Where in the hell did my skim boards go? I’ve been in my basement looking for them for like 20 minutes now. Chris was waiting for me outside. I guess he got impatient because he came back in. He had a drink in his hand and a mouth full of food; I’m guessing Betty brought it to him. Betty is a maid here. She’s so friendly and loves to talk to anyone or about anything. Sometimes I don’t even think of her as a maid. She’s more like a mother figure to me.
“Dude, where are they?” Chris asked me with food in his mouth. He spit a little out of his mouth while saying ‘they’ and it flew towards me. I jumped back and he looked at me funny.
“I have no idea! Ugh, just wanna boogie board instead?” I said frustrated.
“Sure,” he said.
I knew where those were. I found them while looking for the skim boards. I grabbed them, handed one to Chris and we walked outside. He set his drink on the table in front of the door and ran to the water. I took of my shirt threw it on the table and ran right behind him. We stayed out there for a few hours then went back inside. Betty had some dinner made but I wasn’t really hungry. It was only like 5:00. I just told her that I was going to walk around outside. Chris sat down and started eating. I went upstairs to change into some dry clothes and headed out the door. Once I walked outside the afternoon sun blinded me, so I ran back inside to get my sunglasses. It was a beautiful afternoon, though. I walked up and back down the street slowly, trying to pass time. It had been about 25 minutes before I started to get hungry. I walked back to the house to get some food. When I sat down to eat, I realized that Betty had started to make another plate of food for me. She was so nice.
“Betty you didn’t have to…” I trailed off.
She said, “Yes, Mr. Joe I know, but I thought you’d like a nice fresh plate.”
“I could’ve just warmed it up in-” I was cut off.
“Mr. Joe, it’s okay! I don’t mind. Really,” she insisted so I had to agree.
“Okay. Well thanks, I appreciate it,” I smiled at her and she nodded while smiling back then walked to the kitchen to wash the dishes. “And stop calling me Mr. Joe” I exclaimed laughing.
Truth is I really did appreciate it.
I went upstairs to my room and for some odd reason, Chris was there looking out my back door towards the ocean. Since my house was so big, I gave almost half of it to Chris. I say ‘almost half’ because it’s more as if I have 60 percent and he has 40; but mine had a better view of the beach and I could also see the house across the culdesac from my deck, which looped around along the side of the house. Like I'd give up the better view…
I went up to the door and looked out.
Well I thought he was looking at the ocean but now I’m almost positive he was looking at the girl – in the ocean. She dove under so gracefully and came back up, head leant back and hair falling down past her shoulders. She started walking out of the water and holy crap… she had a nice body. She was in a bikini but unlike all the other sluts around here, it wasn’t too revealing. She had beautiful brown hair that was like 3 inches past her shoulder. It was straight, but probably because of the water. Another girl in a bikini came running down the beach with two beach chairs; she was a little shorter. She also had straight hair but it was blonde and above her shoulders. From where we were, it looked like a ‘Rihanna bob’ you know where it was like shorter in the back and longer in the front? She gave one chair to the girl that was already there and they brought them into the water right where it was shallow enough that it just barely hit the underneath of the chair. They sat down and started to talk. They played in the water with their feet just splashing them around and occasionally one would splash the other. They’d use their hands to splash a more massive amount of water at each other.
“Damn they are HOT!” Chris exclaimed. “I call dibs on the tall one.”
“I don’t think they live here. I’ve never seen them before,” I told Chris.
“Well they both came out of that house.” He pointed to the house across the culdesac. “Maybe they’re related to that guy that lives there.”
“I dunno.” We stood in silence for a few seconds then I decided to continue. “But whatever dude. Wanna watch a movie?” he nodded his head and we went in the theater room and picked a movie. “Horror, comedy, drama… which one?”
“A scary movie’s good,” he said.
I said “Okay,” and picked one out of random. It was basically about this dude who had an ex that died and she came back to haunt him and he seemed crazy to everyone - really not that scary actually, it was kind of like those movies that make fun of others.
I hadn’t really been paying attention to the movie, I just couldn’t seem to get the picture of that girl out of my head. I don’t care if Chris called dibs, dibs was a childish thing anyways, I would get to know her. I’d get to know her and then who knows what might happen.
After the movie had finished, it was dark. It seemed like a nice night. It was warm and there was almost a full moon so I decided to take a walk along the beach. I had school tomorrow though. Ugh, the beginning of the last week.
As I was walking along the beach, I became tired and sat down. I was facing the water, not sitting too far from shore, looking up at the moon. It reminded me of the last night I saw Angie. I started to tear up but pushed it off. I didn’t want to cry - not tonight at least. I lied down on my back in the sand with my knees angled and hands behind my head. I laid there for a while just listening to the ocean and looking up at the stars. There were so many – I tried to count but quickly lost my place every time. I don’t know how many times I tried to recount but I never got past 10 stars without messing up.
I was laying there for about 20 minutes when I had drifted into a light sleep. Right after I had fallen asleep, something kicked me and let out a small yelp, which woke me up with a short gasp because hell, it scared me. I hadn’t heard anything coming. When I gasped, I jerked my torso upwards and not even in the blink of an eye, something fell vigorously on top of me.
Before realizing what it was, I exclaimed “What the –”
I cut myself off when I saw that a beautiful girl was laying on top of me. It wasn’t just any beautiful girl, though. I had seen her before – or so I thought. I couldn’t see much of her but I think she was one of those girls on the beach today. She had to have been the taller one because she didn’t have short hair. I would know because it was in my face.
She got up as quickly as she could and began to talk super fast without pausing and used lots of hand motions. I kept my focus on her face though, trying to adjust my eyes to the low light to see her better.
“Oh my god I’m so sorry I wasn’t paying attention I was looking at the water then before I knew it I tripped on something that happened to be you and I had my hands in my shirt and I couldn’t catch myself when I lost my balance-”
I put my hand on her bare arm to stop her from talking and she took a super deep breath. She felt warm underneath my touch although it was chilly out here.
“No, no… it’s ok. I didn’t mean to yell. I'm sorry. It was an accident. I understand,” I reassured her. I smiled at her but she didn’t return it. I could now see better and she had a worried face on and almost looked like she was going to cry. I could tell by the gleam in her eyes that they were watery.
For some reason she kept looking at my chest.
She looked down at my chest again and ran her fingers through her wavy brown hair. It looked smooth and shiny as the moonlight shone down on her. She had big brown eyes and beautiful long eyelashes. Her cheekbones were high but blended in with her structure perfectly. She then let out a breathy “Ahh…” She brought her brows together in worry.
She shook her head slightly, letting her loose waves move with her. “I’m so sorry…” she started. “ I didn’t mean to…” she trailed off.
I chuckled a little to myself and looked down at my chest. Oh my god, there was blood seeping through my shirt! My smile faded and I ripped my shirt off. It looked like claw marks. How did this happen? I mean she had her arms in her shirt – there’s no way she could’ve done thi- Oh wait, yeah. That’s where a dog that belonged to one of the neighbors scratched me. She must have opened the wound when she fell on me. It had just healed to a scab about two days ago and apparently, it didn’t take a whole lot to open it back up.
“Oh, no. You didn’t-” I started to say. I went to look up, but before I could finish I had water splashed on me and it burned a little. It was salty – I could tell because it got into my mouth and eyes, making them burn too. On top of that, I had a headache because something hit my head during the accident. I think it was her shoulder.
“Gahh,” I started to let out.
“Oh no! Oh my, I – I’m sorry! I just wanted to help… a – and I thought… I thought the salt water would… would heal the wound, you know” she stuttered. It actually did help, though. I only yelled because it got into my eyes.
“Stop it. Its fine,” I smiled trying to reassure her while squinting because of the salt in my eyes. I couldn’t really see well at the moment; not that it was bright enough to see much anyways. “It's starting to feel better already,” I assured. I didn’t want her to worry more.
She smiled a sweet, innocent smile then stood up and stuck her hand out to help me up. I grabbed her hand and stood. “Rae,” she said. She put her hand out once again to shake mine.
I shook her hand and simply said “Joe.”