Thirty-One Letters

Seven

Sometimes it's ok if the only thing you did today was breathe—Yumi Sakugawa

Her neck was sore. So was her back. And her shoulders and arms and legs and basically every part of her body. She felt like she'd been twisted into a pretzel and left all night to sit and go stale in the food court of a shopping mall.

Hadley groaned and lifted her head off the back of the lawn chair. The tide was low and the sun was starting to rise up in the sky, lighting the horizon with the warm hues of sunrise. She could hear people moving about somewhere down the beach but her neck was so stiff she could hardly move it. As she swung her legs off the chair and moved to stand, she felt all of the bones in her body creak and pop.

Hadley had forgotten about this part. The soreness and the stiffness that came from camping out on the beach. Everything hurt as she rose to her feet and she had to take a few minutes to stretch before she could even begin packing up her things and walking home.

Her mother was flipping through a recipe book in the kitchen when Hadley entered. She was in the process of lifting a half-finished coffee to her lips when she raised an eyebrow at her daughter who walked in after depositing the lawn chair and the blankets on the porch. Hadley decided that she would deal with them after a long hot shower and breakfast.

"Rough night?" Hadley's mother asked.

Hadley groaned and rubbed at her aching neck. "Just a bit," she said.

She thought of sleeping out on the beach and the salty ocean air coming in on the breeze. Even though it was nearing the part of summer where it would blisteringly hot all of the time, the night air had still grown quite cold, especially being next to the water without any form of barricade to block her from the wind. 

And then, of course, there was the embarrassment of seeing Ty again after she'd furiously hoped to never see him again.

Her mother laughed, a bright tinkling sound. "Well, you're not ten years old anymore. You've grown accustomed to the finer things in life like mattresses and doors. You didn't care about those things as a kid. Back then you were just after the fun."

Hadley watched as her mother's smile turned sad and she knew that she was thinking of Tanner and the memories her children had made together growing up. Hadley felt that same influx of sadness hit her but she felt more connected to her brother after sleeping on the beach than she had in months.

"Yeah, I guess. Anyways, I need to take a shower. I smell like the beach."

"Okay. I'll be out here. We've got the barbecue tonight so I'll probably be cooking all day to get things ready."

"Barbecue?"

Her mother blinked at her. "The Independence Day barbecue down at the beach we do every year? You feeling okay?"

"Yeah," Hadley said. "I just forgot what day it was. That's all."

Truth was, Hadley hadn't even realized that it was the fourth of July. She'd been so distracted by Tanner and his challenges that the days of the month had become completely irrelevant. She wasn't even sure she wanted to go to the annual barbecue. Some of her friends from school would likely be in attendance and so would most of her neighbours who would all be offering their condolences. The last thing she wanted to do was sit through a night of apologies that wouldn't remotely change anything.

Hadley headed towards her bedroom. She had her scrapbook tucked under her arm. She'd worked on the book until all of the challenges she'd completed were documented within its pages. The book was bright and vibrant, full of colour and silly fonts and stickers. It was exactly the type of thing that Tanner would have wanted her to make.