Sunshiner

Sunshine can bring out the best in people. It happens when you least expect it; it comes secretly and swiftly, descending like a whisper through the clouds, and you don’t even realize that the sun has shown its face until you notice the surprising warmth beating down on your skin. And then you look at the sky and you realize that the gray has parted and you suddenly feel happy, so incredibly happy, because there is no joy like the joy of seeing blue skies after a storm.

It is this golden, cheerful warmth that makes people stunningly blissful, the kind of bliss you feel just because it’s a nice day out. It’s the kind of bliss where you can sing to your favorite song while you’re driving with your windows down and you don’t care if people can hear you even though your singing sounds like a murderous scream. It’s the kind of bliss that makes you feel so good that you’d be more than happy to help an old lady cross the street or pick up trash on the side of the road or be nice to your annoying little sister for once. It’s the kind of bliss that makes humankind not so bitter and not so cruel.

But sunshine brings out the worst in people, too. There are the days when the sun is merciless and pounds down on your back with a thousand needles of heat, and those are the days when everyone snaps at each other like a pack of wolves. Those are the days when your air conditioning conveniently breaks, and there are no clouds to save you and all you can do is sit there and sweat until your clothes are soaked. Those are the days when the heat is so sweltering that you can’t even move and you would rather die than have to live in this almost-literal Hell.

Candace was the sunshine. Some days she made me blissful, and some days she made me want to die. However, just like sunshine, I would never be able to survive without her. I wouldn’t be able to wake up in the morning without her sunrise of a smile. And I had to remind myself over and over again that those moments of sweltering Hell were worth the feeling I got when I saw blue skies after the rain.

Today was one of those almost-literal Hell days. Both the sun and Candace were wearing me down. I couldn’t do anything to make it better, either; the Lake was too packed to even think about going swimming, and the ice cream parlor had been so busy that it had actually run out of ice cream. All Candace and I could do was sit on my front porch and sip ice cold water in the hopes that it would cool us down. It didn’t, of course. And Candace was making things worse by talking on and on and fucking on about that damn Chad.

“He’s actually really nice,” she sighed as she chewed on an ice cube. “I can’t believe I never noticed it before. I’m really glad I gave him a chance.”

“Yeah, me too,” I growled. I knew I shouldn’t have been getting worked up about it, but it was just so damn hot out. I probably would have gotten mad at Candace even if she did something nice for me. I honestly didn’t understand how she could be in such a wonderful mood when the humidity was this suffocating; she was a hot weather girl, I guess. “I’m just so fucking glad you two got together,” I added bitterly. By this point, I couldn’t deny the fact that I sort of wanted to start a fight. I was miserable and I wanted company.

“What’s your problem?” she asked, turning in her seat to fully face me. As she pulled her knees up to her chest, the swinging bench we were on moaned in protest and I prayed that the chains wouldn’t snap under our combined weights.

“I don’t have a problem,” I answered. And it was the truth; I was just being irrationally mad. But whatever. “I don’t get why you’re hanging out with me instead of him right now. I mean, if you love him so damn much, you’d think you would be – “

“I don’t love him,” she interrupted hastily, looking a bit irritated with my attitude, but I knew that she was stubborn enough to put up with it. “I don’t have time for love.”

“Whatever the hell that means,” I muttered to my cup and then took another sip of my water. It was getting warm and I wanted to fetch more ice cubes, but that would require moving. And I was way too tired and hot to move.

“Love takes time,” she went on.

“And you’re afraid that the next two months of summer won’t be enough time for you,” I nodded. My urge to argue with her had disappeared as quickly as it had come. I understood what she meant; summer was too short of a season to have a serious relationship.

“Yeah. Sure,” she said curtly, and I noticed that she was lying. When I saw the frown on her face, my stomach dropped as I realized that maybe I didn’t understand.

I was confused. When Candace and I were little, we understood each other perfectly. And it was supposed to be the same now. I hadn’t changed that much; therefore Candace couldn’t have either, right? She was the same person. She had to be. I didn’t like the idea of her changing, or anything changing for that matter.

“We haven’t kissed yet,” she blurted out.

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t know why, but I had suddenly gotten bored. Bored with her, bored with everything. It was the heat. It was draining me empty.

But I think she noticed that I had lost interest, and that was why she was stating such random facts. She wanted my attention. I don’t think Candace would be Candace if she wasn’t always in the center of attention.

“He’s tried to, trust me,” she went on, nodding a bit, “and he even tried to take me out to Lucky Point. But I wouldn’t let him.”

I scoffed slightly, still not fully paying attention to her, which I knew was getting her annoyed. And secretly that pleased me. I didn’t want Chad to be allowed to make her so happy, and therefore I made it my goal to make her unhappy. To balance things out.

“I’m not even dating you, and I’ve already kissed you,” I stated coolly, staring at everything except her and taking another sip of my drink.

“You didn’t kiss me,” she snorted. “I kissed you.”

“Yeah, because you were drunk,” I said and rolled my eyes. “And stupid.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that. Her silence either meant that she was agreeing with me, and she had been stupid and I was a mistake; or her silence meant that her drunkenness didn’t have anything to do with the kiss whatsoever, and whether she was intoxicated or not she would have done it. I think both of us knew that it was the latter, but of course we were too stubborn to be the first to point it out.

“It wasn’t that great of a kiss, anyway,” I muttered, knowing very well that it would piss her off. I wanted to fight again. Okay, yeah, I was being rather bipolar and stupidly irrational today. My mood swings were worse than a twelve-year-old girl’s.

She opened her mouth to speak, but after she stuttered twice she clamped it shut. I tried my best to hide a grin. She was so furious that she literally could not speak. Mission accomplished.

“Why are you such a stupid jerk?” she seethed, finally finding her words. “God, Kasey, you are so fucking annoying.” She stood up to leave, but I hastily grabbed her wrist and held her back.

“Wait.” My voice was soft, urgent. Yet another mood swing had made me realize that Candace and I only had a limited time to hang out; we could only be together when no one else was around to see us. And right now everyone in Dayton was at the beach or finding some other way to cool off; no one was sitting around in their houses laying victim to the heat. We were the only ones dumb enough to do that – but we were doing it for each other, so maybe it wasn’t so dumb after all. “Stay, please,” I said, and tugged on her arm a little.

“Why should I?” she demanded. “I know I can be a jerk sometimes, but you…you have really mastered the skill. And I know you have your moments when you can be the sweetest guy – don’t make that face, Kase. As much as you hate to admit it, you know I’m right. You do have that soft side. But you have that asshole side, too, and that side comes out a lot more often than I would like. You act like such a whiny, PMSing little bitch that I really cannot stand it! Now,” she snatched her hand away from me, “if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to hang out with people who won’t go out of their way to insult me. Bye.”

All I could do was sit there, my mouth hanging slightly open. Had Candace just...yelled at me? Really? Christ, and I thought that she was one of the few people who could ever put up with my attitude problem. But I guess not. I really hadn’t expected such an outburst from her – she was always so collected – and I definitely hadn’t expected her to call me out on my snarky comments. I mean, she had called me a little bitch. Me? A bitch? The only reaction I had for that was complete and utter shock.

But then it finally registered in my mind that she was walking away from me, and that I was wasting my precious alone time with her. “Hang on, hang on!” I shouted and sprung up from the bench as fast as lightning. Not wasting my time with the steps, I jumped over the railing and bounded after her.

“Hang on,” I said again, and stepped right in front of her so that she couldn’t keep walking away from me. “I’m…I’m sorry,” I said, and I couldn’t believe that this was the second time I was apologizing to her in a matter of a few days. Before she came along, I used to be cool and composed and I never felt sorry for anything I did. “I’m sorry I’m a whiny PMSing little bitch,” I went on, and she raised an eyebrow. I could tell that she was slightly amused; maybe if I kept it up, I could get her to crack a smile. That would be good. “I was just annoyed because you kept on blabbing about Chad and you wouldn’t shut up.”

“Shut up?” she echoed and suddenly there was a frown on her face. “You just wanted me to shut up?” And then she pushed past me and stormed off again. Well, fuck my life. That apology did not go as smoothly as I thought it would.

“Well – hey! Can you just hear me out for a minute? Jesus, I can’t believe we’re fucking arguing again.” I muttered that last part under my breath, but apparently it had been loud enough for her to hear it.

She whirled around to face me. “Because that’s the only thing we know how to do,” she said, and she didn’t look so mad anymore. “That’s the only way we know how to get along; by not getting along. We don’t know how to be nice to each other, or to have a normal conversation without throwing insults at each other every five seconds. It’s how we work.”

I didn’t want to believe her. “We could get along if we wanted to, couldn’t we?”

“Absolutely not.”

At that point I had to accept it: it was true. Fighting was our form of communication. Candace and I were made to clash.

“Well,” I mumbled lamely and looked down at my shoes. “I still hate Chad.”

She scoffed. “I was only talking about him to make you jealous,” she said. My head snapped up and our eyes met, and then the expression on her face turned into one of horror. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud, that much was clear to me.

“What did you say?” I asked, even though I knew perfectly well that she just said.

“N-Nothing,” she said and took a step backwards from me. If the heat hadn’t already flushed her face red, I could swear that she was blushing. “I didn’t mean that. I meant to say – “

“Why would you want to get me jealous?” I asked, smirking ever so slightly as I took a few steps towards her, shortening the distance between us. “Is that why you’re dating Chad in the first place?”

“No,” she snapped. “Of course not. I like him and he’s cute and…and…”

Her words trailed off as I stepped even closer to her so that only a few inches of emptiness separated us. I looked into her honey brown eyes and it was obvious that I had captivated her. With most girls I could tell when I had them wrapped around my finger and I felt proud about it. But I didn’t feel triumphant about it this time. Because I knew perfectly well that she had captivated me, too. I was hers as much as she was mine.

“I don’t think you like him,” I said and scrunched up my nose, and the corners of her lips lifted at my ‘ew’ face. I cupped a hand against the nape of her neck and caressed my thumb against her cheek, and her smile was suddenly gone. But I knew that it wasn’t a bad thing.

I wasn’t sure if I should have been terrified of this feeling. With most relationships I was the one who was the heartbreaker. I was the one who dumped the girl. And if I was ever dumped, I never felt bad about it, not once, because I never really felt all too attached to the girl in the first place. But with Candace…with Candace I knew that she could ruin me as much as I could ruin her. If there came a day when she broke up with me I would have been devastated. She had a power over me that no girl had ever had before. Did that mean I genuinely liked her? Or did it just mean that she was really that intoxicating?

“I don’t?” she squeaked. I would have laughed at how vulnerable she was at this point, but then I realized that I was just as vulnerable as she was. She wasn’t immune, and neither was I. We were each other’s disease.

“No,” I shook my head and tilted my face towards her. “You really don’t.”

When the hell did this happen? A feeling as overwhelming as this shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on me as silently and as stealthily as this. I should have been scared, I should have been running for my life at this point. But for some reason I didn’t feel all too shocked. Maybe I had known it all along. Maybe this feeling hadn’t sprung up like a wildcat; maybe it had been growing for quite some time.

Either way, I knew that I wasn’t scared as I should have been. I hadn’t started running away yet. And I was still leaning in towards her.

“I think you like someone else,” I continued, my voice getting lower and lower as I got closer. “I think you like me.”

“Oh. Okay,” she whispered, and then I finally closed the space between us and kissed her.