Confessions of Your Friendly Neighborhood Lifeguard

Chapter One

I moved to Snow Beach in late May, after I finished my junior year. I didn't meet anyone until the last week of June. The first part of June was spent in complete and utter solidtue, perfecting my tan and doing crunches. I now had the perfect two-pack. Anyways, I could have spent my whole summer that way. Becoming so tan that my skin tone would rival that of the Jersey Shore. Making my two pack in to a six pack, or maybe even an eight pack. And perhaps even making my workout success in to a best-selling guide, sold in Barnes and Nobles everywhere.

But reality kicked in.

“Rae, I'm so tired of seeing you around this house! I want you to go out and do something!” my mom shouted.

“Mom, there's no need-”

“Rae, you haven't left this house since we moved here. Go do something.”

“But there's nothing to do!”

“I don't want to hear it. Take the Mustang and do something.”

Harsh, but effective.

Basically, our move to Snow Beach, which obviously is a coastal town, was quick and unexpected. But when we found out the my father was moving back in to town, we got out of there as quickly as we could. Things were still.... very bad with my mom and dad. Even my dad and I were still not talking.

My mom and dad had always been the picturesque couple. I mean, so perfect you could put them on a freaking post card. And trust me, that post card would have sold out. They had the Victorian house in the suburbs, the white picket fence, and even a tree house. And oh, what at a tree house. It was like those perfect family movies.

But obviously, there's drama in every family movie. My father turned out to be sleeping with his secretary (which is a cliché, I know, but apparently actually does happen). There was a long messy divorce, but it ended. Dad moved out of town and stopped talking to us. Or more stopped talking to my mom. I stopped talking to him. He called, e-mailed, texted I ignored it all. Which is probably why he moved away. After a year of being ignored, he came back.

My mom didn't want to move, actually. It was my idea. I picked out the house we were moving in to! My mom picked the town, though. Snow Beach was the town she spent her summers in, and she had plenty of fond memories.

“It was the last summer I spent before I knew your father,” she told me. “The good days.”

Sure, it was a little over dramatic. It wasn't completely necessary to move cross-country. But, hey, I was pissed. And I wanted to shove every single little moment of hell my dad gave to me back down his throat. Hell hath no fury like a 17 yeard old girl, am I right? Those were the dark times.

Anywho:

I became a resident of Snow Beach, North Carolina. TSnow Beach. Contradictory. The name of the town always bothered me You can't have Snow on a Beach. But I learned quickly it was called Snow Beach because the mist from the waves was curiously thick and left a soft blanket of white dust on the ground. They were just bubbles, but they called it snow. Small town charm was something I will never understand. 

I drove down the tourist part of Snow Beach, which was along the shore. Despite the realtively average population, the city managed to draw in quite a large amount of tourism. There were t-shirt stores, canoe rental, scooter rental, lots of rental things, little clothing stores, and the list goes on. There was a steady stream of people drifting on the beaches and a good amount of people on the sidewalk. As I watched them I realized the grandparents from Boise probably knew more about this town than I did, which wasn't necessarily the dream but whatever I suppose.

I wasn't sure what my mother wanted from me. I left the house to do something, but she didn't disclose what I was supposed to do. Certainly not go to the beach with all the tourists, especially since a grand total of zero seemed to be my age. And even if they were, they would just go back to Ohio in a week.  They may have been in this town just as long as me, but it wasn't going to happen. Go shopping? Joke. I had no money. And then it hit me. It literally hit me. Some jerk ran the light and hit my car.