The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara
Seventy-Three
“Is this what you do in your free time?” asks Ethan after we leave the gallery.
“What?”
“Play matchmaker?”
“What are you talking about?” He’s onto me, I think, and try to keep a serious face.
“First Celine, now Anna. I wonder if there are others. There must be others.”
“Ha-ha. You’re just imagining things.”
“Sure.”
As we turn on Scenic Road, I point at the beach. “A bonfire. Do you want to go?”
He seems hesitant.
“Just for a few minutes?”
It’s a different spot than last summer, but it’s the same beach.
Ethan shakes a few guys’ hands and chats to a couple of women. He introduces me to everyone, and while I make small talk, he shows up with two tin mugs and a thermos.
“You’re resourceful,” I say, laughing. “Where did you get these?”
“I have my connections,” he says as he pours.
“What is it?” I ask and taste.
“Hot cider. If you don’t like it, I’ll get you something else. Sorry, I didn’t ask.”
“No. This is perfect, thank you. I’ve never had hot cider. It’s quite good.”
I look over at a group of people and see they have thermoses and tin mugs and offer them to anyone who wants them because they brought too many. “Ahaaa, I found your secret source.”
He laughs. “We grew up together,” he says. “I know who has the goods.”
One of the men gestures for Ethan to come over. “Excuse me a minute,” he says to me.
Ethan sits in the sand, on the other side of the bonfire, talking to the man. I keep looking at the fire, then at him, and suddenly it hits me. Wow. Déjà vu.
He comes back a few minutes later.
“I just realized I’ve seen you before.”
He stares.
“Last summer. You were at a bonfire.”
“There are bonfires almost every weekend in the summer; I go to some of them.”
“Your hair was shorter, I think, but it was you. I’m sure of it.”
“Yeah, I’m pulling a Rapunzel now,” he says with a smile.
“Do you remember?” I ask.
“What?”
“Me,” I say, but I don’t wait for an answer. “No, I guess you wouldn’t. You would’ve told me already if you did. And it’s not even important if you do. It’s just, wow! I knew there was something familiar about you from the moment we met; I just couldn’t put my finger on it.”
Celine isn’t home when we get back.
“Tired?” he asks. I am exhausted and I’m surprised he’s in such great shape since we’ve both been awake since three o’clock.
I nod. I wish I wasn’t tired, to be honest. I wish we had more time. I wish I met him first. There. I said it. I wish I met him first.
I should go to sleep. This is not helping.