Chereads / That Damn Summer / Chapter 4 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Chapter 4

10:16pm

Meo is sitting in one of those wooden adirondack chairs when I step out to join him.

You'd probably expect me to go off talking about how there's a nice cool breeze out tonight and how I can faintly detect the hint of salt in the air from the beach..

But I'm not.

Yeah, there's a sea breeze and the air smells briny if you really must know. That's only because we're literally not that far from the fucking ocean.

I walk farther out on the balcony and sneak a glance of Meo. He looks so out of place. He's practically glowing out here with his mismatched clothes and bright colors. He sticks out like a sore thumb in contrast to all of this darkness whereas I blend right it.

Wait.

Oh God.

I'm fucking Batman and he's Robin.

I can't believe it.

"So you decided to join me out here hm? Good. I want to show you something."

Meo's voice pulls me from my ridiculous thoughts and sudden realisation that we may just be an iconic comic duo. I turn my head to look at him. He has moved from his spot in the chair and managed to put one leg over the railing without me noticing.

Is he doing what I think he's doing?

Meo climbs over the railing the rest of the way, steadies himself, and jumps off.

Yes, yes he was.

I never pegged him for the type to just run off when no one was looking and hop over balcony ledges. I've done things like this countless of times but I at least look like a delinquent.

I walk forward and place my hands on the balcony ledge. I'm not going to rush over and see if he's okay like they do in the movies. That's just plain dramatic and I'm pretty sure he's fine. He's probably done stunts like these just as much as I have.

Only difference is his family would notice that he went missing.

Looking down at Meo from above, he seems to be in good shape. He landed alright since he's not down on the ground crying in pain or all bashed up. It's not like he was going to be gravely injured from jumping off a balcony on the second floor anyway.

Well, if he timed the jump wrong or missed a step then yeah. He would have to take a nice trip to the doctor.

"Are you coming or not?"

Meo asked, looking up at me expectantly.

"Yeah, yeah. Don't get your balls in a twist jeez."

I roll my eyes and climb over the railing and jump down. I stumble a little upon impact but I make it down alright.

It's okay, I'm still in one piece.

"Okay, so we both jumped off a balcony and all of our limbs and teeth are accounted for. Now what? What is it that you want to show me? Hopefully you're not leading me on and have secret intentions in mind. Like driving me off into the middle of nowhere just to skin off my flesh and make a suit out of it."

That was a little specific but I'm just throwing it out there.

Meo rolls his eyes at me and I can see the faint formation of a smile on his lips.

That's either a good sign or a really bad one.

I'm sticking with good because I'd rather not give into the idea that he may actually have plans to kill me.

"You'll see soon enough, alright? It's more of a surprise so I'm not just going to flat out tell you. And no, I'm not going to lead you out into the middle of nowhere and kill you. But hey, if that's what you're into then who am I to judge?"

He has a full on smile now and he starts walking off towards the row of cars parked in the lot.

I'm going to pretend that he didn't just imply that I have a murder fetish.

I follow the blonde jackass as he nears this old, beat up volkswagen. The red paint on the exterior is chipping off and heavy rust is lining the rim of the vehicle. During my exam of the car that I'm assuming is his, I take notice that there's a few dents scattered about. They aren't anything major like you could tell it had been in an accident just by one look. Just a few indents on the doors.

My guess is that this piece of junk got rammed into by shopping carts one too many times.

"Don't just stand there. Get in the damn car."

Meo demands and I roll my eyes for what feels like the millionth time tonight and do as he says. I normally would put up a fight whenever I'm ordered around but I just don't have the energy. And I'd rather not piss him off to the point where he would just leave my ass here.

This is the only time I'm going to let this slide.

I open the door to his rusty ass ride and sit down in passengers seat. My nose is immediately greeted with the heavy smell of weed and a mix of other things I'm not sure I want to identify. The car's interior looks like a fucking pigs sty. I'm talking fast food bags, soda cans, cigarette butts, numerous empty bottles of alcohol, and wrappers from literally anything you can think of and more.

Much more.

Stickers are covering the entirety of the dashboard and I don't think I even want to know the last time the black leather of these seats have been cleaned. I'm afraid to touch anything.

I thought this guy was one going to be of those neat freaks, not a fucking slob.

I was not expecting this.

As if noticing my foul expression, Meo shoots me an apologetic glance and puts the car in drive. Great. Now my only escape option is to jump out of the car.

"Yeah, I know. I've been meaning to take my car to get cleaned but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. None of the mess that you have unfortunately witnessed is mine. It's all my friend's junk. We used to hang out a lot and they would pay me to smoke in my car.

I'm don't smoke as often as they do. You're just going to have to trust me on this."

Wherever he's taking me has to worth it in order for me to be putting up with all this shit.

"Look, I don't give a rats ass about who all this junk belongs to. I'm only here because you insisted on showing me something. It better be super fucking cool or I'm done."

What exactly I'm done with?

I don't know.

Meo seems to understand this and he doesn't speak another word for the rest of the drive. The trip was relatively short and it turns out the mystery location is the beach. So he probably isn't going to lead to my death in the middle of an unknown field, but end up drowning me in the ocean.

I don't know why I keep thinking up these scenarios where he ends up murdering me. He doesn't look the type. Then again, I didn't think he would be the type to go jumping off balcony's or to have a car that looks like it should be on an episode of Hoarders but here we are.

Besides, I'm the one that has the most muscle out of the two of us so if he were to take me on it wouldn't end well for him.

"Alright now it's just a quick walk down the beach and then all of your questions about where I was taking you will be answered. Simple as that. I assure you I wasn't leading you all the way out here to show you a pile of rocks or some lame shit."

Meo laughs and cuts off the engine before climbing out of his lame excuse of a car.

I climb out a lot quicker than he did. I'm definitely going to need a shower. Hell, if I ever take another trip like this with him, you bet I'm going to force his ass to clean all that shit out of there. The smell of weed I didn't mind because I've smoked it plenty of times but it was all that piled up trash that got me writhing in my seat.

From where Meo parked, we have to go down a slight slope to get down to the beach. We're at a point where rock, grass and dirt meet the fine-grained orange of sand. This beach isn't like the ones I'm familiar with. I'm used to the ones that just have a seemingly endless stretch of sand and water. But this one wasn't entirely like that. It had rock formations scattered about the shore and steep cliffs on each side. It was really beautiful, especially when it was covered in moonlight.

"If you're lying and you lead me to a rock tower, I'm grabbing one and chucking it at your head."

I threaten him and he holds up his hands in defense, that ridiculous smile on his face. I want to punch him just so he could knock it off. It's like he knows I'm a sucker for it. If he does then that gives me even more of a reason to punch him.

Meo takes off towards the far side of the beach that's practically being sheltered by all the rocks resting there. It's like a nature made hide away. I slowly lag behind him. I'm not in a rush to see what he has to show me despite how I gawked at the beaches beauty just moments ago. There's just no point for me to go running after him like he's about to show me a million dollars.

Now that would be something.

When I catch up to Meo, I find him standing in front of a large cave opening just by the water. It's pitch black inside and I half expected there to be torches lining the inside.

Now I'm just disappointed.

Meo turns on the flashlight of his phone and enters the cave. I do the same and make sure to keep close to him in case he tries to do something funny. I've seen enough movies to know that he could disappear at any given moment and try and jump me from behind.

Meo continues to lead me down the small path inside the cave until we come up to a massive clearing. The cave had a giant opening at the top so the whole area was soaked in natural light. The area where the light didn't reach are illuminated by candles which they were quite a lot of.

He had the whole place decked out.

To the left of me, a long, plastic fold up table was pressed up against the cave wall. A single ash tray was the only decorative item that resided on top. Going to the back of the cave, I find that there's a messily made mattress with a shit ton of pillows displayed all over it. It looks like someone took a bin full of them, dropped them off, and carried on with their day. A dart board hangs above it and I wonder how they hung it up.

Did they really take a hammer and smash a nail into solid rock?

I'm not sure but that's kinda what it looks like.

To the left of the cave, two identical folding tables line the walls but this side is way messier. Paper plates, cups, and plastic silverware litter the top of the table and I wonder what the purpose of the two trash cans they placed in here are. There's a single cooler underneath the table and I'm sure it's packed with alcohol given how many bottles I found in Meo's car earlier. A round table surrounded by beach chairs rests in the middle of the cave, bags of chips and a deck of cards laying on top. I thought the right side of the cave was messy but the center spot is even worse. Old pizza boxes and other trash is scattered around the table and I'm amazed by how much of slobs his friends are.

I'm not entirely sure where Meo ranks in all of this mess. He swears none of it has to do with him but he didn't exactly clean up after them either.

"This is what I've been wanting to show you. It's nothing crazy cool like an alien spacecraft but it's a nice hide out for when you just want to get away from the world. Me and my friends used to come here a lot during previous summers and I made a lot of memories here."

Meo tells me as he opens the cooler and grabs two dark brown bottles from the rack.

I knew it had alcohol in it.

"Care to have a drink with me?"

He holds out the dark bottle for me to grab and I take it without hesitation.

I've never turned down alcohol and after the day I've had, I sure as hell need this buzz.