“Are you ready? On three …” Hazel said holding both Jan’s hands facing each other.
Jan nodded, they were standing at the edge of the dock protruding above the lake’s surface. They were getting ready to jump.
“Don’t let go, ready? One … two … three …”
They squealed as they jumped sideways to the water. It was a game they always play since they were little, to jump into the lake holding hands and stayed underwater until one of them was out of breath. Staying underwater is not as easy as it sounds, it took some effort to keep them from floating up.
The more they do it, the longer they could stay down. The edge of the lake was not so deep, but holding each other’s hands gave them a sense of safety knowing the other one would pull them up if need be.
When they emerge from the water, they were startled by Theo who was sitting on the dock waiting for them to come out. He was actually ready to jump in if they had been in there for longer.
“I thought you were lost there for a moment,” he said with a worried face.
The girls laughed, “We’re fine … we’re not 12 anymore, you know?” Hazel said as she wiped her face from the water and pinched her nose.
He looked at her funny and looked away almost blushing, “I know … I was looking for you girls, do you want to go to the big tree and jump from the rope? Everyone’s over there.”
Hazel looked at Jan. She nodded.
“Sure … can you help us up?” she raised her hand up to Theo.
He was unusually awkward, but then he extended his arm and pulled her up. Their bodies grazed with each other, he grabbed the small of her back almost scared of touching her. Then he proceeds to help Jan up.
“Last one to get to the tree loses,” Hazel said and ran along the dock in the direction of the tree.
Jan followed behind her.
Theo hid a smile as he watched the two girls ran after each other, jumped on each other’s backs just like they used to do when they were little. But they were not little anymore, and to see them in Bikinis for the first time was distracting. Hazel especially.
He ran after them at a slow pace just so he could look at her without interruption. He could’ve outrun them without even trying being the soccer team captain and all, but just a little bit longer he thought he could savor the moment to himself before Max caught him watching his half-naked sister running around with her best friend.
“Hey, Hazel! Put on some shirt will ya’?” Max shouted from the tree when he saw them coming.
“What? Are you kidding me? Why?”
If anything, his request made her self-conscious with her body. She wrapped her arms around herself.
“You don’t want your bra to slip off when you jump into the water,” he explained.
“It’s a bikini you doofus … and it’s not gonna slip,” she complained.
“Let’s not take any chances, you don’t want people to see do you? I don’t want to see it … I won’t recover from it … it’s a little chilly here anyway …” he pointed out to Theo’s cousins and their friends who were there too.
Hazel blushed not knowing what to do after Max had put her in her little sister’s place once again.
Theo ran past them, he was pursing his lips, he heard the whole thing, “Uh … oh … fashion police,” he muttered softly making a point when he said Max was an overprotective brother. He picked up a shirt that was laying on the ground and handed it to Hazel. It was the shirt he was using when he got there.
She reluctantly took the shirt from Theo and put it on. Theo’s playful smile bloomed across his face with a twinkle in the corner of his eye, “I’d say you look hot in those but … your brother would drown me,” he chuckled.
“Hey, Theo! Come over here!” Max called when it took longer than it should to put on a shirt.
“See?” Theo said referring to the now overbearing Max, “Come on, let’s swing from the tree.”
It gave Hazel an idea, she jumped on Theo’s back, “Come on … let’s give him something to grumble about,” she laughed.
Theo ran towards the tree with Hazel on his back, “I think that’s a brilliant plan but I don’t wanna get murdered in the middle of the night.” They laughed.
Even with Max breathing on their necks, they had fun nonetheless. It’s funny how things seemed to stay the same every day, but when they look back, everything was different. They were changing without even realizing it.
It was the first time in a long time they were at the lake house with Theo being single. But she realized, he had always been the same toward her. Playful, brotherly, funny, and caring. He had never been anything else. It was her mega crush for him that has clouded her judgment, wanting more than what they had when what they had was really special.
“I’m sorry,” Theo said when they were alone later that day.
The sun was setting, everyone was getting ready to start a bonfire and burn some marshmallows by the lake. They were standing side by side with each other and gazed into the greyish sky.
“For what?” Hazel creased her forehead.
“For making you say what you said in your letter,” he looked down with a smile.
She nodded lightly, now that it came straight from his mouth, she started to second guess her decision whether it was necessary to lay it all out to him in her letter. “Thank you for saying that,” she thought it was an appropriate response to his apology.
“And you’re right … I do know how it feels now,” he added.
She turned to look at him with a frown, “Now that … I don’t think you do … I don’t think you will ever know how it feels.”
“Really? I know you don’t feel that way about me anymore and it’s … sad … for me at least,” he scoffed.
She gently pushed him by the arm, “How would you know that?”
“Because … it’s pretty obvious … I don’t know what’s going on with you and Lee, but I know you miss him, I saw you were looking at his Insta all the time, and his Tik-Tok … jeez, that guy can really dance, can’t he?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. She wasn’t denying any of it. Lee was an excellent dancer, and she missed him so very much. She missed his late-night texts, his midnight phone calls. She missed talking to him because he listens to everything. She missed him telling her all about his dance practice, his cute little sister, and his naughty little brother. She missed his voice saying hello to her. His dimples … she sighed deeply, she was heartbroken.
She thought she could get that image of him kissing Mischa out of her mind by doing as much fun as she could at the lake house, but it was useless. Everything reminds her of how Lee was not there with her, and how much she wanted him to be there.
“He also has a girlfriend,” she said it, it was real now.
Theo looked surprised, “Who, Lee? Nooo … a girlfriend? You mean other than you?”
She masked her broken heart with a soft laugh, but she was struggling to push back what was coming out from behind her eyes, “Yeah … a girlfriend … girlfriend, you silly, I saw him kissed her before he left for Korea.”
He rested his hands on his waist and looked at her in disbelief, “I find that hard to believe … there’s no way on earth that guy is not in love with you, Mickey … no matter how many girls he kisses.”
She ended up explaining what had happened to Theo, and it was hard to put them all in words without admitting to herself that she may have lost her best friend to a girl. She stammered and tears were starting to reflect against the bonfire that was lighting up.
“Hey … hey … stop that,” he wiped the tear with his thumb. He laughed lightly, “You are being silly … and I think you are just so sweet … look at you, you’re a mess.”
As if she needed someone to tell her that, she had been a mess since Lee left and her effort in trying to keep it together was failing.
“Do yourself a favor,” Theo’s hand was still on her cheek, he looked into her eyes, “Tell him … don’t wait until it’s too late like what you did with me … you should tell him how you feel despite what you think you saw.”
If someone told her this was going to happened to her a year earlier, she would never believe it. Theo was consoling her of her broken heart with another boy.
“He’s your best friend, isn’t he? What’s the worst that could happen if you tell him you love him?” he laughed. “What I’d do to be in his spot right now?” he managed to slip that in.
It made her laugh, “You’re just saying that.”
He held the side of her arms, “I’m not, I swear that’s the truth … but I know better not to be that guy who gets between two people who are head over heels for each other … I’ll wait.”
His last words taken her by surprise. They looked at each other in silence, the only sound they could hear was the flickering of the fire and the rustling leaves around them.