𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒉 𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒓 | conrad fisher

3. the big mouths of the beach

Word gets around here in Cousins. Everyone knows everyone. It's nice, to a certain extent. When you walk down the street, people are sure to say hello and wish you a good day. Most will even address you by your name as they do so. It's not uncommon here.

But once you reach that limit, that certain extent, is when you start to wish that this place was just a little bigger. You start to think that maybe staying in Los Angeles for the summer wouldn't be so bad, after all.

"I heard your parents fighting last night."

It was my third summer here. I was ten years old when Betty Green said that to me. She and I were at her house, which was next to mine, making sand castles at the shore. Our moms sat on their wraparound porch, drinking coffee as they chit chatted about who knows what and watched the two of us build mediocre castles with sand that was too dry.

I looked at her, confusion all over my face as she went about molding the sand with her small hands.

As I wracked my brain for what she could possibly be talking about, I continued to mold the sand as well.

Finally, it came to me.

"They weren't fighting. We were playing Monopoly last night," I explained. She made a face. "It's a fun game if you know how to play it. Competitive, too."

She shrugged. "My parents said yours were fighting."

I stared at the girl, wanting to pull her curly pigtails off her head and throw them into the ocean so she could never find them again. But I didn't. Instead, I grabbed another handful of sand and added it to the foundation of our castle.

"They said your parents were disrupting the whole beach with their yelling," she continued.

I ignored the girl, pretended like I didn't hear her. But underneath the sand I stuck my hand in, my fist was beginning to clench. My heartbeat picked up speed. I didn't understand why she was accusing my parents of such a thing.

"My parents said they're sick of hearing your family every night." She shrugged.

This time, I grabbed a handful of sand and threw it at her face, making sure to get some of the lumpy substance on those bouncy blonde curls of hers. She screamed, and before I could get in any trouble, I got up and ran past my own house to get all the way to Susannah's.

I couldn't run as fast as I wanted because my feet kept sinking in the sand, but I was still out of breath once I got there.

"Astrid, hun, is everything okay?" Susannah asked as I entered her home without as much as a knock on the front door. "Do you want a glass of water or... an oxygen tank?"

Laurel snickered at her joke as she placed her soft hands on my shoulders. "Did you just run across the beach to get here?"

I nodded. "Betty Green keeps saying my parents are fighting. And they're not, they're not! We were just playing Monopoly. They get loud when they play Monopoly."

Susannah sighs. "It's the Greens again." She walked up to me and crouched down, placing her hand on my chin in a comforting manner. "Don't listen to anything they say, okay? They don't know what they're talking about. Go upstairs and play with the rest of the kids."

So I did. When I entered Belly's room, all four of them were in there, watching a movie. Each of their heads turned toward me. A smile grew on Belly's face as she patted the spot beside her, right between her and Conrad.

"What movie are you watching?" I whispered to her, careful to not make the boys mad.

They didn't usually do things like this. Normally, they'd be outside playing ball while me and Belly were up there, watching a movie. And I had a feeling that if I spoke too loud, they'd get annoyed and leave.