calvin, this is Chase," I introduced, slightly delayed, "We were friends back when we were little kids. I had the bad luck of meeting him again when I came to Castanet," I mocked, lowering my eyelids in exaggerated discontent.
"Hey," Chase interrupted, lightly knocking his knuckles against my forehead, a habit he'd nurtured when we were younger and hadn't grown out of, "I'm definitely going to poison your food now."
I laughed softly, edges of my mouth stretching as far as they would across my cheeks. Chase finally took our orders, leaving us to ourselves.
"Guess we're not the only ones with a history, are we, kiddo?" Calvin chimed teasingly. A trace of jealously laced his words.
"It's nothing like that," I replied casually, "And when are you going to stop calling me kiddo?"
"I told you, didn't I? You're always a kid in my eyes."
"So never, then?"
"Never."
When you reminisce about the past – about past loves – you're filled with a sense of unsolicited nostalgia. You remember only the beautiful things; tend to disremember the ugly memories. You look to the past with rose-tinted glasses.
My eyes scanned over Calvin, and, for the first time, I noticed how the ends of his sandy blonde hair strands were splitting up the middle – a result of improper care over his travels – and new lines now peppered his smiling face. I noticed how his sharp nose sat a little crookedly in the centre of his face, the left nasal lobe slanting down ever so slightly more than the right side. I noticed how freckles sparsely dotted the vast expanses of his face, scattered haphazardly across the horizon between his eyes.
The rose tinted glasses lifted.
The man seated next to me wasn't my oh-so-charming lover. He was a mysterious stranger who always made me feel incompetent, and who never let me know where I stood with him; even when I came forward and asked.
The arm he slung around my shoulders precipitously started to feel foreign, an extraneous weight bearing down on me. Unease wrestled about in my chest.
"Hey, Calvin…" I ventured cautiously, wary of acting on an impulse I might have regretted later, "Are we just kidding ourselves here?"
Silence reigned.
"I don't know, kiddo," he finally replied knowingly, retracting his arm ever so slightly, "I don't know."
"I don't want to be wasting your time," I started carefully, buying time to dictate my choice of words, "and I don't want to waste my time either."
Calvin leaned back in the booth, a resigned hand going to brush over his eyebrows – had that crease always been there? – and rest on the brink of his nose. He smiled nostalgically. "I was wrong, huh?" He questioned, gazing at me intently.
"About what?"
"You've grown up," he nodded, impressed by my pragmatism. He brought his tough-skinned hand to ruffle my hair, but stopped himself half way, leaving it hanging in midair. He retracted his hand unnaturally, crossing his arms to obstruct himself from reenacting the previous scene. Tension floated around us.
"I suppose I have."
"We're not the same people, anymore, are we?"
"Yeah," I replied, letting it sink onto our shoulders, sliding its way down to our untouched hearts. "Yeah."
"But… Maybe for old time's sake," he murmured, before planting a final nostalgic kiss on my head. I no longer felt giggles bubbling up in my throat when he did that – the feeling was instead replaced with a foolishly infantile sentiment.
He pulled away, for the second and last time.
The fog that was my first love lifted, like the morning mist that dissipates as soon as the first ray of sun hits it.
"You just going to sit there and sulk all night, kiddo?" A honeyed, sarcastic voice called out to me from where I remained, at the booth of the Brass Bar, when Calvin had left an hour ago.
Chase smirked at my slight flinch; internally delighting in his mocking of the nickname Calvin had given me. "Don't call me that," I wrongly rushed out, only giving Chase more incentive to continue his teasing.
He laughed, straight, white teeth flashing as his lips parted. "Alright, alright," he consoled, seating himself next to me, "I'm not about to start talking like some old man, anyway."
"Old man?" I questioned, leaning my crossed arms onto the table top, "Spare some feelings for my tender, sensitive heart here," I joked, a slight smile tugging at my lips, in spite of myself.
He rested an elbow on my shoulder, leaning his head onto his curled up fist, honeyed peach strands of hair falling delicately into the bobby pins that held them back. We sat in snug silence.
"Shouldn't you be working?"
Chase tapped his knuckles against my creased forehead, incredulous smile playing on his rosy lips, "Is heartbreak making you blind? Bar's completely emptied out. The only reason I'm still here is because you wouldn't budge from your seat."
"I'm not heartbroken."
"I know that. A girl who punches like you – it'll take a whole lot more than that to break your heart."
"You still going on about that?" I laughed, the memory of us, when we were six, play fighting in mud resurfacing in my mind.
"My mind won't let me forget it," he drawled sarcastically. Instinctively. "But enough about that."
"Being an adult has its perks," he led, enthrallingly, "We can play new games."
"Yeah?" I questioned aloud, eyes set on the bottle of saccharine apricot-coloured liquor Chase went to retrieve, "Like seeing how much we can drink until the other passes out?"
"Pretty much," he replied, a smirk – his trademark facial expression – gracing his angular features again.
"You still want to play after what happened last time?" I cautioned, referring to the last time the two of us had played, and we'd ended up being unpleasantly awoken by a very amused Hayden. "Hayden never let us hear the end of it," I reminded him, amusement toying at my eyes, "And you know that I'll beat you."
Chase handed me a shot, one side of his lips tugging up significantly more than the other – smirking.
"Shut up and drink."
Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I've made some slight alterations to the previous two chapters (but only in terms of the language, so it'll be fine if you skip re-reading them) because I finally decided on what writing style I wanted to use for this story. Also, Chase and Toby are meant to be Molly's best friends, in case I didn't make that clear enough. If you like this story, maybe you'll enjoy the other one I'm currently working on - Serendipity. Please like/review/follow if you enjoyed, I always appreciate it!