Summer Long (gxg)

July 2 - "I don't know anything about you..." (8)

After a long swim in the sea I was now sitting on the beach towel rereading the message Joe had sent me half an hour ago:

<<I miss you, how are you doing?>>
There was also a selfie of him with a volcano behind.

I rolled my eyes.
<<Still angry. But this place is nice.>>
Was my fair and short answer.

<<I knew you would like it ;) >> He immediately replied me.

You really knew, Joe? What do you really knew?

He was convinced that things were either totally white or totally black.
The truth was that we have a thousand shades of different colors and that a lifetime is not enough to know ourselves or others.

As I looked at the horizon I was thinking of a billion things:
I am now twenty-three years old, Joe is twenty-six years old.

He and I had known each other for six years now...

But sometimes it seemed to me that he didn't really know me. Not everything, at least.

Joe only knew what I had wanted to show him in those years.
And whenever I showed a side of me that he wasn't used to know, he used to told me things like: "This isn't you, Ellie.", "Why are you acting so strange?" , "You don't usually do that."

However, this was a thought that I had never fully explored with him- it just floated helpless in my mind like right now.

"The water is beautiful." Bella affirmed as she came out of the sea, waking me up from my thoughts.
She lay down on the beach towel, near me.

"I can see that, you weren't getting out of there." I joked.
Bella smiled dreamily as she moved a strand of her hair over her ear.
"I would like summer to last forever. Summer all long... can you imagine it?" She said, pleased.

"I love summer too... but I wouldn't wish for it to last forever." I whispered.

"Why?" She immediately asked.
She asks a lot of whys...

I sighed, staring at the sea: "Because I'm very likely to get tired of it and end up hating it. Which I don't want to..."

"Hmm..." Bella whispered, hesitantly.
"You should never get tired of things you love." She added as she stretched on the towel.
I thought about what she just said... but I didn't respond.

"Anyway..." Bella continued.
"Joe mentioned that you attend college in California, what degree course do you attend?"
I turned to look at her: "English literature."

Bella pulled herself up, sitting down more comfortably.
"Really? What do you like the most?" She asked.

Through my sunglasses I looked at her intrigued facial expression and I was amazed by the fact that she seemed genuinely interested...

"Being able to express my opinion freely, without being judged." I shyly replied.
Bella nodded understandingly at me.

I shifted my gaze to the sea:
"The authors I'm studying, their ideas, values, and phrases are becoming part of who I am now..." I said.

I had never said this sentence to anyone explicitly and clearly like that.
Maybe it was because no one really understood what I meant.

Bella smiled to me: "I've been reading a lot more these last few years..."
"Perhaps it's because I search in books answers that life does not give you.
I like looking at the world from different perspectives ... to improve and find alternatives to our problems."
She said it with a calmness and naturalness that impressed me.

I couldn't have said that concept better myself than she did... because it was exactly what I was feeling and thinking too.

Perhaps I had not been good at hiding myself because she looked at me and laughed.
"Did I say something wrong?" She asked me.
"No." I immediately replied.
"Actually, it was so right." I clarified, blushing.