When Florentina Campos first decided to surprise Summer by joining her in Shorehaven this summer, she only expected to have fun with her best friend. But, as it turns out, her stay evolves into much more than that.
Full of fights and laughter betwee...
"That fake bitch!" Flo paces around in her living room as her mind races, "I mean, framing you?! That's next level!"
Summer grabs Flo by the shoulders with a dead serious face, "If my mom sends me home are you going to come back with me?"
That can't seriously be her number one concern, Flo thinks to herself. The furious girl waves her friend away and nonchalantly tells her, "That's the least of our worries. I'll just buy her out, it works with everyone."
Flo has been told many times by several people that she has a hard time containing her anger. And it's almost as if the more people talk to her about it, the more difficult it is to restrain herself.
Summer knows that her best friend is serious when the girl races to her room to change and brings her keys back with her. "Get in the car." Flo commands her friend. Both terrified and intrigued, Summer doesn't protest and does what her friend tells her to.
The tires on the car squeal as Flo whips back down to the beach to find Bax. When she narrows in on him is when the boy also catches sight of her. By the look on her face, she doesn't even have to tell him for him to know that he should get in the back seat.
"I need directions to your house."
* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ * 。° 。 • ˚
Flo is eerily calm as she knocks lightly on the front door, her two friends waiting awkwardly behind her. Right now her logic is that she doesn't want to get in trouble for breaking and entering, otherwise she wouldn't be wasting her time with patience.
A sadistic grin grows on her face within seconds when she sees the blonde girl answer the door. Before Wren even looks at who's at the door, she's on the ground with Flo on top of her. Flo hits her in the face not once, but twice.
Wren manages to get a punch in, her fist connecting with Florentina's mouth. A metallic taste pools in her mouth, making her more furious and she punches Wren one more time. Her breathing is heavy when she pulls herself back up to standing. Nodding to herself when she's back up, she's proud of the fact that she didn't injure the girl anywhere that would interfere with surfing.
"Control your bitch!" Flo cackles at the girl's words with a bloody smile, throwing her head back as she laughs. When Florentina can feel a hand brush her arm, she doesn't fight it when Bax and Summer gently guide her away from the girl on the floor.
As they walk away, Flo flips up her middle finger and yells back, "Have a splendid day!"
Once the three of them are back in the car, they sit there in silence for a moment before Summer speaks up, "You need to go back to anger management."
Flo's eyes dart over to Summer, still feeling euphoric and trying to process her words. "That wasn't even that bad."
"You were in anger management?" Despite watching the girl he may have a tiny crush on beat up his sister, his focus is still on her. His two sisters have never been nice to him in the slightest so he doesn't feel any remorse over watching it happen.
The adrenaline in Flo starts to drain and the girl wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. When she pulls it back and takes in the sight of her own blood, she nods at her friend. "Okay. Yeah, at the end of the summer I'll go."
Let's be honest here. Summer could have suggested the idea at any point and Florentina would listen. The teen would lay down her life for Summer without a second of hesitation, so asking Flo to go back to therapy isn't that big of a deal to her.
"I have to go home and talk my mom out of making me go back to New York. Bax, take care of her for me, okay? No more trouble." The boy nods contentedly at the girl's request before the car speeds off.
* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ * 。° 。 • ˚
"So, tell me more about this anger management thing." Baxter gestures for Flo to pull herself up on to the sink as he talks to her. When he decides that the girl is going to slow for him, he places his hands at the sides of her waist and lifts her the rest of the way up.
Flo's eyes stay glued to what he's doing as he searches through the cabinet behind the mirror. "They tried having me on some medication but I forgot to keep taking it so they kind of just gave up with that. And then they tried teaching me some coping bullshit with counting but, in the moment, how am I supposed to think about counting?"
Baxter chuckles at her when she says the last part— he can definitely see where she's coming from. He doesn't think that if he was blinded by anger that he would be able to think about counting either. "And that was back in New York?"
The pink-haired boy hands her a wet towel to wipe the blood off of her face and starts looking for some numbing cream. "No, that was in Chicago."
"You're from Chicago?" He stops his search for a moment and leans against the sink with his arms crossed, giving her his full attention. He doesn't know when he will ever get her to open up like this again so he decides to take full advantage of it.
Flo winces when the towel touches her split lip and puts the towel down. She can feel their arms brush against each other as she tries to get comfortable on top of the counter again. She hums and nods as she answers, "Yeah, I was born there. I only moved to New York when the foster system ran out of homes for me to stay in." When Flo realizes that she's said too much for her comfort, she quickly inhales before hopping off on the sink and walking in to her room.
She doesn't notice that the boy disappears for a few minutes while she zones in on finding a movie to watch. Her eyes light up in child-like excitement when she stumbles across one of the Spider-Man movies and she quickly plays it.
Right in the middle of making herself comfortable, Bax walks in and announces, "I couldn't find an ice pack but I did find this." The boy presents the container of ice cream and two spoons like they're prized possessions. Helping himself in to her bed, he asks, "What are we watching?"
Usually Flo would protest about him being in her bed just like she did earlier in the day. But, at this point, the sun is going down and she is flat out exhausted. "Spider-Man." Her eyes are still sparkling in excitement, only glowing brighter when he looks at her with a matching expression.
About half way through the movie, the bucket of ice cream has been completely demolished and the two teenagers are passed out under the blankets. Even though the entire day has been a complete rollercoaster of emotions, they both feel content as they fall into a deeper sleep. What Flo doesn't notice, however, is the text she gets from Poppy overnight.
Wren told me about you and Marlon.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
