Chapter Text
It occurred to me in that moment that I was wet—drenched, in fact—and on top of that I was overcome by a sense of tingly pointless euphoria. I heard two familiar giggles and then a splash, it was only then that I realised what had just happened: Robin had pushed me into Steve’s pool and, in return, Robin was pushed by Steve. We were, indeed, a tale as old as time: three idiots and an empty house.
I started laughing too, my feet barely touching the bottom of the murky water as I looked up to see the sun covered by clouds, only to be pulled away by my non-coherent friend who was trying, but failing, to get up over the edge of the pool.
“You know there are stairs, right?”
All three of us burst out, like only this moment existed and only that joke had ever been made, like this was the best day and my sarcastic tipsy comment was the greatest thing ever said. I wanted to feel like this forever.
We managed to drag ourselves to the cold to the touch ladder and I climbed it, feeling so light and fast that I could climb any mountain. A towel was tossed—no, thrown—directly at my face and I couldn't see anything for a moment. I couldn’t complain, so I helped myself and scrunched my hair as Steve placed a bigger towel on my back, the weather still pretty cold.
For the next few hours, we had surprisingly deep but hilarious conversations—anything from past crushes to shipping teachers to internalised homophobia (well, that one was mostly between me and Robin). After I was starting to sober up and form long coherent sentences I had an unfathomable urge to go smoke, but I knew Robin disliked it and I didn’t want to make my friend uncomfortable.
“I’ll be back in like fifteen minutes tops, guys, it’s fine. Plus, I know the woods here pretty well. Really, I have a yellow belt in karate, I’ll be fine.”
“Well, you fainted right after you got the certificate.” Steve half-mocked, but I knew he had good intentions.
“Still pretty impressive, no?” Robin looked over her shoulder at our friend.
“As I said, I’ll be fine” I announced as I grabbed the nearest denim jacket and my lighter and I was out that door.
Initially I was planning to just go to the edge, find a nice tree to lean on—to look cool, but also for support as things were still a little twisted and I wasn’t exactly known for my balance—but I found the sunset alarmingly pretty, more than usual, so I may have let it lead me deeper. Eventually, I reached some big rocks, which I had never seen before, but the trees surrounding the whole area had initials over initials in hearts craved on them, so I used my tiny walnut brain and put together that I had found the (in)famous Skull Rock Steve told me about.
I glanced at the tall rocks and looked to my right, where I saw a smaller chair-looking gift from nature. I lazily walked toward the stone and sat on it with my legs crossed—cigarette already in mouth—as I tried remembering where the fuck I put my lighter.
“Looking for this?” a deep but amused voice declared from behind some tree and I could already make out the dark curls that contrasted in such a pretty way with the warm spots of sunlight.