by Alia Rose
I lay back and closed my eyes. It definitely had been a girl in the water earlier. I wasn’t crazy.
The beach was quiet, and I lay in a trance, enjoying the sounds around me.
I heard footsteps approaching and opened my eyes. The lifeguard stood over me. “We’re closing now.”
I stared at him. “This beach never closes.”
The guy nodded. “At sunset it does.”
“What is it with you lifeguards?” I muttered.
He laughed. “You’re the jerk from earlier, right?”
I blinked. “What?”
“The guy that was floating past the boundaries—that was you.”
“Yeah...” I said slowly.
He shook his head. “I’d be pissed too.”
He walked away and I looked after him, confused. Had people always been so weird in this town? I couldn’t remember.
I got up and brushed the sand off my already tan shoulders. It had only been a few days since I had gotten here and I was already two shades darker. The sun was nearly down, the light drowning in the water. I stared at it for a second longer before retreating to the boardwalk.
The next morning I went early to the beach and sat at the café, drinking my second cup of coffee. I stared at the piece of paper in front of me, reading its contents for the hundredth time. My stomach churned as I thought about the unknown, and how to approach a man who had shut me out since I was sixteen.
I tried to justify my lack of approach by thinking that it was only my third day in town and I had paid a weekly rate for my room, so I had to be here for the remainder of the week anyway. With a heavy college grant that paid for my tuition and living and left me with some extra money, I could afford the trip. I had been saving most of the money, only using what I needed to live on. I made extra cash at my weekly open mic nights, and that was my go-to stash. My dad knew of my college grant and the extra I had every year from it, and a part of me felt like he used that to justify shutting me out. He knew I could take care of myself—financially anyway.
The beach was completely empty except for one girl. She walked along the shore at first, and then began picking up garbage off the beach. She walked back and forth until finally lying down on the sand.
I continued watching her. I took another sip of my coffee as she got up and wiped sand off of her shorts. She turned around and looked straight at me. Even from where I stood, I could see how crazy curly her hair was. I quickly looked away, sneaking a glance back at her. She still stared at me, putting her hands on her hips and then raising her arms in a “what the hell” gesture. I didn’t move, just sipped my coffee, trying not to smile. She finally gave up and stomped across the beach, stopping at the lifeguard stand. She climbed up and sat down.
So it was her. It made sense why she already hated me.
I paid for my coffee and made my way across the beach. It was still empty and the girl now had her head bent, reading a book. I broke into a run, taking off my shirt, and crashed into the waves. I vaguely heard her blow her whistle. When I reached my spot in the water, I glanced back.
She wasn’t looking at me anymore; she just sat on her chair reading her book. Her leg was bouncing up and down. I could tell she was annoyed. I smiled to myself.
I knew I was being obnoxious. I always had been. I was an obnoxious kid, an obnoxious teenager, and now an obnoxious twenty-year-old. I was good at it. My mom was more patient than anyone in the world, and even though I drove her up the wall she still came into my room every night and sang to me. She always sang the Celtic lullaby that she loved so much, instantly making me fall asleep. Sometimes I’d lie awake after she thought I had fallen asleep and hum it to myself, making out the pretty melody. When my mom got sick, she stopped coming to my room. I was older by that time and didn’t mind her leaving me alone. Still, though, it would take a lot of tossing and turning before I’d fall asleep. Now, it was my own voice and version of the lullaby that helped me sleep at night. It didn’t stop the nightmares though.
My obnoxiousness was something my dad hated, and my sarcasm was too much for him. He would never say it out loud, but I knew he thought it was because of my Native American blood, or “quarter privilege,” as he liked to call it. Even though I wasn’t a member of my mom’s tribe and hadn’t received any benefits other than the grant for college, he still made the joke. Sometimes I wanted to shove a history book in his face to squeeze an ounce of empathy out of him, but I resisted. His attitude toward it drove a wedge between us, and I couldn’t decide whether he or I had put it there.
When my mom got sick, I tried my best to be better, to make her happy, but no matter how hard I tried, she would just pat me on the shoulder and give me a small smile, her eyes empty, the feeling of purpose no longer there. She didn’t get better, and still I wondered what it was that had worn her out to her very core.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Amy
I was annoyed. Truthfully, I was annoyed most of the time, but today I had a legitimate reason.
Just beyond the buoys, the obnoxious guy from yesterday floated once again. I tried to ignore him, knowing he was doing this just to annoy me. Okay, maybe not, but at least part of it was intentional. I could just feel him laughing to himself all the way out there. So obnoxious.
Since it was Sunday, the beach was not as crowded. The waves were calmer than usual, and I desperately wanted to swim.
I had always loved swimming. My mom used to say I was part fish. She enrolled me in swimming lessons when I was six, and she had to drag me out after every lesson. By the time I was thirteen, I started volunteering at the beach, going through training, and slowly working my way up to lifeguard status. And now here I was, sitting thirty feet away from the water, frying in the sun while everyone else enjoyed it.
Made perfect sense, right?
And, bonus: I had an obnoxious swimmer who refused to listen to the rules.
I scanned the beach, counting the number of people. There were seven total, excluding Obnoxious Guy. I checked my phone, which told me it was half past two. My shift was ending.
I climbed down and pulled off my t-shirt. The sun hit my bare shoulders and I could feel the heat on my skin. I adjusted the straps of my red swimsuit and pulled back my curly hair into a messy bun. My feet sank as I walked through the sand, pausing to check the people around me again. There were now only four people I needed to look out for.
I crept closer to the waves and let the water hit my toes. It was freezing, of course. I decided not to go all the way in, just to my knees. I didn’t have any extra shorts with me, and I didn’t feel like walking home all wet.
Plus, my mom hated it when I made a mess. I hardly ever did now, but when I was younger she nagged me about it all the time. She hated dirty feet on her kitchen floor, sandy clothes in the washer, and anything that required a big cleanup. Once when I was seven I spent all day at the beach with my dad, and when we came home my mom wouldn’t let us in the house until every grain of sand was gone. My dad made this into a game and chased me with the hose until it was dark. We were, by then, both soaked. My dad was a kid at heart, spontaneous and outgoing. He was my partner in crime in anything I did. It was the reason why I got along with him so well, and the reason my mom didn’t. She once had been like him earlier in their relationship, but after she had me she felt it was time to grow up and be serious. When my dad didn’t agree, it complicated things.
I looked up from the water and gazed out at the sky at the horizon. I used to wonder if it was possible to ever reach that point where the sky and water met. I turned back to the beach and found it empty. Even Obnoxious Guy wasn’t there anymore. I noticed Paul in the distance making his way to the lifeguard stand. He waved when he saw me and I waved back, walking toward him.
“Whoa—scared everyone away, did we?” he said, grinning and looking around.
I rolled my eyes and shrugged. “Well, you know how it is.”
I grabbed my bag and shirt from the chair and climbed down
. “I think I’m going to sit out here for awhile.”
“Suit yourself; I’ll keep an eye on you.” He winked. I hit him with my bag and he laughed, climbing up the chair.
I tied my t-shirt around my waist and put my sunglasses on. The sand was almost too hot on my toes, but it felt good. Whenever my feet were aching, hot sand was the best remedy. I walked along the shore for a while, watching as the tide grew. The waves steadily increased, and the sound of the crashes became louder.
The air was colder now, and I slid into my oversized t-shirt. One of my dad’s. After he left, my mom called the Salvation Army the next day to pick up all the stuff he had left behind. She felt the faster she got rid of it, the faster she’d be able to get over him. I watched from the porch steps as she hauled box after box out of the house. She had asked me to help, but I didn’t. I just sat there, watching everything that had been a part of me in some way or another be put into brown boxes and given to someone else. I couldn’t picture anyone else wearing his “Running a Marathon Would Kill Me” shirt like it had been their shirt all along.
When my mom had finished, she went back inside to smoke, and I sat there still watching as the guy boxed up what was left on the yard. When he finished, he walked up to me and bent down. I had held in my tears the entire time, but I could only imagine the look on my face.
“Did you want to grab a couple things before I leave?” he asked me.
I remember nodding and following him to the truck. When he finally left, I snuck back in the house with five t-shirts, an old wallet, a baseball glove, and a portrait of the three of us taken a few years back. Having those things still in the house kept me from feeling as though the three of us had never been a family. This was, I’m sure, exactly what my mom wanted to forget.
I sat down on the sand, pulling my knees under the shirt. I sighed, closing my eyes, listening to the waves, getting lost in their lullaby. I heard a shuffling and someone plop down next to me. I tensed and opened my eyes to find a smoothie five inches away from my face. I jerked my head back and gawked at the guy sitting next to me. It was Obnoxious Guy. It was the first time I had seen him up close and dry, and I did my best not to stare. Between his tan skin, dark hair, and piercing green eyes, I wasn’t sure if he was gorgeous or just looked different from every East Coast boy I had ever come across.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
He grinned. “Enjoying the sunset.” He pushed the smoothie toward me. “For you.”
I blinked at him, ignoring the smoothie. He was staring at me expectantly and I stared back, unsure of the point of the staring contest. I noticed his long eyelashes and the slight slanted shape of his eyes. The edges of his mouth slowly curled and my stomach fluttered. I turned away.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “This is my way of apologizing for yesterday. I didn’t mean to scare you with my swimming abilities.” He stumbled over his words.
“Swimming abilities?” I snorted.
“Yeah, obviously,” he began, “you thought no one would be able to swim that far out and so you came to rescue me, thinking I was drowning, when really I was just relaxing.”
I cleared my throat. He couldn’t be serious. “Do you see that rock all the way out there?” I pointed toward the direction of the water.
“Yeah.”
“I used to swim there every night when I was twelve.” I started to get up. “You can float—I’ll give you that.”
“Hey, wait!” he called after me. “Really, take the smoothie.”
“No, thanks,” I said, walking away and feeling empowered. But I hoped he wasn’t going to start stalking me now.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Seth
She was feisty. Just the kind of girl who caught my attention. I wasn’t sure exactly why I had bought her the smoothie, but when she rejected it I was a little surprised. It was my way of apologizing and was the only apology she’d get from me.
My mom never understood the reasoning behind my theory of never apologizing. She would always tell me to say sorry, and I always refused to.
To me, saying sorry was pointless. The only reason for saying sorry was to make the other person feel better. I never say sorry because I never do anything that I later regret or didn’t mean to do in the first place.
When I told my mom this as a teenager, she just furrowed her brow and told me that my theory wasn’t a good thing to carry around, and certainly was not an outlook I’d inherited from her. To her, a person who never apologizes will become bitter and coldhearted.
So here I am, a bitter, coldhearted person. Just like she said I would be.
After the girl had stomped off, I went ahead and drank the smoothie. I wasn’t sure how she could resist it. I continued along the boardwalk until it was completely dark and everything was closing. I went back to the beach and walked along the shore, taking it in. The beach was hauntingly beautiful. The waves were more aggressive, but to me everything seemed calmer.
My mom loved the beach at night. While my dad was asleep, she would drag me out of bed and we would sneak out of the house. I’d watch her swim until she was just a speck in the water and wait until she came back shivering. She would wrap me up in her soaking wet arms and tell me, “Seth, one day you’ll love the rush like I do.”
“Mom!” I would whine. “It’s too cold—you’re going to die.”
She’d laugh and start running back home while I chased her, trying to catch up.
She was right, though. I did love the rush. My dad never understood how I could after what had happened, but he didn’t understand that the rush of the cold water and the waves connected me to her.
I looked away from the water and realized I had walked so far down that I could barely see the boardwalk. I started walking back when I noticed a bag and shoes on the sand not too far from me. I walked up to the stuff and then looked out in the water. I saw a head bobbing up and down, swimming back to shore. The head got closer and I watched as the lifeguard girl got out of the water. She didn’t see me at first, but then froze when she noticed me next to her bag.
“Hi,” she said quickly. She looked around and I could tell she was uncomfortable.
“Hi.”
She walked past me and grabbed her stuff. She glanced back at me but didn’t say anything. I turned away from her and sat down. I heard shuffling and a sniffle, followed by footsteps. To my surprise, she sat down next to me, wrapped in her towel.
“What are you doing here? The beach is closed,” she told me.
I turned and looked at her. “Oh? It is, is it?”
She tried hiding her smile and turned back to the water. I continued to look at her. Although it was dark, I could make out her tiny frame and wild curly hair. She caught me looking at her, and I glanced away. We sat in silence, neither of us knowing what to say.
“So, what are you doing here?” she asked again. I didn’t say anything, wondering if she’d persist. She did.
“What I mean is, no one just comes to this town. You’ve either lived here forever or are a relative of someone who has.”
I didn’t answer right away, choosing my words carefully. “I used to come here every summer when I was kid.”
“Ah,” she said, as if that answered all the questions.
I looked at her and she stared back, not shifting her gaze this time. Her intense stare actually penetrated me, as if she could read right through me—something I never wanted anyone to be able to do. No one ever knew anything about me, and that’s the way I liked it.
“So you’ve lived here all your life?” I asked her, even though I knew the answer.
“Yup, I have, unfortunately.” She sighed. I didn’t comment, just waited. Another question came.
“So you said “used to.” What brings you back now?”
So she was observant too. Not something I necessarily liked.
“My dad,” I simply stated.
She didn’t say anything, just sat there s
taring off into the water. I wondered why I had never seen her before. I used to spend full summers here. The town was small enough to pass by each face at least once. And hers I think I would have remembered.
It wasn’t something I would ask, though I was curious if she would offer up an explanation. She didn’t, so I was left to speculate on why we’d never crossed paths.
She shifted next to me and I turned my head. She grabbed her bag and stood up, suddenly throwing on a sweatshirt. I got up too, and she stopped and just looked at me. She didn’t say anything, nor did she smile. She just shrugged her shoulders and walked away.
It was the oddest thing. I stood there watching her get smaller and smaller. It wasn’t until she was completely out of sight that I realized it.
Stalking off like that was something I would have done.
CHAPTER NINE
Amy
My mom was losing her mind.
After a fitful night of sleep, she barged into my room at eight thirty and declared we go shopping for my dorm. I had groaned and rolled over, hoping I was dreaming, and tried to go back to sleep. No luck with that.
So here I was, looking at comforter sets at Bed Bath & Beyond. Shoot me now.
“Mom, we really don’t have to do this now. I was planning on shopping the last two weeks.”
She waved me off. “No. You are not going off to college and doing everything last minute,” she said, putting a hideous green comforter in the basket.
“Mom—” I began.
She ignored me and continued down the next aisle.
I groaned. I needed coffee. This was the last thing I wanted to be doing right now. I slowly followed her down the aisle. Now she was in the candle section going on about keeping my dorm aroma “friendly.” I tuned her out as I smelled different candles. For the most part, they all smelled horrible. I sighed as I felt a headache forming. Great.
I walked farther down and thought about the previous night. It had definitely been different than my typical evening. Never before had I sat alone on the beach with a stranger. I hadn’t been afraid, though; I was just surprised with myself, wondering why I hadn’t just left. It was ironic that he had always spent his summers here while I spent my summers in Florida (up until John joined the family two years ago). That explained why I had never seen him before. I guessed that he had skipped the last few summers.