C'mon Get Higher

The sand was soft and cold beneath my toes as I swung back and forth on the swing at the park. It was mid winter, my least favorite of all seasons. It was when all the remnants of summer were gone; new people and adventures hardly ever turned up.

I longed for a summer like the last. Where the air was sweet and felt hot upon my newly tanned skin, with people from different parts of the globe. Last summer was like no other of my summers before it. It was jam packed with adventure and the unexpected. Mostly my summer was filled with Anton Somers, he was from Australia and man, oh man, he was definitely unexpected.

He had this sandy colored blonde hair that I know he only got from spending so much time under the sun. He had these bright green eyes that I felt like I should be able to read his mind through. He had this field of freckles that were spread across his upper back, he received them by surfing frequently, that made me want to run my fingers across them and every time I looked at him I knew that he was different.

I was fifteen last summer and he was sixteen. If you didn't know, fifteen year old girls only want three things out of a summer: Freedom, Adventure, and Love.

I was lying on a beach towel alone on the beach listening to my IPod when I first spotted him. He had a surf board under his left arm and was walking quickly across the burning sand. While lying on my stomach with my IPod blaring through my ears I felt invincible and right that second that golden haired demi-god was what I needed.

I pushed my sunglasses down a little bit on my nose and I watched him run into the water and throw his board over the first sizable wave, he lied on top of it and started paddling out. He was inhuman. He couldn't be real and I still can't tell you if that exited me or scared me senseless.

I sat up and watched him catch a couple of waves. The waves weren't that great that day so he paddled in and started walking back to the beach cottages along the sand. But I started to run up to him. "Hey!" I called but he didn't turn around. So I called again, "Dude, wait up!" This time he stopped and turned around.

It was awkward and we just sort of stood there for a minute bouncing up and down because of the scalding sand. "Umm those waves you caught, they were good." Great move Sloan, now he thinks you're a stalker, I thought to myself.

"Thanks, but the surf was easy so it wasn't that difficult." His accent wasn't too thick but it was noticeable; it mostly came out when he pronounced the vowels.

"I'm Sloan." I informed him as I stuck out my right hand and used my left to move my hair from my face.

"Anton. Nice to meet you." Then he shook my hand and smiled.

I let go of his hand and started to back away. "You too Anton. Maybe I’ll see you around ?"

"Yeah, that'd be cool." He smiled again and it made me melt. "See you 'round Sloan."

I sat on the swing on my front porch the next afternoon. It was a hot day and it made me lazy and I didn't want to walk to the beach. I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird when I heard laughter so I looked up. There standing in front of me was my father and laughing along with him for some horrific reason was Anton.

"Oh God." I muttered as I placed my bookmark between a couple of pages and got up.

"Mr. Vixen you can't be serious. You know my mother?" Anton asked coating every word with his accent.

"I did. We met when she came on an exchange prog—

"Dad!" I yelled as I came into view of both men.

Anton looked surprised but not disappointed to see me walk up to them.

"Sloan this is Anton Somers. I went to school with his mom for a year back in the day." My dad didn't seam to grasp that people didn't say 'back in the day' any more.

"We met yesterday." Anton told him and then smiled at me.

"Oh", was all my dad could say. "I'll let you two get to know each other then. I'd like to catch up with your mom if that's okay."

"I'll tell her." Anton told him and waved as we both stood there.

“So you were chatting up my dad?” I asked him as I began to laugh.

“Yes, to be honest I don’t know how it happened. But I’m glad it did.”

“Really. Why is that?” My fearlessness around him shocked me.

“I wanted to talk to you again. But you weren’t at the beach.” He looked me right in the eyes as he said this and it made me trust him.

“Well then it was really great that you were talking with him.” We stood there awkwardly so I spoke, “Want to take a walk?”

“Yes.” He said so we walked.

I walked us to the park. It was empty although there were plenty of people with small children staying in this town. There was a huge red slide that was connected to a jungle gym. Next to it was a pair of swings. Anton and I sat down in them.

“So.” I began.

“So.” He echoed.

“Are you full Australian?”

“No, my mum is German and my dad is Australian. So I’m fifty percent.” He answered.

"Can you speak fluent German?" I inquired.

"Ja." I was glad that he didn't start talking in the language because then I would've had to talk back to him. I didn't want him to know that I could speak German for some reason.

We began to swing back and forth on our swings. I was higher than him. He was higher than me. I got higher again. But then we were equal. We both were fighting as we laughed to see who would get higher. So I decided to jump off. I was really high up but I jumped anyway.

I landed on my butt in the sand. I was still laughing. A little manically I think but Anton, instead of asking if I was alright, jumped off too and landed next to me.

After our laugher subsided we just lied there. He moved closer to me and looked me in the eyes. We said nothing. I got lost in his eyes. I was searching through a jungle so deep that once I was in, I would never come out alone.

"We could get higher." I said referring to the swings.

"How?" His emerald eyes gleaming with wonder and amazement.

"Climb a tree. C'mon."

We walked out of the sandy part of the park into the grass where the trees stood. I stood next to Anton and took his hand and squeezed then said, "This one. Follow me." I dropped his hand and began to climb.

I reached the top in a couple of minutes but Anton was still at the halfway point. So I yelled down to him. "C'mon get higher!"

He did. He reached to where I was and moved in next to me. "I'm afraid of heights."

"Oh," Was all I could come up with. "Sorry?"

"I've never climbed a tree for a girl before." He stated.

"Well, then you obviously have never been kissed in one." I reached for his face and balanced myself in the tree. I had his face in my hands and kissed him.

"No, not till now." He smiled at me after we came up for air.

Anton was my summer. He was the shedding of a former me; someone who didn't know how to be herself or tell you what she wanted. I never really got to know Anton. I don't know that I ever really wanted to in the first place. He was gorgeous and nice but I didn't want that. I wanted more.

I used him. Not intentionally but I used him nonetheless. I don't know if he knows that now or not. I used him to be able to know what I was capable of, if I was capable of anything. I was and I am. I am now aware that if I want to get to know someone, a guy, that I can simply walk up to them and introduce myself. But maybe next time I won’t be quite as direct. I can only get higher from where I stand and when I jumped off that swing last summer I, Sloan Vixen shed her childhood innocence somewhere between the ground and the sky.