by Meghan Diane
“Good,” she replied, texting with her phone held above her head.
“Want to go to breakfast with Stella? She’s texting me now.”
I groaned. “What is she doing up this early? You guys are crazy.” I tried to bury my face into the pillow even more. “But yes to breakfast. It’s always a yes to food.”
“I know,” she laughed, crawling out of bed. “Well get dressed. She’ll be here in five minutes.”
“What!” I screeched, jumping out of bed. “I’m not even awake yet.”
She threw a pillow at me. “How about now?”
I shot her a death stare. “Fine, but you’re buying me coffee.”
“Deal,” she laughed over her shoulder before walking away.
I looked around at all of my clothes, trying to decide between shirts. Did I want to wear my new hot pink tank top or did I want to wear my classic gray V-neck? The tank top was more summery, and it was my vacation. But the gray V-neck was my signature look. Without a word, Halley walked by and took the gray V-neck out of my hands and tossed it on my clothes pile, leaving me holding the bright pink tank top. Vacation it is.
I finished getting dressed and walked into the bathroom. I stood there staring at my reflection in the mirror. I was finally going to meet Stella, the girl in all of the pictures. By the looks of it, this girl was moving in on my territory, and she was moving in fast. I didn’t think that Halley would abandon me for her, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a sense of sadness at the thought. I had just lost Reese, and though that was a triumph, she was still the person I had hung out with every day. “Stop,” I told my reflection. “You’re being ridiculous. You guys are going to get along just great.” Satisfied with my own pep talk, I looked away. I just hope she likes the same music.
Six minutes later, I stumbled out into the sunlight. “Argh,” I groaned, shielding my eyes. “Why?”
Halley chuckled beside me, handing me her sunglasses. “Here princess.”
I glared, but took the sunglasses before sitting down on the curb to wait for Stella. I turned and took in my best friend. It was early, but she was cheerful. She was smiling down at her phone, and I knew that could only mean one thing. Spencer.
“So tell me about him.”
“Who?” Halley asked, trying her best to sound innocent.
I glared at her once more, not even bothering to give her a response. “Where are you guys headed? Like is it serious? You just broke up with that other guy.” I paused. “I just want to make sure this one isn’t a rebound that’s going to crash and burn.”
She crinkled up her nose. “I don’t really know where it’s going. I like him and he likes me, and we have fun. I don’t think we want it to be anything more serious than that.”
“You guys looked pretty lovey at Waffle House last night.”
She stood up. “Yeah, I don’t know, you know, feelings and all that.” She shrugged as a silver car pulled up. “Stella’s here. Saved by the bell,” she laughed as she opened the front door and got in.
I slid into the backseat, and the driver turned around to beam at me. “Hi, I’m Stella,” she sang, her cheery voice filling the car.
“Aurora.”
“I’ve heard so much about you!”
“Likewise,” I sang, trying to match her pitch. I don’t know why I did that; it’s just something girls seemed to do naturally around other girls. “Halley talks about you all of the time. She adores you.”
Stella playfully swatted Halley’s leg. “Yeah I kinda like her too.” She beamed.
I watched them from the backseat as they talked. Halley and Stella recounted the night before. They had started the evening together, but as the night went on, somehow their group of friends had split in half, with Halley and Spencer going one way and Stella and this mysterious Phoenix going another.
Stella described how she and Phoenix devised this plan to put on foreign accents and talk to strangers at the bar. According to Stella, Americans loved anyone with an accent, and putting one on would increase their chances of meeting someone. Apparently it had been going pretty well, and they were the hit of the bar, until one of their friends found them. Things got increasingly awkward when they had to decide—without talking—whether or not to keep the accents and continue on, or to give in.
Halley responded at all the right times with “Oh man!” and “No freaking way!”
I watched as her hands flew all over the place in response. She had a way of doing that when she got really into a story, and I found it adorable. They continued to talk the rest of the way there, and I caught small parts of each story as I stared out the window.
Inside of me, my emotions were out of order. I swayed back and forth between feeling happy that I was there with them, to waves of sadness. I had never felt so alone.
“Everybody ready for some breakfast?” Stella asked cheerfully as we pulled into the parking lot.
My stomach groaned in response. “I’m always ready for food.”
She laughed. “Good. Me too.”
I opened the car door, and squinted into the sun again before slowly tipping Halley’s sunglasses down over my eyes.
The building in front of me was a sea-foam green with baby blue doors. From the outside it didn’t look like the kind of place I would normally choose to eat at. The paint was chipped and it appeared to be anything but modern. A sign hung loosely from the awning announced it as The Hideaway. The tables outside were in about the same shape as the building—all made of wood and probably from the early 80s. But at those tables the customers smiled and talked as they ate their food. When I got closer I noted that every single table was taken. The food must make up for the appearance.
The inside gave off much of the same vibe. There were the same wooden tables and also a few wooden booths as well. A waitress rushed by us and yelled over the noise, “I’ll be with you in just a second.”
When we were finally seated at one of the booths ten minutes later, I was starving. I flipped through the menu. Everything looked inviting.
“I think I’ll just get one of everything,” I joked.
“You and me both,” Stella responded. “You and me both.”
I ended up ordering French toast, as always. The coffee, she assured me, would be right out. And a minute later I watched as she rushed toward me, the coffee sloshing over the sides of our mugs.
She gave me an apologetic smile as she set it on the table.
I didn’t mind. I picked up the warm mug in my hands and brought it to my lips, the heat instantly warming my face.
“Ahhh.” I breathed happily. “Finally.”
Stella smiled at me from across the table. “So what do you want to do with your life?”
My eyes grew wide in response. “Such a loaded question so early in the morning.” I took a sip of my coffee. She didn’t respond, she just watched, and waited. “Well,” I said, looking up at her. “Right now I work at a local record shop called Royal Records. I really like it there, and I love the people. I especially love the access to new vinyl. And I suppose I’ll keep working there for a while. I don’t really have any reason to leave.”
Stella nodded her head as I spoke. “But what do you really want to do? Like I’m sure it’s great there, but do you want to work there forever? Do you want to maybe own it, or something like it one day? Like what’s your passion?”
My pupils expanded a little wider.
“Dang, you really do ask the hard-hitting questions in the morning.” I took another sip of my coffee before continuing. “Well, I really want to be a photographer. Which I know sounds so cliché. But I mean it. I love taking pictures. I’m always that weirdo carrying her camera everywhere.” I blushed before looking up. “I kind of like taking a step back from the scene and catching people as they really are, not how they like to portray themselves with selfies, you know?”
Stella smiled back at me. “I do know. That sounds awesome.”
“But of course, it’s something
that’s really hard to make a living at. So it probably won’t go much of anywhere. It’s probably just a hobby.”
“She takes really great photos,” Halley chimed in. “Don’t let her fool you with how modest she is.”
I scowled and took another sip of my coffee. “You’re just saying that because you have to. You know, best friend rules and all.”
“Not true!” she objected, throwing her hands in the air. She turned to Stella. “She’s really downplaying how good she is. In high school she was obsessed with our darkroom. Yes, our school had a darkroom. And everyone knew if they couldn’t find Aurora, she was probably cooped up in there working on one project or another.”
“I don’t think it was to that extreme,” I chuckled.
She raised her eyebrow at me. “Aurora. You’re the only kid who has ever spent the night at our high school. And it was because you were too busy working on your senior project to even realize it was three in the morning. And by the time you did realize it, you didn’t care, and you just slept in there until the janitor came by in the morning.”
“That place should have had better security!” I yelled. “It’s not my fault that they didn’t do their job and check all of the rooms before locking them that night. But, on another note”—I winked—“I rocked that project.”
Halley shook her head. “And don’t even get me started on how many cameras she owns.”
“Three,” I assured Stella. “It’s just three.”
“Just three?” she asked.
I knew then that I’d have to explain myself. “Yeah. I have a basic one for normal everyday photography and then I have two film-based cameras. There’s one for close-ups and one for broader pictures.” I wasn’t sure if I should go into more detail or if that was enough. I had to be careful sometimes. I could talk about photography all day.
Halley saved me from having to decide when she smacked her hands down on the table, causing both Stella and I to jump.
“Remember that time you caught Sarah and Casey making out at a party!”
I nearly sprayed my coffee all over the table. “Do I ever! That was probably the best picture I have ever taken.” I turned toward Stella so that I could explain more. “You see, what had happened was…” I paused, and then jumped into the story.
“We were sophomores in college, right? And we were at this party and everyone had been drinking. And for weeks I kept telling everyone that I thought the two of them were together.” I was waving my hands around like a maniac at this point. “Well everyone kept denying it. Sarah was too pretty to be gay. You know, the usual. To be fair we wouldn’t have cared if they were together.” I raised an eyebrow, and motioned to myself, as if to say ‘obviously.’ “We just wanted to know is all.”
I took a quick sip of my coffee before continuing. “Well, here we were at this party right. And I’m just doing what I do best, walking around and occasionally taking pictures. Fast forward to the end of the night. Everything had gone as it always does. We were drunk, so we were at our regular pizza place, just waiting on the pizza. And Halley here is begging me to show her the pictures I had taken because this boy she had a crush on was there and she wanted to see if I’d gotten any candid shots of him. Well, our pizza hadn’t arrived yet so we were scrolling through the pictures side by side when finally we came across a picture of Jake, the boy she liked. Well, I zoomed in on the photo, and that’s when I noticed it.” I looked up at Stella to make sure she was still following. She was hanging on my every word.
“There in the background were Sarah and Casey making out. Keep in mind I had been drinking too. I jumped up so fast and yelled ‘I KNEW IT!’ as loud as I could. I kept jumping up and down, up and down, all the while yelling ‘I knew it, I knew it.’ It took me a solid minute before I could calm down and actually show Halley the picture.”
“It’s true,” Halley chimed in. “She was jumping all over the place. Long story short, we got thrown out of the pizza shop.”
“No way,” Stella laughed.
“Oh, way.”
“So what did you do with the photo? Did you show them?”
“Oh heck yeah she did,” Halley chimed in again.
“I got the picture printed out, and the next day when I saw them at lunch, I slid it facedown on the table, winked, and walked away.”
“Oh man, did they freak out?” Stella asked.
“Oh yeah they did.” I grinned at her. “They sent me like twenty text messages trying to explain themselves. I let this go on for about half an hour before finally texting them both that I loved them together, followed by a heart. It was great.”
“I wish I could have been there.”
“You would have loved it. Absolutely loved it.”
By now our food had come, but we were all too into the story to notice.
I whispered to Halley when Stella wasn’t looking. “She’s a keeper.”
“Yeah, I think so too,” she whispered back.
Chapter Three
“I still don’t understand why Stella couldn’t just do her paper later. I can’t believe she’s going to miss out on a beach house party! A beach house,” I repeated for emphasis.
She had dropped us off after breakfast on her way to the library. Halley and I were now on our way to the party, and I couldn’t help but feel a little sad that the new friend I had just made wasn’t going to be there.
“I know, but the paper she’s working on is really important to her thesis. She’s really into it.” She turned her head to smile at me. “It’s actually really cool.”
“I know but—”
My sentence was cut short as I stared at the house that Halley had come to a stop in front of. I felt my mouth hang open in shock, any rebuttal that I had effectively lost forever.
I knew we were going to a beach house that belonged to one of her other friends that I hadn’t met yet. Halley had told me on the way there that it was their second home. I expected it to be a little on the smaller side, and maybe not as functional as a normal everyday house. But this place was massive.
When we walked in the door, I laughed out of nervousness. This house was more expensive than the home I had grown up in. It was mesmerizing.
We were guided to the back of the house and I touched the walls as I walked through, noting that there was an absence of family photos. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live here. I couldn’t imagine living somewhere and not making it my own. I couldn’t imagine not wanting to hang my records. I couldn’t imagine not making it “mine.” But then I remembered this was their second home.
Even still, as I walked through the house I couldn’t help but make up reasons for keeping a house so sterile. It became a game in my head. Maybe it was so they could sell the house at any given second. That way they could buy another one somewhere better. Or maybe they rented the place out. Yeah, that could be it. Or maybe they were all just actually really hideous and didn’t want to hang pictures of themselves. I liked this idea the best.
We were led to one of the six bedrooms where we found ourselves in front of two sets of bunk beds.
“Oh boy,” I laughed. “You didn’t tell me we were going to summer camp!”
Halley hit me over the head with the back of her hand. “Shut up and let’s find the drinks.”
“Fiiiiine, I guess that is something I’m okay with.” I dropped my bag on the floor. “Let the fun begin.”
When I walked out the back door, I wasn’t let down. The pool went the whole way across the backyard. I peered into the water, noting that it was probably six feet at its deepest end. Decent.
But what really caught my eye was the dock farther out. They had their own little canal that no doubt led out to the ocean. I was insanely jealous. I tried to imagine what it would be like if this was my house. I tried to picture coming home and taking the boat out to relax after a hard day at work. I tried to imagine grilling out for dinner and having my own friends over.
A pang of sadness took over. I tri
ed to picture all of these things, but for the most part they fell flat. They were empty thoughts. I couldn’t picture the girl beside me. I couldn’t picture if she was with me on the boat, beside me at the grill. I couldn’t even picture if she’d be there to meet me at the door when I got home. What was the point of all of these nice things if there was no girl there to do them with me?
I turned away and took another sip of the mixed drink that someone had handed me. At least the drink was good. I winced. And strong.
* * *
I was sitting by the pool with my head tilted back, taking in the sun on my face for the first time this summer when she walked out. Halley had disappeared into the house with Spencer twenty minutes earlier, and I couldn’t say I blamed her.
I lowered my eyes to stare. I knew right away this had to be Phoenix. She had short brown hair that was tousled in an adorable yet sexy way. She looked to be about the same height as me, maybe an inch taller, making her probably five foot six. Her athletic-looking body meant she probably played soccer or some sport similar to that. Lacrosse? Or maybe rugby? Her eyes were dark brown. Even from across the water I could feel myself getting lost in them.
I studied her face as she said hi to everyone at the party. Social eh? She was pretty, but not in the way I had expected.
Instinctively I reached for the coin in my pocket before remembering that I was only wearing my swimsuit. Damn it. How could I be so stupid?
As she made her rounds I finally stood up. “Heyyy,” I said in my attempt to sound disinterested. The pitch of my voice gave me away, but she wouldn’t know that yet.
“Heyyy,” she replied back. Her voice was deeper than mine, sultry even. “I’m Phoenix,” she continued, and raised an eyebrow.
“I know.” I smiled back, meeting her hand in the middle. Her cheeks colored a little. “I’m Aurora.”
“Yeah I know.” She smiled even bigger, causing me to blush this time.