Sweet Heart by Trina T (world of reading .TXT) 📕

just won’t! I refuse to! This is just a nightmare. I’m going to wake up and none of this would have ever happened. I shut my eyes, tight, wishing myself to wake up.

“That’s a great painting. You really got good.” He said, ignoring my eye closed look.

“Ryder?” I asked again. I know I’m making a complete fool out of myself and making myself look utterly stupid but it was so hard to believe. All the feelings that I’ve tried to forget are rushing back and taking me by the throat and squeezing!

“It’s really me, Cole. I’m for real. Not some ghost or your imagination.” He said with humor in his tone. He started walking closer to me and I automatically took a step back. It wasn’t on purpose, it ws just a reaction. Ryder’s face fell.

“This was a mistake; I’m going to kill Kyle.” Ryder’s face turned from sorrow to fury.
I wasn’t afraid of him, I was just nervous, I guess. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I never thought I’d be looking at Ryder Silvati’s face again.


“So you’re in this art class?” He asked trying to calm himself down. But I could still tell he was frustrated. His jaw was clenched tight.

“Um, yea. My teacher made me take it.” I said slowly. I turned away from his gorgeous face to look at my Wolf painting.

“Well, I’m in this class too. So you can show me the ropes?” He asked. Obviously trying to lighten the tension between us.

“Oh, umm..sure. it’s really not that hard…I mean its just painting an-“ I didn’t get to finish because Ryder took me into a bear hug. I went rigid.
His arms around me felt so right, I felt safe. I haven’t felt safe in two years. Ryder smelled differently then I remembered; he smelled like a combination of the sea and forest. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him until this moment. My body went from rigid to relaxed. But I still didn’t hug him back. “God, Cole, I’ve missed you!”

I let him run his hand threw my hair. “I really did miss you.” Ryder finally noticed I wasn’t hugging him back.


Ryder

“I’m sorry!” I said as I pushed Cole out of the lock I had around her body. God, what was I doing? I’m doing exactly what I was afraid I was going to do. I can’t fall back in love with Cole. I need to just walk away. I need to just get back in my car and drive my happy ass back to California. Of course Kyle would hunt me down and kill me with his own two hands. I can’t stand this though. I can’t stand having Cole looking at me with those nervous eyes. I can remember when I was the only person that made her eyes smile. But gone were those days.

***

It was the summer just before freshman year was supposed to start. My mom was bringing me and my friends to the lake. We were all excited because it was our last day out at the beach before school started again and we wanted to make the most of it.
It was getting to the end of the day and the beach had mostly cleared out. But my mom had said we could stay the whole day. So of course we were milking it. Me and my two best friends, Eric and John, were out in the deep end, where they had a raised lift so we could jump into the water. We were having contests; seeing who could jump the highest, biggest splash, most flips. We were just about to swim in and tell ym mom we had had enough when we saw three girls swimming out to the lift we were on.

“Dude, look!” Eric said and pointed to them.

“So what? They’re just girls. Afraid they’re
going to bite?” John asked and started making chopping noises with his teeth.

“No, it was just an observation!” Eric snapped.
“I think someone’s nervous!”

“Knock it off, guys!” I barked.

The three girls claimed onto the lift and smiled.

“Hey.” The blonde girl said.

“Hey.” The three of us repeated.

All three of the girls were drop dead gorgeous. But the girl that caught my attention was the one wearing an oversized t-shirt over her bikini. Even thought I couldn’t see the color of her eyes, I was lost in them. I knew at that moment I had to call her mine. All I wanted to do was take her in my arms.

“What are you pretty little things doing all the way out here?” John asked, addressing all of them.
“We came to jump off the lift. What are you guys doing out here? Get stuck?” the blonde girl asked. Her hair was cut short and she looked to be the most outgoing of the three.

“You girls are going to jump off the lift? Eric asked. He was shocked and I will admit, I was too. The lift was about 5 feet above the water. And anytime I had ever been on the lift I had never seen a girl jump off.

“You boys have a problem with that?” The blonde asked, raising an eye brow.

John went to say something, probably something stupid so I cut him off before he had the chance.

“Nope!” I said rubbing my hands
together. “We were just about to have a compaction. You guys wanna join?”

“I don’t know, Mayla…” the girl in the blue one piece said to the blonde.

“Relax, Anne. You can judge if you don’t want to join.” The Mayla girl said. Anne looked realifed.

“So, Mayla and Anne.” John said pointing to each girl as he said their names. “Now who are you?” He asked pointing to the girl I hoped would be mine someday.

“Cole, who are you?” She said quietly.
I could see John was into her and I was intently jealous. “Cole? Ummm, ok then. Well, I’m John and that’s Eric and Ryder.

I caught Coles eyes and smiled.

“So are we going to get on with this contest or what?” Mayla sounded impatient.

“Let’s get to it!” Eric said standing up.
We were impressed with Mayla and Cole. We did sort of a Simon Says game. Anything we did the girls would copy and vis-ver-sa. Some of the dives the girls did, John, Eric and I couldn’t do. The girls were 10 times more flexable then we were. In the end, we had fun though. Anne loosed up some and she started diving too, which took notice by Eric.

When we all decided we were ready to go in we had a race to the shore. Cole beat all of us by at least 30 seconds, Mayla wasn’t far behind her. John and I came in behind them. Anne didn’t want to race so Eric stayed back with her, slowly catching up to us.

“Damn!” John panted. “Where the hell did you learn to swim like that?”

The girls smiled at each other. “We’re on the swim and diving team.” Mayla giggled out. Then they both started to laugh.

“NO shit!” John spited. He was a little pissed he had lost to not one, but two girls.

“Boys!” I heard my mom yell. “Come on, we should get some food for you!”

“Coming!” I yelled back

“What school you guys go to?” Eric asked while helping Anne out of the water.

“We’ll be freshman at Valley.” Cole stated.

“Same!” Eric was excited.

“Boys!” My mom called again.

“Guess we’ll see you there.” Cole said and started walking away, Mayla and Anne following suit.

“I hope we see them! They’re fine as hell!” John said as we started to walk towards my mom.

“Me too.” I agreed as I looked back to see Cole looking at me. I smiled.

***
I snapped back into reality and saw Cole cleaning her paints up; getting ready to leave.

“Don leave, I’ll leave.”

“I gotta go.” Was all she said, she was out the door before I could even say bye.


Cole
School was out by the time I walked through my front door. I can’t believe Ryder is back in town! The first thing I did was call Mayla.

“Finish your project?” She asked instead of saying hello.

“I would have, except…” I really didn’t know how to put this so I just blurted it out. “Ryder is back.”
“Ryder? Your Ryder?”

“Yep, He’s back from California.”
I heard the phone drop and then Mayla scrambling to pick it up again.

“Sorry. Did I just hear what I think I just heard! You said Ryder was back? Right?” I could just imagine Mayla’s face right now.

“Yes, Mayla! Ryder!”

“But, how do you know? It could just be a rumor or something!”

“He came to the studio, I think he is in our class.”
“WHAT!!!”

I stayed silent. What else was there for me to say to her?
“What? Wait, what did you say to each other…did you guys even talk?”

I slummed down on my bed. “We talked…kind of.”
“OH…MY…GOD…”

“I think I’m going to drop art..”

“No, don’t you dare. You can’t run away from him. If he is back…for good…he will be going to the same school as us, Cole.”

“But it’s Ryder…Mala, I can’t believe he’s back. When I saw himi was in shock. He looked so different but he also looked like the same old Ryder I used to know. He looks so much older…and well… tan! Maybe a little taller…and…”

“Cole! Your rambling! Focus! What are you going to do?” Mayla sounded a little worried.

“I really don’t know. I mean I haven’t even talked to him in years.”

Ryder left on a not so pleasant note. And I wasn’t sure if we were going to pick up where we left off or if we would be strangers. I’m not sure if I could handle sitting through class with Ryder right there, so close, but we were strangers. Why did he have to come back?

“Cole? Hello, you still there?” Mayla asked.

“Oh, umm, sorry. I kind of drifted off.”

“Are you going to tell your dad that Ryder is back?”

“Hell no! are you crazy?” I couldn’t imagine what my dad would do if he found out that Ryder was back in town, for good.

“Ok, ok, chill out! It was just