Playlist: All of that by Trevor Daniel

Valerie's POV
He is sitting on the sand looking at the calming lake. I actually don't know how to approach him and then after procrastinating, I make up my mind.

I keep a rigid face and walk up to him, he seems lost in his gaze and so I decide to pull his attention *clears throat* and he turns turns around.

"Hey Valerie" he says standing and dusts the sand off his shorts, he was wearing a black T-shirt and khaki shorts not that I care though.

"Hey..." I say realizing I don't know his name but I don't mind because I should care less.

"Shane. Shane Chukwudili Edwards" he raises his hand for a shake but before I could react, he dropped it immediately. I think back to the previous day when I left him hanging.

"Ok Shane, so how about we talk about the division" I say trying to have a comfortable conversation.

He looks at me with a humble smile "You love this place so much don't you?". I think of all the memories spent here and think to myself. I want him to know how much this place means to me, maybe he'll decide to leave.

"I love this place more than you can imagine, it's my heaven on Earth, my place away from hostility, where I express my..." My face softens, I keep quiet realizing that I let out too much.

He looks into my eyes and looks back at the view. "Your inner most feelings?" He says with a curious look. That's exactly what I was going to say.

I feel kind of shocked that a person who seems to be a troublemaker and is full of life could understand my feelings.

"Well...yh" I say leading to a weird silence while we both gaze at the lake.
"You know, I also feel the same way about this place, but through an artistic perspective" he says with a wide smile.

I don't exactly know what to say next because I've not had a decent conversation with my peers before but it's not as hard as I thought.

"That's nice" I say. Talking to him actually makes me feel like I'm visible, like I'm not the NOBODY in school who is unknown.

"So should we divide it by time or divide it in half" he scratches his head.
I think to myself, if we divide the time, I won't be able to come here on other circumstances if it's his time.

"Let's divide it in half" I say looking at the view.
"Okay so how exactly do we share this place equally?" he puts his hand on his chin like he's thinking.

"Well... it's 120 steps from the beginning to the end, so we could have 60 steps each" I say remembering the day I counted how many steps there were.

"Wow, you really know this place well" he smiles effortlessly. I actually attempt pulling into a smile at my achievement but I couldn't.
     I really wish I could smile without a care but a lot of things are holding me down.

"Thanks" I shrug "so you go to that end and I'll start from this end, then we count 60 steps till we reach the middle okay?".
I say hoping he understands.

"Okay, let me get a stick that we'll use to draw the line" he runs to get a deserted hockey stick and we start out our project.
***************
I really feel like I'm playing some kind of kindergarten game
Forty one, forty two, forty three...
I keep counting and he's doing the same. I keep on stepping forward.

Fifty eight, fifty no, sixty
As I stop counting, my shoes and Shane's click together and I look up to see his face. We're only a few inches apart. I've never really seen him up close.

His eyebrows are thick and perfectly lined, his nose is straight but not pointed, his skin looks like caramel and his facial hairs are a perfect fixture on his face.

The next thing I know, he waves his hand to get my attention. I snap out of my thoughts and look at the tree behind him.

"Uh, I was just looking at the tree at your end, it could really use an inscription" I say avoiding any embarrassment.

"Yh, it actually does, I'll do it sometime soon" he looks assured and then he takes the hockey stick and looks at me.
"Let's do the honours" he says looking at the stick.

He puts his hands at the top and I place mine at the middle because he's taller than me. We drag the stick vertically to the end of the wet sand.

Making a line between it, he pulls out a rope and inserts it into the line. He breaks two Sticks and puts them at the end of the line and ties the rope to them inserting the sticks into the ground.

There was now a division.
"We did it" he says raising his hand and I instantly give him a high five before I realized what I just did .he looked surprised at my gesture and I was also surprised at my actions.

But it actually felt right to socialize just like everyone else and I had the same friendship feeling from when I was a kid but he probably won't want to be friends with me. I look at the time and it's my cue to leave.

"I better get going" I say and he smiles
"Okay, I'm just gonna be here adding some tweaks to my side, bye" he waves
"Bye" I say leaving the path and I take a cab back home.

I'm so glad that my mum always comes back late and my dad is on a one-year business trip. I can just relax.

I take a shower and sit on the sofa.

Sorry guys, I wanted to update yesterday but I was really busy. Hope you guys like the chapter.

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Bye loves