Lost in the Sun

Friday, June 24th, 2011

Lula Price has always dreaded going to Lake Malone. It's not because she didn't love her grandparents or her parents, or the rest of the family that she occasionally saw when she visited. Mainly, the reason she dreaded Lake Malone was because there was nothing to do. Sure, her Dad had a nice boat. Her Granddad had a nice boat, not to mention a dock of his own.

Sure, she'd be there for Fourth of July. They'd shoot off fireworks, have a right good time. She'd get to see her cousin Emily who she rarely seen away from the lake. The food would be amazing, as usual. Her step-Grandmother was a fantastic cook. Lula always took her portable CD player and headphones, she had enough CDs to last a lifetime. But Lake Malone was still so vapid.

The first time she ever visited the lake, she was eleven years old. It seemed pretty neat to her then; her Grandparents having a house right on the lake. Her Dad showing her his and his sisters' hiding place in the woods. Showed her a pretty little waterfall. Even showed her where he and his sister marked their names in a tree years ago when they were but teenagers. It was neat then, because it was new. But after you come here every summer since then, and naturally being sixteen with raging hormones,

the lake was just characterless. You could go on boat rides, she could even drive the boat occasionally. You could water ski, inter-tube, swim, go for a hike, or just go for a walk around the road which conveniently was a circle. There was fishing. Something she always loved to do growing up but never had a nice enough lake like this to go fishing in, until she was eleven. But those things got boring after you did them for the first couple of days. After that, all there was to do was sit around and wish you were back home.

Lula had never spent more than three nights at Lake Malone. That's all she could tolerate. She itched to be back home and talking on her cell phone or on the computer. But this time, she'd agreed to three full weeks with her parents. A family vacation if you will. Lula was sixteen now, had her own drivers permit, a junior in high school. Her parents sort of saw this as, maybe the last time that they could something like this with Lula before she's all grown up and moved out with a family of her own.

Lula didn't think that though. She wasn't real big on the relationship department, she didn't think she was the prettiest swan in the lake. Not having a lot of confidence, Lula stayed to the side a whole lot. Hence why she didn't date much. Guys just didn't seem to notice her. So Lula had it in her mind that she'd be living at home until she was thirty and then move into a house by herself and her fifty two cats... exaggeration, sure, but...she just had a feeling life was going to stay this monotonous task.

For the first week, things were fairly exciting. There didn't seem to be enough time in the day to do everything that she wanted to do. The last time Lula had been here it was for Christmas, you couldn't go out and do the things that you normally do at Christmas, because it's cold. The time before that was during the summer, a whole year ago. So, skiing, tubing, hiking, swimming, fishing, boating, it was all fun to her for the first week. Then...

it started to become flavorless once again.

Saturday, July 2nd, 2011

That was, until he showed up.

When Lula first laid eyes on Aidan, she was out on a boat ride with her father and cousin Emily. Everyone else was back at the house getting ready for a big lunch but Emily insisted she wanted to go water skiing. So Lula, dying for something to do, decided to go since if you're going to water ski, you really need three people. A driver, a looker, and the skier.

They were just starting to come back in for lunch when she noticed a couple of guys getting ready to go out on a boat on the other side of the lake. Lula couldn't make much of them out, other than the blonde boy who looked a bit younger than his friend was absolutely a hunk. To die for, as she put it in her head. As they went past on the boat, the blonde lifted his head up and looked out to see them pass, that's when Lula and Aidan caught eyes for the first time.

Lula felt her cheeks burn red by just meeting eyes with this gorgeous stranger. Giving him a polite smile and wave, which was courteous out here on the water; her Father turned the boat down the cove that her Grandparents lived in and though she could still see, in the distance, the guy and the boat, and the house of course... she was too far to make out facial expressions, or even to see if he had smiled back at her.

"Well,"

she thought to herself,

"If there's a guy like that here. Maybe this place won't continue to be boring for the next two weeks. Maybe I could meet him, we could hang out."

Lula had no idea how much of Aidan she was going to end up seeing in the near future.