Message in a Bottle

Chapter Nine
“I’m sorry for Emily’s actions,” I laughed. “She’s a little… messed up in the head. She has this thing where she hears voices in her head and supposedly the voice sounds just like me so she thinks I’m the one telling her all these wacko things,” I laughed nervously.
“Schizophrenia?”
“Schizo-who?”
“Nevermind,” he chuckled.
“So where’re we going?” I asked when I got into his jeep parked in the front of my house.
“I hope you don’t mind if I take you out to dinner,” he said as he started the car.
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you, Carter.” I grinned.
He looked over at me. “You don’t sound very enthusiastic about it. If you don’t want to go you don’t have to, you know?”
“No, no, that’s not it at all. I’d love to go with you. It’s just that I’ve never actually… been on a date before,” I said, embarrassed.
“Hey, I never said it was a date. But it can be one if you want it to.”
I looked down at my fingers, fidgeting with them as I smiled, nervous.
“It’s just so adorable when your face turns red like that,” he commented.
Carter drove us to the diner in town where they made the best hamburgers, fries, and milkshakes around. I was the one who suggested we go there since he didn’t really know what places there was around here.
“Here’s your burger and milkshake, Morgan,” the waitress said, setting down my basket in front of me. “And your veggie burger and iced tea.” She set down Carter’s basket. “And the fries.” She set those between us to share.
“Veggie burger?”
“I’m sort of a vegetarian,” he chuckled, squirting ketchup on his burger.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have brought you here,” I laughed.
“No, it’s fine. The veggie burger has absolutely no meat in it.” He inspected the patty. “I hope.”
“And the iced tea. You eat much healthier than I do,” I said as I took a sip of my chocolate milkshake.
“I grew up in a home where we weren’t allowed to eat boxed, canned, frozen, or processed foods. We always had organics around, too.”
“That’s pretty strict. Do you ever crave like… a hotdog or something?”
“We still have hotdogs, Morgan,” he laughed. “Just not the overly processed kinds. I get used to it though. I actually like it much better and I feel much better.”
“I grew up eating whatever was inside the house. When my dad left and my mom began acting like a crazed teenage girl I was in charge of buying the grocery’s and stuff like that since Benjamin had cancer and was too ashamed of stepping out into the public. My mom usually left fifties dollars on the table in the mornings for me to go out and buy food. I felt like I was the parent, taking care of my brother and mom when she needed an aspirin for her headache.” I shook my head, snapping myself out of it.
“I’m s-… er… that sucks,” he said, still searching his head for the right words to say.
“Go ahead, say it! You feel sorry for me. I feel sorry for myself all the time when I have to take charge of things around the house and ask myself… how did I ever get into this mess? What did I do to deserve this? But then I realize… all this just makes me grow as a person. That someday it’ll all pay off and I’ll get my moment of happiness. I just don’t know when it’ll come though.”
“Patience is the key.”
“You have a lot of wisdom for someone your age. It’s extremely annoying yet extremely useful.”
He chuckled. “Why, thank you.”

“That was fun,” Carter said. “We should do that again sometime.”
The sun was already down and Carter and I sat in his Jeep, the windows and roof rolled down so that the stars and moon shone down on us.
“We should…. Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“I was just wondering why you gave me flowers today.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Because I wanted to.”
“And?”
“And because I knew you liked Hibiscus’s.”
“And?”
“Uh… I was doing it out of hospitality. What do you want me to say, Morgan?” he asked, giving up with a sigh.
“I just want to know the true reason to why you brought me flowers. Not the stuff I already know.”
“Okay, the reason I got them for you is because I like you. I know that’s weird, being that we’ve only physically known each other for two days but Morgan, I’ve liked you ever since I got your message in a bottle when I was a child hunting for seashells on the beach. And if you don’t feel the same way that’s fine, we can go past this.”
I smiled, my face turning red. “I don’t want to go past this because I like you, too. Ever since I got your message a couple months ago. Carter, I don’t want to go past this and look back at this when you’re back in Boston, regretting that I didn’t tell you how I felt. For this first time in a long time… I’m going to listen to my heart.”
He smiled, reaching out to brush a strand of hair behind my ear, keeping his hand at the back of my neck. Our eyes continued to gaze at each other’s as if they were magnetic. Even if I wanted to look away from his blue eyes I couldn’t find the strength to do so. He slowly leaned in and this was the part where I was supposed to meet him halfway so I leaned in as well. My heart started pounding against my chest so that I was sure he was able to hear it.
Then our lips touched and nothing else mattered.