Read Secondary Colors for Free Online Page B

he’ll see everything and more.
    “What are you doing out here this early anyway?” I ask, expecting the same answer to every other question I’ve asked him—nothing.
    “It’s hot,” he replies in a purely masculine voice. Did he— He dunks himself under the water. Even though it’s impossible for him to see me, I cover up with my arms and hands anyway. He comes back up, running his hands over his hair.
    “You talk. I was beginning to wonder.”
    “Yes, Evie, I talk.” He sticks a fingertip in his ear and shakes out water trapped inside. “I know a wide vocabulary of words.”
    “What took you so long?”
    “I liked making you squirm.”
    “Oh, so, you’re an inconsiderate asshole,” I state.
    He laughs a noiseless laugh, bobbing his head from side to side as he considers my statement.
    “Some people would say you’re right.”
    “People who know you, you mean.” I regret the words before I finish spewing them.
    “What are you doing out here at this hour, anyway?” He avoids my snide remark, which has me wondering if I was right.
    “I’ve always come out for night swims during the summer.”
    “Do you always do it in the skinny?” His question makes every inch of my body still and zoom in on him, my eyes big from mortification.
    I’m beginning to wish he’d kept his mouth sealed. I liked him more.
    “How do you know I’m naked,” I snap, “were you watching me?”
    “It’s hard not to, Evie,” he confesses, stepping toward me.
    I take a step back, the sandy bottom squishing between my toes.
    “What did you see?”
    “Not much,” he remarks, as if saying I possess nothing worth seeing. His insult exposes me more than I already am.
    “Get out of the water,” I order, pointing toward the shore with one arm shielding my breasts. Even if they are unappealing to him, he doesn’t deserve to see them.
    “You’re a bundle of dynamite with a short fuse.”
    I grumble out a frustrated groan, noticing the horizon to the east becoming bluer, the clouds peach. If I want to get out of this with everything unseen, I need to move this along swiftly. There’s no need to be subtle at this point.
    “Call me crazy. I tend to snap at people who insult me. Now get out.”
    “Just because you own the lake, doesn’t mean you can order me out of it.”
    “That’s exactly what it means. Get out before I scream.”
    “Wouldn’t do any good since your mother isn’t home. And even if she were, I doubt you’d want her to find you naked with me.”
    He has a point. A very good point.
    “I—I don’t want you to see my body.” I plead to his human decency, if he has any. “Will you please leave first?”
    After a pause, he shoots me a sympathetic grin.
    “Come on, Max,” he summons his dog and makes for the shore.
    As he shows me his backside, I catch sight of something that takes me aback, a deforming second degree burn on his right shoulder blade. It isn’t minor, the raised pink scar prominent against the rest of his flawless skin, like a huge bubble of pink gum splattered across his upper back. While he wears his battle wounds on his skin, the badge of a survivor, I hide mine on the inside. In this moment, a strange connection forms to this stranger and a twinge of guilt wrenches my scarred heart.

 
     

     
    an assortment of colors the artist works with
     
     
    The following morning, I pick a bouquet of lavender from the garden and walk to the plot next to ours, inhabited by this sweet old couple, Roy and Hettie Bennett. They’ve lived here forever, and were my grandparents’ best friends. Since both of them passed when I was a baby, they became my adopted grandparents for all intents and purposes. They never had any kids of their own, so we’ve been their family.
    I could enter without notice, but I knock on the screen door instead. I wouldn’t want to sneak up on Hettie. She’d probably have a heart attack.
    “I’m coming,” she calls from the kitchen, pans rattling. “I’m