Chapter 19.

Would That I by Hozier

"We never ended up swimming." I said, sitting on his couch, letting my head fall back completely. He was once again in the kitchen, making his way over to me. I decided to rush over to him first.

"We still could?" He offered, raising his eyebrows. He leaned down quickly to my lips, as I leaned into him. It was shortlived, I pulled him outside excitedly.

"Darby I don't have a suit on yet."

"Ok, well hurry, because I do." I sat on a little sun chair in the middle of the night, looking up at the same stars I had previously just spilled most of my life story under. I can't believe I did that, I smiled. It was relieving.

As he was still inside, I pulled off the large shirt I was wearing over the top of my swimsuit. I decided to bring a different one than from the boat day, who knows why. This time a two piece, the top having a soft floral pattern with creams, olive green, and reds. And the bottoms were high waisted with the same pattern.

I spotted him coming outside and awkwardly stood like there was royalty entering a dining hall, who knows why. His suit was just a soft, plain light blue. I smiled at him, waving from afar. He walked up to me, slipping a hand behind my back that made me shiver.

"You look very pretty today." He said, dancing me over to the edge of the pool. I was not expecting it, I should've been. He knew exactly what he was doing to me, manipulative as they come. I was a little mesmerized. I had no time to laugh, mid-sentence I was pushed back into the pool.

I would have murdered him if it was any bit cold, also I didn't want to murder him.

He lept in after me, almost on top of me. I ran my hands over my face as I laughed, pushing the water off my face. "You're not a gullible person why did you fall so hard for that." He laughed, swimming over to the shallow end where I had gone. "And I've fallen so hard for what? Your silly primary school joke?"

"I'd say you've fallen so hard for me, but it's just a person to person opinion, isn't it?"

I laughed hard, and sarcastically. "Very funny." And then he was doing a handstand. I went over to the side of the pool, hopping out to grab a volleyball that I saw a couple feet away. I turned to see H perched up on the edge of the pool, his head resting in his hands and the cheesiest grin on. He paused and shook his hair, drying it out enough for the curls to come back and crowd his eyes.

"Stop looking at me." I said, instinctively. "I like looking at you." He said simply. "Not in a creepy way though... just because you're really beautiful."

"You don't have to keep complimenting me." I said, sitting down on the edge next to him. "I don't care I'll keep doing it."

I got up once more, after realizing that it was extremely dark, Harry requested I turn on the outdoor string of lights. They reflected on the water, it was really simple but so pretty. I once again found myself admiring Harry's tattoos just the same.

I kept just looking at him, thinking about nothing really, but a lot at once. And I felt it upon me, this time calm, the feeling of overreaching confidence that kept pushing me to do things I deemed insane.

"Harry, what do you think it would be like if we were dating?"

"Probably very similar to this." He shrugged. I thought about me leaving in a couple of months, like two, and him releasing the album and touring and an entire career after that. It would never be a dream life in Italy like this. He was wrong. And we had run out of time.

"I'm leaving in two months, H."

"Why do you have to?"

"I may not be forced to but you do have to leave." He knew I was right. It showed in his face.

"You could travel with me." "Go with you? Harry we've known each other for 4 months."

He sat there like a sad puppy, "Just a thought." We didn't find ourselves on that subject again for a long while.

Blackwind by Patrick Watson

"I've been writing a couple lines a day recently, H." I smiled childishly, changing the subject resulting in gradual bubbling laughter.

"Really??" He got all excited for me, pulling me into his chest crazily as a celebration. It was over the top, but I couldn't stop laughing.

I found myself drawn back to looking at the stars, still standing in the middle of the pool. "I'm going to write about them." I gushed, "That shooting star we saw earlier, do you remember that?"

"Absolutely. I think your happy cry is my favorite thing." He laughed at me but it was lovingly. "Don't make me do it again, I will. That's a threat." I looked away, busying myself with the task of throwing the couple of the extra floats out of the pool.

"I make you happy cry, Darby?"

"Yes, you actually do a lot and I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a break." I laughed sarcastically as I went over to grab the volleyball I'd left floating in the water, it had floated it's way all the way to the deeper end of the pool.

"Wanna play?" I offered, holding up the ball while I held onto the edge with my other arm. He nodded as I threw it to him so that I could swim back across. We spent the next few minutes aggressively playing a version of volleyball. A version where dunking your opponent in the water is completely legal and a perfectly good way to keep the ball away from them.

"HAHAHA--" I screamed, holding on tight to him as he tried to dunk me under, his arm around my back as I kept my arms locked around his neck to keep from going under. His hair was toppling over his eyes, he kept having to push it out of his view, and in doing so he dropped me straight in. I came back up quickly, my jaw dropping open. He laughed cheerfully, turning to see Jeff in the window looking out at us. I waved at him cheesily, "Hi Jeff!"

Jeff waved through the glass door as Harry hopped out, grabbing a towel and drying off his hair. "You coming?" He asked. I had stayed in the pool behind him, refusing to move. "I'm too cold."

"It's not that cold once you get out." He grabbed another towel and brought it to me. I rushed to get out as he wrapped it tightly around me. He was right, it wasn't all that bad. The air was only refreshingly cold. My shivers shook away everything but a feeling of unreasoned overexcitement.

A last glance at the sky turned into being once again glued. "I hardly want to go inside." I said, dazed by the largeness of my view. "It's so... there's so much. Out there. It's crazy that humans are most in love with the smallest closest details and the widest and wildest... perspectives. Like... like a person's lips when you're about to kiss them... and oppositely... this, this sky that no mind can even put an amount to. I love it."

I found Harry smiling warmly when I looked back down. He said no words, I feared and hoped he was at a loss of them. He only took my pinky and led me back inside. "Hey, you two finally showed up." Sarah called to us, both freezing in only swimsuits now that we were inside.

"Mitch had a song idea." Ny Oh came up from around the corner of the kitchen. "We should change first." Harry said rather quickly. They all went back to doing their thing as Harry pulled me into his room.

"I wrote an entire song last night that I think could be the last track. Haven't told them yet." He looked nervous, which I found unusual.

"That's incredible. You look skeptical of it?" I stood still, wrapping myself tightly in my towel to squeeze out every bit of warmth it could offer.

"You look freezing, come here." I followed him to the closet as he reached up for something. "You sound skeptical of it..." I said again, then regretted saying it again because it was probably kind of weird. "I'm not skeptical of it, I think it's the best I've ever written." He looked at me very directly, handing me options of a very large sweatshirt and a familiarly old 1978 Tour of America Rolling Stones tee.

"I have this exact shirt." I chuckled. "Anyways the song." I reminded him. He handed me the sweatshirt, the black one with someone's black and white picture on it. I tried to remind him that I could just put back on the clothes I had previously worn, but he made himself very clear that I "would be very cold and it was his favorite author on the sweatshirt". That of course led to the follow up question about it really being his favorite author or not.

"The song, H?"

"The song, right. I wanted you to hear it first."

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