Seashells

June 26th, 2008

I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't.

Was Matt playing a trick on me? Were you doing it as a joke? You sent me that seashell. It made me still feel close to you while you were far away. Were you just messing with me?

Of course, it's not like any of these questions actually left my mouth. I calmly typed in my number, saved my contact, and handed the phone back to Matt. He took it and looked at me while I blankly stared back. For a weird split second, it seemed like he knew exactly how I was feeling.

You came around the building again and said you had to go. You took your phone back from Matt and asked me to put in my number. When I said I already did, you said goodbye like nothing had changed. I couldn't tell if I like that or not.

Soon Sim said she had to go also, but she planned for us to go to her house and catch up the next day. That left me with Matt, which actually cheered me up a lot. Well, you know the effect Matt has on people. You'll be questioning your sanity, but at least he can make you laugh.

When I went home, I kept wondering. The main question was if it was true that you had a girlfriend. And if it was... well, that created many more. Why were you with her? Was it one of those things where you don't want to say no to the person, but you don't want anything real with them? I hoped so. Or did you move on?

I couldn't exactly blame you for that one. I mean, I did look around for other guys during the school year. I just never found one. Maybe you did the same thing, but you found a girl you liked.

If that was the case, I had nothing to say to that because it was completely fair. But as you know, life isn't fair, and neither is my thinking.

We had something. You know it was true, it's undeniable. It couldn't just... end.

"Why do you always invite me over early?" I asked Sim.

She said, "So we can make sure we look good."

"It's only Matt and Aden," I said. "It doesn't really matter."

"It does. Plus, it can't really hurt, right?"

"No," I admitted. I didn't know what to say next. I really wanted to ask her about you and your girlfriend, but it didn't feel like. I felt like if I wanted to know the true story, I had to ask you. That wasn't exactly a pleasant option, though. However, I knew I had to do it sometime...

I spent the next half hour sitting in Sim's bedroom, giving minimal answers as she tried on different outfits. When the doorbell rang, I went to go answer it while she was putting on her clothes. It was you and Matt, arriving together.

"I hate Sim," Matt said right as he was walking through the door.

"Why?" I asked.

"You know how I said I had everything planned for the summer?"

"I thought you said we."

"Yeah, well I really meant me because none of you can plan anything for shit."

"I'm slightly offended," you said.

"I slightly don't care," he said. "So anyway, this is supposed to be my day, but she invited us here and I didn't want to be rude and be like 'no, bitch, I don't want to go to your house'."

I laughed because that's probably what Matt was actually thinking. I wondered where he was with Sim, because when we left the island, they weren't exactly on good terms. Maybe time made it better, but I thought it would probably be a bit awkward still.

"What are we even doing today?" you asked.

"I don't know," I mumbled. It was a bit weird to talk to you. "Nothing was really planned."

After that, you went to go look in Sim's refrigerator while Matt and I looked in the closet in the hallway. There was usually interesting things in there. Once we found a gown in there and Matt tried it on. Apparently it was belonged to Sim's mom, but I had no idea why it was there.

"We are playing this." Matt pulled out a black box and showed it to me. It read "Dirty Minds".

"What is it?"

"You've never played this game?"

"No."

"Well, you'll see."

Sim finally came down from her room, wearing the second outfit we picked. I wondered what the other hundred or so were for. "Hey guys."

"What the hell took you so long?" you asked.

"You obviously don't know what it's like to be a girl," she replied. "So what are we doing?"

"This." Matt held up the box.

"Oh yeah, that's going to be great," she said.

We all sat down in the living room. "Let me read the rules," you said.

"Who the fuck cares, let's play it our way," Matt said. "Winner gets a kiss from Matt?"

"No," we all answered simultaneously.

"That hurts, guys."

We played the game. If you don't remember how to play (thought I doubt that), it's when one person reads the clues and the rest of us guess what it is. The answers were always clean, but the clues definitely weren't. Remember now?

Obviously we didn't play by the rules, which stated we had to get cards that spelled out "D-I-R-T-Y". Matt said we could just tally up the number of answers each person got right and stop playing whenever we wanted to. It worked well for us.

"What's is a four letter word that is a name for a woman and ends in U-N-T?" Sim asked, smirking.

"Aunt," Matt said rather quickly. I was surprised because that definitely wasn't the first thing that popped into my head, and I was pretty sure that Matt had the dirtiest mind of us all.

"That's right," Sim said, and she put a tally under his name.

It was then your turn to read, and I could tell you were trying not to laugh when you got your clues. "What part of the man has no bone but has muscles, has lots of veins, likes pumping, and is responsible for making love?"

"Heart," I said, but only because I'd heard that before.

There were many more questions, and it was hard not to answer "penis" to all of them. Surprisingly, Matt got the most answers and ended up winning by more than twenty points. He could also read the clues with a straight face while the rest of us could not. At all.

"God, guys, get your minds out of the gutter," he said, shaking his head.

"Sorry," I muttered. "It's not that easy."

I remember that as a fun day. Maybe not great, but it was good. It was when it was time to go, my heart sank a bit, as I remembered that I still had to ask you about your girlfriend. I didn't have the nerve to do it then, and it was just like last summer - I hated myself for it. Where had all my confidence gone?

I tried to focus on the good points of that day. While we were playing the game, everything felt normal again. It was like nothing had changed.

Oh, if only that was the case.