Life's A Beach

Part One : How Did It Start? The Summer

It had been the best summer of my life. I wasn't planning on being a volunteer for my local community center again this year but I guess the years of coming back to the same old place really wore off on me. I wish I could leave but I honestly could not. This place is a part of me. I am so glad I did it though. If I didn't do it I would have never met him. I saw him on orientation day which was a week before everyone's volunteering experiences started.

At first I didn't recognize him, he was a tall, pale brunette with the most killer smile and perfect physique  I have ever seen. Then I heard his name, and suddenly it all started to click. "Okay everyone I would like you all to introduce yourselves, please say your name, your age, the school you attend, and a fact about yourselves," said the Dragon Lady, Mrs. Amanda. First, went my best friend Alyssa Chang. She is the boldest, bravest person I had ever met. I love her. I don't think that I would still be alive if it wasn't for her. She was so happy and amazing compared to me at least. I am a closeted bisexual with an introverted personality. Who also is technically has severely depressed and severe anxiety but I don't like to slap labels on people. Next was my other best friend Ryan Kitagawa. We are neighbors and are pretty close family friends. Pretty much he is my brother. I love him too. I normally don't use the word love so frequently but when you have my favorite people in the same room as me the word may come up more the once.

Then it was my turn. All I needed to do was say my name, my age, my school, and one fact about me. I can do this, this isn't too hard. My name is Haru, I am fifteen, I attend Evanston high school as a sophomore next school year, and I was born in Japan, is what I tried to say but failed so miserably at doing. I said it so soft it didn't even sound like I said anything. Then Mrs. Dragon Lady asked me to speak up and repeat myself.  "Oh God," I thought, why do I do this to myself. I never make good first impression. I said it again, Haru is my names, I age is fifteen, I got to Evanston school, Japan is born I was where. "Crap." A couple people started laughing and my face turned very hot which meant I was a bright shade of red.

Luckily Alyssa stepped saving my ass by saying, "English isn't his first language so don't put too much pressure on him. He is trying and stuff." All I could do was smile awkwardly and try to pretend that messing up like that didn't totally bother me but it most certainly did. I literally wanted to die. I am so awkward. Then he went up. He towered over me at my short stature of five foot seven inches. He had a firm, relaxing voice, that went so well with his beautiful green eyes that stood out like fireworks upon his pale face. "Hey guys," he said with a powerful but peaceful voice. My name is Johnny Myers, I am sixteen years old, I attend Evanston high school as a sophomore next year, and I want to be an Olympic swimmer and I have been competitively swimming for nine years and I am also technically a qualified lifeguard. There it was. I finally knew his name. Johnny Myers. Apparently he went to my school. How didn't I realize this beautiful creature sooner.

I wasn't paying attention and had zoned out thinking about how I missed him at our small little high school. I think I was out for a while because by the time I got back to focus Mrs. Dragon Lady called me and told me I hope you were paying attention to everyone's because these are people are going to be your world and who you are going to be living with for this whole summer. Oh God, I did it again. Why do I do this to myself. Then we had to do this group activity will all the other junior leaders. I didn't remember anyone's name other than Alyssa, Ryan, and Johnny.

Luckily I got put in a group with Ryan and some other girls. Ryan helped me out with the names of everyone and I got put into a group with a girl named Shara Amara and Andy Castelo. Shara has the blondest hair I have ever seen and the whitest teeth I have ever seen. She apparently a model and is seventeen years old. Andy is a Philippines born citizen who had a white father and a Filipino mother. She had very black hair with a surprisingly fair skin tone. I looked around for Alyssa in the group of about twelve junior leaders I saw her in a group with guess who, Johnny Myers. I wish I was her just so I could bask in his beautiful presence. After a long stare, Andy then said so I'm pretty sure that you weren't paying attention so we are supposed to just think of ideas that we could do for games and activates for our camp. Ryan suggested that we should have water balloon fights since that shouldn't cost to much and I know that if he was a kid he would totally enjoy that. Then Shara said that we should have bubbles because bubbles are awesome. Her legitimate answer was bubbles are awesome and I must say that I agree with her. Thinking I needed to contribute to our idea list I decided to say we should have a mini carnival and we as junior leader could make games for the children and prizes could be rewards like candy or dunking leader with buckets of water. "Wow that's a good idea," said Shara said surprised. I blushed and said thanks you.

Then Mrs. Dragon Lady spoke aloud and said "okay everyone I want everyone to share their ideas." Mr. cant pay attention, please share your group's idea. A couple people laughed and Alyssa death stared them till they stopped and felt fear in their hearts. I begin to speak and I actually successfully was able to speak properly and got all my ideas out nicely. Finally, I'm glad I could finally do something right. Next was a group of boys and one girls. Then Alyssa's group. Then a group of half girls and half guys went. All the ideas that were stated were generally amazing and I was so excited to began a new chapter of my life with them. We would meet again tomorrow with more group activities and group bonding and stuff but I was excited to spend this summer with my best friends and I honestly couldn't believe I coaxed them into this again, another year of hopefully good memories.

I was one of the people who volunteered to help put up chairs and reorganize the room and so was Johnny. I was anxious knocking two chairs down after I had already put them on the desk and all Johnny did was laugh. After I finished my portion of the room I started to walk out the door when I realized that Johnny waited for me and was sitting on a counter of the classroom like room. Me, being the awkward human being that I am I just walked out not saying anything. Then I heard his footsteps and I started walking faster till he grabbed my arm and pulled me close to him and said, "You know you're pretty cute, Are you single?" "Yeah, why," I replied back. "I was just curious," he responded back. "Well you're pretty attractive too," I said in a kind of sarcastic tone. "Thanks," he said as he flashed me a smile. I blushed super hard, tried to avoid eye contact and said, "You are welcome pretty boy. See you next week." And this is when I knew it was about to be the very best summer of my life.