What Lies Beyond the Eyes

e sunblock on, Gia immediately dragged him off to the slides again. He dropped the sunblock from the sudden jerk, and I lazily picked it up and put it in the bag.

Gia was wearing your standard bikini, it had purple and pink stripes with pink frill, Danny probably loved it. I went over to the table, and while I sat down the bags we brought, I asked Rom, ”You aren going with them on the slides? ”

She leaned her head on her knee that was up on her chair as she looked at me, and she told me in her quiet voice, ”I think it would just be awkward for me again. ”

Rom was a quiet girl with raven black hair. Her height matched Gias which came up to my chest, so about 53 ”. I still don know how she got to be best friends with that blonde demon. I hear that Rom is a pretty popular girl in school despite her introverted nature though. Her picturesque beauty probably has a lot to do with that. She had a short-sleeved, light-pink jacket over the top of her swimsuit that covered the upper half of her body and also acted like a skirt.

Thinking about her situation with my brother and his girlfriend, I started to sympathize with her. Memories started to flood into my mind about how I was always left out in group trips. Everyone else had a relationship but not I. I coped with it by telling myself, ”I just rather focus on school. ” No matter what I told myself though, it didn change the fact that I felt completely alone. It also didn stop my attempts to have one… I still have nightmares about it. I had no lasting friendships, and I had no one that I could really talk to about my feelings. I guess thats why I developed depression and anxiety. I want to be accepted so badly, but I always seem to fall short.

I hate it.

Jolting myself back to reality, I gazed upon Rom. She looked just like I did when I was her age, awkward and alone. Her crystal blue eyes seemed to have a mask over them. When I looked at them, it was like I was looking through a time capsule to myself when I was a freshman. Its probably going to be awkward for her if she went alone up the slides, so I mustered up some will power and offered to her, ”Want me to go with you for the first couple of times then? I can handle the higher slides though. ”

Her head jolted up from her knee as her face brightened up, and she quickly nodded her head. I guess she really didn want to be left alone after all.

She took off her light-pink jacket and started to run to the slides before turning around to wait for me. I took off my sandals and followed her on the searing cement. She wore a bikini that was almost a pink one-piece with light blue frill on the top. It brought me back to a time last summer Gia went shopping with us, and I could swear that she wanted to get that one. When she tried it on however, both my mom and Danny liked another one better. I didn pay that much attention to it, but I could swear that was the one.

I smirked to myself thinking about the fact that Gia didn get the one she wanted, and it instead went to her best friend by popular vote. Wanting to poke fun at Gia even though she isn her, When I finally caught up to Rom, I told her in a casual tone, ”Looks cute. ”

I wonder if Gia remembered that time? I could hold this over her head when she gets annoying again. I looked to my side to see that Rom had her head down and was walking a little slower. Is she upset? The realization then hit me like a truck. I called a freshman cute when Im going into my first year in college. I was too caught up in savoring the small victory to realize that was a weird thing to say if interpreted differently.

”Uh…Umm. Sorry about that. I didn mean it like that. ”

”This is why I don have a girlfriend. ” I thought to myself. I can read social situations very well.

I put my head down and started walking faster to the slides out of embarrassment, but I felt a sudden tug on my arm before I could create some distance. I stopped and heard Rom say in her small, quiet voice, ”Thanks. ”

I looked back to see her looking down, and her shoulders and part of her face was red. I thought to myself, ”Did I really make her that uncomfortable, and did she put on sunblock? Her pale skin is already getting sunburnt. ”

”Lets hurry to the slides before the line gets too long. ” I told her as we sped up our pace to the slides.