Abby was very clearly bored. It was clear by how she was laying on the couch. She was belly-down, with outstretched arms, chin on a pillow and hips on my lap, her feet flailing on the air. There was no way that was a comfortable position, but that wasn’t the point anyway. She positioned herself in that fashion for me to pay attention to her once I was done reading.

Her bum had been a very nice rest for my hands as I held my book up, but I had reached a good stopping point, and I wouldn’t have time to read another chapter, so I set it aside and began giving her a head scratch.

“Bored?” I asked, amused by seeing her perking up.

“A bit,” she answered, twisting her body around for a more comfortable position. “Say, when did you fall in love with me?”

I stared at her playing with my hand as I thought about it.

It was a good question, one that I was more surprised only surfaced now than from being asked so abruptly. It was also one that I couldn’t say exactly when, only that I noticed her feelings for me on Valentine, suspected my own feelings afterwards, and came to terms with them when her sister confronted me.

“Oh… when my sister…”

Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned Sophie. I don’t know, Abby was making a weird face. Maybe she was simply a bit overwhelmed by opposing emotions?

“W-what about you?” I asked reflexively, hoping to take her mind off bad stuff.

She asked me if I was sure I wanted to know, her face having turned malicious with mischief. I was only slightly curious before, but now I was burning up with the need to know, the trap it seemingly was not being an issue.

“Well, it all started on our first sleepover, when you told me you weren’t going to walk away after we came across my mother. After that, I struggled about it, until you showed me your violet underwear after our class Christmas dinner… Hehe, should I continue?”

“Do you still have a lot to tell?” I asked behind the hand I was using to hide my face.

She let out a soft laugh and raised her upper body to kiss my cheek, telling me in a soft voice she was almost done.

“You know, you might think you only confessed after we made love, but you actually did it a lot sooner.”

“Huh!? When!?”

“There was a day, right before the summer holidays started, that I came to wake you up for school. You were eighty-percent asleep and asked me out and when I asked if it was a date as a couple, you said you’d like if it were.”

My hand fell on her lap and I had my mouth hanging open. That girl, she had been sitting on that information for this long and never told me.

“I haven’t told you before because something always came in between and I knew you’d be in shock once you got to know,” she told me, having read my mind. “Are you mad?”

I shook my head and managed to stammer that I was simply in shock. But it made sense, you know? I knew when that day had been because it marked a stark difference in Abby’s attitude towards herself, me and us. It did her very well, and we ended up together with no hitches, so it was what it was.

“We gotta go. Come on slowpoke,” she told me, getting up and pulling me along. “I can’t wait to get into the water!”

I began walking, but when we were at the entrance hall putting on our shoes, I called out to her. Before we went through the door, there was something I wanted to tell her.

“I love you,” I said, my voice quivering a bit.

She began bobbing side to side, bumping into me twice before I put an arm around her. She gave me a big kiss, telling me she loved me to bits.

“Come on Violet, hurry up!” she called out from the outside of the changing room. “We are waiting!”

“D-don’t rush me!” I argued back.

“Come on! You can do it!” Mathilda shouted, joining in the “fun”.

People inside were giving me looks, mostly out of amusement, but some were getting annoyed by the ruckus, so I finally stepped out. Only Abby didn’t show disappointment when they saw I was still wearing the jacket I had brought.

“Come on! Show us more than your legs!” Mathilda cried out.

“Oh, leave her be,” her sister hushed her.

I think I’d be more willing to take my jacket off, were it not for Claire, Mathilda’s sister and Paul’s girlfriend. A small town we were, so it was surprising to see this overlap, but not so much in hindsight.

Frankly, I was intimidated by Claire’s physique. She was even more impressive to behold than even Sophie, and she was already someone I associated with the peak feminine physique.

“Don’t worry, take your time,” Abby told me.

Looking at her, so small and smiling as she looked up while hugging my arm against her chest, was so calming, I thought I could do it.

My face was burning, and I couldn’t look up an towards then, but I managed to open up the zip of my jacket. I was wearing a matching swimsuit with Abby, but while hers had a waby pattern of green and yellow, mine was white and violet-blue. It had frill on the bottom like it was a very short skirt and a similar frill on the top, making it harder to determine how big our chests were.

I wasn’t getting any response though, so I finally looked up.

Abby was looking at me, biting her lip and looking slightly flushed. Mathilda was completely red and looking away, hiding her face between her hands.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“Looks good on you,” Claire said, the only person acting normal between us four.

“No kidding,” Mathilda said. “For a moment there I doubted my own sexuality.”

“H-huh!’”

“You were a bit too erotic there, babe.”

“H-huh!?”

“I liked it! A ten out of ten!” Claire said, giving me a thumbs up.

I tried to run back inside, but Abby saw through me before I could even turn around and latched on to me.

“Oh no you don’t! You’ve come this far!”

“B-but Abby, I—”

“No buts! Now, let’s go! Paul is waiting!”

Abby dragged me along, me unable to put up a struggle.

Like she had told me, Paul was waiting for us, sitting on a long chair, in his swimming trunks and reading a fishing magazine. And like Claire had previously told us, he didn’t notice that we took longer than normal.

“Here, I’ll apply the sunblock on your back,” Abby told me as she made me lie down on my stomach. “For today, maybe stay mostly in the shade. And drink lots of water. Also, if you get in the water, we’ll have to apply another layer.”

Abby fretting over me, that has been a while. At least this time, it wasn’t because I was working myself to death. It was reassuring to know she’d make sure I wouldn’t get a sunburn and she’d do her best for me to enjoy my first time at the pool.

I was also aware she was doing more than applying sunblock on my back. She was also discreetly massaging my back to make me relax.

“Shouldn’t Paul do it?” I heard Claire ask.

Opening a single eye, I saw Mathilda holding a bottle of sunblock and looking at her sister while Claire was looking at Paul who still was looking at his magazine. Seeing them sitting side by side, they really didn’t look like they were related.

“We have different mothers,” they explained during introductions. “It’s complicated,” they further told us. I guess we’d still have to wait to know their family situation.

Paul on the other hand… well, I think we’d get along just fine.

He was quiet, only raising his voice enough to make himself heard, and speaking very few words.

Since I was still white as porcelain, I was going to be sitting under the shade, reading and having him for company. Not having to worry about holding a conversation with someone I just met was heaven, let me tell you that. Abby really had struck gold by suggesting inviting him and his girlfriend to join us at the pool.

My girlfriend and the others went for a dive, and I took my book out of the bag, setting myself up for another moment of reading.

Going to the pool isn’t that bad, huh?

My biggest issue was the noise. People were speaking loudly, laughing loudly, some playing music loudly… Not to mention, there was too many people going back and forth. Well, too many for my tastes, the pool didn’t have all that many people in actuality.

“Haah,” I sighed, storing my book back inside the bag. I couldn’t focus at all.

“Not a people’s person,” I heard Paul say. It sounded like a statement, but I think he was asking.

“…What about you?”

“…Same.”

And just like that, our conversation died out. That didn’t bother me in the slightest. Truly, what a wonderful dynamic we had. Still… Abby would probably like it more if we chatted a bit more than that, so I asked if he thought I’d enjoy fishing. I didn’t ask him if he enjoyed, that would have been a stupid question. Being the overthinker that I was came as a useful trait at times.

“Perhaps. You mind touching raw fish?”

“I’m used to gutting dead ones. I also don’t mind bugs.”

He got very talkative then, explaining and showing me pictures of lures that excluded the need for me to handle worms and stuff. Was it an interesting conversation? Surprisingly so.

Sitting in front of a body of water, watching the float bob up and down, waiting for a fish to bite… peaceful, isn’t it? Or maybe I’m just a boring person overall.

Cold drips of water started to fall on my belly and forming a puddle in my bellybutton. A certain completely wet cloud called Abby had floated by and started to drip droplets on me, her hand hanging over me with her fingers cupped together into a cone. It felt so cool and refreshing.

“Wanna go for a dip?” she asked with an inviting smile. “We found a nice spot.”

I gave a quick look to Paul, but Claire had sat by him, pulling her hair back like one of those hair products commercials. She certainly fit the bill.

Before I got up however, Abby decided it would be best for me to tie my hair since I had told her I wouldn’t want to dive. The idea of getting in water that other people probably peed was already nasty enough without the prospect of getting some of that water in my mouth, ears and eyes.

“Oh! You went for the sexy librarian look,” Mathilda applauded.

“Oh yeah, now that you mention it… she does look like one, doesn’t she?”

A sexy librarian? Me? What, the fact I wore glasses and Abby had tied my hair into a bun were all the requirements for that?

Although… hmm… a librarian, huh?

Maybe next summer I’d give it a try as a part-time. Or maybe I’d try and join the library committee at school?

“…Ok, I guess I do look like one,” I was forced to admit when I saw my reflexion on the small mirror Claire handed to me.

Abby was getting impatient, so I handed the mirror back and let her drag me by the hand, Mathilda coming along.

After some navigating through the crowd, we sat in the water on the access stairs. There was a parasol making some shade that would only grow bigger with the passage of time. Abby really had found us a nice spot.

The water was perfect—cool without it being cold, and where I was sitting in particular I was being hit by a jet of water on my legs, serving as some sort of improvised massager.

Abby was using my legs as a prop-up chair, her weigh now barely noticeable while Mathilda sat shoulder-to-shoulder with me, her head hanging back while she enjoyed the sun hitting her face, her closed eyes protected by neon-yellow framed sunglasses.

I noticed myself thinking “coming to the pool with friends really is fun.” Look at me joining the normies. It was true though, this was being a lot of fun, way more than I could ever have comprehended.

We collectively sigh, me pulling Abby closer and letting her rest her head on my shoulder. Despite the noise around us, I was starting to feel like I could nod off when I seemingly heard a voice saying my name in the distance.

“Violet, they are calling you,” Abby called out, tapping the side of my thigh.

Coming closer to us where three girls remarking between themselves about me being in fact me.

“Acquaintances of yours?” Mathilda asked.

Apparently, yes, but only on their side of things. I couldn’t remember who they were even if my life depended on it.

“We never thought we’d see you at the pool,” one of the girls said. “You always gave off the vibe of not liking these kind of places.”

I stared at them, not knowing how to answer. Abby stepped up and asked them where they knew me, saving my bacon once again. Apparently, we had been classmates from fifth grade all the way to ninth. You’d think I’d at least have a small remembrance of how my old classmates looked, but no. Then again, I wasn’t interested—rather, way more uninterested—in other people then than I am now, so…

“Are you her friends?”

No, I just enjoy sitting with random people and having them also sit on my lap, you idiot.

“This girl is, I’m Violet’s girlfriend,” Abby said, bouncing up and down. No matter how many times she said it, she always got all fluffy about it.

They were a bit taken aback by the revelation, but I found myself not too bothered by it.

They still exchanged a few words with me, mostly empty pleasantries, and finally went away.

“You still have no idea who they were, don’t you?” Abby asked, giving me one of her wry smiles.

“Will you also forget me if we aren’t assigned to the same class this year?” Mathilda asked, whipping fake tears.

Despite it being a joke, I still took it seriously.

“We are friends, so…” I stammered.

Mathilda stopped her fake crying to look at me, looking surprised. Was it just me who thought we were friends?

“No, I just wasn’t expecting you saying it out loud,” she explained, starting to smile. “You sure can be frontal about how you feel. That’s a bit surprising.”

Abby laughed, bopping me, and said I was full of surprises. Mathilda asked for examples, but Abby chose to tease her instead by saying it was a secret.

When pressed for details, Abby got up saying she was going to rent a pool ball for us to play.

“Ok, then, fess up Violet! What was Abby—”

“Wait up Abby, I’m coming with you,” I called out, also taking delight in being one of the teasers for a change.

“Oh, come on! What happened to us being friends!?” Mathilda protested, also coming along.