24 Hours

You're Too Weird To Be My Friend

2011, North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, sometime in June. 

Summer break finally arrived and eleven year old Grace and her family made the near 10 hour drive from Lexington, Kentucky to Myrtle Beach Travel Park in South Carolina. Throughout the majority of the trip Grace slept in the back seat next to her Grandpa, while her Mom and Grandma rode up front, taking turns between navigator and driver. The faded baby blue and pastel yellow sign was Grace's favorite part about the drive. We're finally here! Her legs and back felt stiff after sitting in the same, cramped position for an entire day. She was not looking forward to growing old. 

After getting checked in, the security guard waved them in at the gate and they made their way to the older-than-you-want-to-know camper passed down from Grace's great grandmother to her Grandma and Grandpa. It was here in this dusty trailer that Grace and her family would be spending the next 14 days. Although an odd tradition to others, Grace looked forward to these two weeks of summer the most. They were just a walk away from both the beach and the pool, and if you took the less traveled path back from the pool, you could go play in the playground or the arcade. She loved going to the beach and swimming in the cool, salty ocean with her cousin, Caroline and her Floridian friends - Noah and Savannah. While Caroline and Grace met up frequently for sleepovers and saw each other every week at church, these two weeks were the only time during the year Grace could meet up with her friends from Florida. If she missed her friends this year, the next time she would see them was when June came around again. She was more than excited the three of them - Grace, Noah, and Savannah - would be reunited and do all the things she couldn't do at home: catch frogs, run around and play Hide and Seek in the dark, bury each other in the sand and the yearly truth or dare sit down along with her favorite summer treat: s'mores. Summer at the beach was for friends, snacks, the hot sand and turbulent waves. This was Grace's favorite time of the year. 

This summer at the beach was supposed to be the same as the last, but that is not at all how things ended up. 

Things were going swimmingly - pun intended - until about halfway through the first week of vacation. Once day three struck, nothing was the same. That day the waves were too rough, so the family moved from the beach to the pool, a safer swimming environment for Grace and her cousin, Caroline. Though nearly two years apart in age, anyone who passed the cousins could mistake Caroline to be older merely because of her height. Grace was small, thin and tan with flowing thick, black hair that fell at her waist, making her already short legs seem shorter. Caroline was tall with fair skin and wavy blonde hair. She looked just like the rest of the family, save Grace and Caroline's mother, Traci. And because Grace was adopted from China, she couldn't look more out of place in the Caucasian family. "Which do you prefer, the beach or the pool, Gracie?" Caroline asked. They had been at the pool for an hour or two and stood in the 4 ft section, their most frequent spot for 'girl talk'. "Hmm... the beach! I like salt water better than chlorine. The chlorine in the pool makes my hair really gross. It's impossible to brush unless I take a shower." Indeed, Grace's hair turned to thick straw after being submerged in chlorine. It was a peculiar annoyance, especially since she had silky smooth, naturally straight hair. She barely knew what knots in her hair felt like because she only got them from playing in the pool. Any other time and Grace's hair was smooth and straight. 

After awhile, Caroline left the pool for a few minutes to use the bathroom. Once she was climbing up the ladder to get out, Grace swam for the deeper end of the pool. While lacking in height, Grace made up for it in natural muscle. A few years ago, she took a few swimming lessons and could swim without touching the floor of the pool or the sandy ground of the ocean while Caroline still struggled to keep afloat. Caroline and Grace's own mother hated when Grace left her cousin to swim in the "deep end" of the pool. That's why she had to find small opportunities like this to swim on her own. She jumped a couple of times into the 9ft section and resurfaced, rubbing her eyes every time. She hated the feel of goggles and the imprint it left on her face, so she chose to swim without them. Grace kept her neck and face afloat in the deep waters and hung onto the pool's ledge to relieve her tiresome body. All of a sudden, a boy with brown eyes, golden tan skin and blonde hair swam up next to her. "Hey," the boy said. "Uh, hi?" Grace tentatively responded. She had no idea who this stranger was or why he was talking to her. "Do you want to see who can give the better jump in the deep end?" He asked. "Oh, uh sure." And just like that, a competition began. 

After a few jumps, Caroline returned to the pool and that was Grace's cue to swim to the more shallow end where they could both touch without struggle. Before she left, Grace wanted to know this boy's name. Maybe they could be friends. "What's your name?" Grace asked. "Asher. What's yours?" He said. "Grace." Just then, more boys swam up next to Asher. They looked to be a few years older than the two of them, and once they saw Grace and Asher talking, they immediately assumed, "Are you two dating?" The heat rose to her cheeks and Grace made a desperate plunge to the bottom of the pool so she didn't have to hear the response. They, of course, were not dating. They had just met. But she was a little interested in this Asher boy. He was kind of cute and really nice, albeit weirdly outgoing and flirty. Grace came back up for air, breathed in the fresh oxygen and rubbed her eyes. She thought that would be the only pesky question, but the teenagers would not stop making fun of them. "Do you like her?" "Do you like him?" The two made it very clear that they had only just met and were not interested in each other, much to Grace's disappointment. Just as she was about to swim to Caroline, Asher turned to face her after answering the questions thrown at him. "Do you want to be friends with me?" After the pressing questions of the last few minutes, Grace didn't want to bear the feelings that sprung inside her. "No," She heard herself say. "You're too weird to be my friend." And with that, she swam away from the deep end and towards Caroline.