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This is a dual-POV story.
Dreams weren't real, like the sun that burned my scalp and corneas. I needed my brain shut off, not itchy, grating sand wedged in every crack of my body and dried out skin from briny ocean salt. My gray matter wiped clean was better, but those brain cells were essential for college.
I was past all this... I fixed it, and it went away.
Gone, but not forgotten. Two years with no trigger.
Why now?
Nothing here answered that question. More importantly, nothing among the infinite grains of sand fixed my invisible walls of self-preservation. An ant under a magnifying glass, I squinted under the glaring UV rays. Blinding myself wouldn't shut off the inflood of reminders. The prick of pain in my eyes wasn't enough to quell the buzz of overstimulation in my brain. It sizzled as if I splattered it onto the asphalt beneath my feet.
College, Ellie.
College was the solution, the broom that swept away this resurfacing bullshit. But until I could get there, I was stuck. Stuck in my life –stuck in my brain– as much as I was physically stuck in this parking lot, where my hair draped a heating pad over my back and shoulders. A few hot strands tickled my forehead with a breeze. I tucked them behind my ears and lifted my eyes for a seagull check.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me."
"Pfft, suck it up." A feminine laugh filled my ears, vibrating the back of my neck. Hands grabbed my waist and pushed me away from her car. "It'll be fun."
To her credit, Harper hadn't said a word about my nightmare, but behind her sunglasses, her look screamed 'we will discuss it.' It wasn't that I had a nightmare; I had the nightmare. Two years of defensive walls crumbled when I woke up, sweat-soaked, my heart pounding, and my mind reeling.
Why I had it rattled me as much as the nightmare itself. Last time, I needed fifteen months to remove it from my brain and I was damned determined not to go that recovery route again.
For sure, I needed a distraction. But not this particular one.
Ugh, the beach.
Us here was as much my fault as Harper's punishment, err, solution. Uncertainty stirred in my stomach. The beach would not make me feel better. In lieu of talking, this was her 'fun osmosis.' Scavenging seagulls that soared above with cawed threats to shit on us? No, thank you. Don't get me started on jellyfish and sharks. Or worse, surfer boys.
"Stop overthinking about boys and sharks." She grabbed her bag from the back seat. "It's written all over your face."
The far-off crash of waves washed out my grumbles. As any boy's 'shrinkage' could confirm, those blue waters of deception were ice cold. There were so many preferable alternatives to water frolicking among girls in skimpy bikinis and skin-peeling dad bods.
Pluck my eyelashes out one at a time.
Adopt a rabid raccoon.
Attempt goat yoga.
Go on a date.
I couldn't deny that NorCal was picturesque from every angle. Dry, cool breezes kissed my cheeks. In hours, the sunset would paint ribbons of vivid colors across the sky and tint the water aquamarine. My Achilles heel of fast food – the warm, cinnamon-sugar fried goodness of churros – was overpowered by the smell of fried foods, questionably sourced hot dogs, popcorn, and ocean salt. Remote screams from the roller coasters sandwiched the white sands against the melodic, metronome of waves crashing on the shore.
"No." I scowled at all of it. "No way. I'll nap in the car, Harper."
I didn't hate the outdoors. Being surrounded by the quiet, natural beauty of the majestic Redwoods? Sign me up. Losing all sense of time and self in a book? Even better.
"Harper." My whine lowered her glasses an inch. By the stubborn look in her eyes and the beep of her locked doors, whining was mandatory. "I hate the beach."
Her gazelle legs strode across the sand. "How can you love reading, but not enjoy doing it here?"
I gasped. Sand lodged in the cracks of my books was almost as offensive as it was in any of mine. Moisture pricked my armpits and behind my knees. How was I already sweating? "Two words: sand and melanoma. What are you plotting, Harper?"
"Again, stop overthinking," she said over her shoulder. "You asked for a diversion? This is one, trust me."
Trust me, she says.
I trust her. Why would she think I don't?
My ankles wobbled as I kicked sand into the cuffs of my jeans. Friction itched my skin as if rubbed by fine-grained sandpaper. I stumbled and almost face-planted.
Twice.
Perspiration beaded my hairline as I squinted ahead. Families built sandcastles near that cold water's edge, footballs and volleyballs were tossed, and groups of girls giggled at any and all eye candy in board shorts and banana-peeled wetsuits. Harper's sun-kissed blonde hair, sky-blue eyes, and legs for miles completed the beach's poster.
And yet, I couldn't engage in any of it. Maybe that was Harper's point, find something so not me, that I couldn't think about being me.
"Do I need to state the obvious?"
"You mean how you haven't shaved or waxed, ever?" Harper smirked and dropped her bag with a thud. "I almost took you to the salon for some Amazonian machete ladyscaping, except that would be a wasted effort."
Ladyscaping. I narrowed my eyes. "And how would that make me feel better?"
"Brazilians hurt like a bitch." She shrugged as a slight breeze tossed her hair. "Would've been a good distraction. Who knows, maybe we can-"
"No." I crossed my arms. "Halt all boy-related trains of thought at 'not a chance' station."
Her lips pursed, and she shifted her gaze, then exhaled a loud, frustrated sigh at the cluster of boys near the waterline. "Fuck, I didn't know Jake was here. Now I need a diversion."
I shaded my eyes at his half-dressed, tall, broad-shouldered, muscular body. A six-pack was wasted on my brother. Never far from football, he sprinted around with his teammates. Even barefoot in the sand, Jake was a freaking olive-skinned racehorse.
Some days – fine most – I had no idea how we were related.
Our differences were beyond obvious. All we had to do was stand next to each other. Every day served me reminders that we were nothing alike. His confidence, my introversion. His charisma, my self-deprecation. He demanded respect; I existed in my quiet content. His participation, my observations.
"From this far away," Harper's voice pulled my gaze to her scowl. "He doesn't look like a complete asshole. But fuck him. We're here to have fun."
"Drowning fun?" My knees buckled, so I sat with a huff. "Or puking my guts fun?"
"You won't drown or puke," Harper said. I didn't believe her for a second, not with her eyes screaming fun osmosis setup. "Shocker, you might actually smile. And, with all this festering beach hatred, I bet you haven't thought about... you know."
Yes, I knew. Painfully, I knew.
Even an indirect reminder was a dull stab in my chest.
The panic that vaulted me upright at two a.m. raised the hairs on the back of my neck and forearms. It shortened my breath, and I closed my eyes to calm down the frenetic beats pounding in my ears.
A shift in my weight sank my heels into the sand and pitched me off-balance. Control slipped out of my grasp, and I needed it back.
Control wasn't a tiny, red string bikini, but Harper tossed one in my face. "Bathing suit first."
Correction: string was too generous. It was three red eye patches attached to dental floss.
She was right. I was more than distracted.
Given a web of material, I groaned as she peeled off her coverup and revealed her 'how-do-you-not-exercise' figure. Nothing was wrong with my body, except I resembled a middle schooler more than an incoming senior. Eight inches shorter, I was a pile of seaweed next to a mermaid.
Piles of seaweed had their purposes in life. Mine was to bide time until college rescued me from the exact incident I tried very hard to forget.
"And that." She flashed a wicked grin, pointing at a wood shack twenty yards away. My heart sank. "It's just a distraction, Elle. You'll be fine."
"Really, really bad idea!"
I spat out another cold, salty ocean mouthful. Every taste bud burned as if I licked acid. Why had I agreed to this? All ten fingers were prunes. My exposed stomach and back stung. This distraction was not worth drowning for.
I'll take overthinking and panicking over this.
"You're not trying!" Harper loomed over me. Her shadow blocked out the semicircular sun chasing the horizon.
I'm going to drown.
My short, 'last dodgeball pick' arms flailed to grasp my board, abandoned during my most recent belly flop. She stroked her paddle with the ease of a swan, caught my torture device, and pushed it to me.
"I'm trying everything not to drown!" I said through a mix of coughs and sputters. A saltwater burn seeped into my internal organs. Yep, definitely going to drown. I'm going to drown and get eaten by sharks. I'll never make it to college and-
"You're the most uncoordinated person I know." Standing steady, she resumed paddling. "Even at your height, you realize you can stand up, right?"
Now she tells me.
A wave crested in my face. Chilly, salty foam rushed up my nose and burned my sinuses. On the down swell, I palmed my board and stood in hip-height water. Cold sand squelched between my toes and goosebumps pricked the exposed skin on my chest.
Harper's head tipped back, and her throat bobbed with hearty laughs. "Your right nipple is showing. Again."
I adjusted this ridiculous bathing suit and frowned. "I'm done."
The ocean agreed, delivering a smack on my ass at the breakpoint. I dragged the board behind me one stomp at a time. Rivers dripped out of my stringy hair, rolling down my legs. Both hands full, I prayed my nipples stayed covered because my breasts bounced as if I walked a fault line.
Ocean–too many to count.
Eleanor Harrison–zero.
Once Harper's bathing suit was where it belonged, off me, I made sure my phone was nestled inside my kangaroo pocket and yanked my jeans over my sand-covered legs. "Paddleboarding... Never again."
The smell of salt in my ratty hair raised bile in my stomach. I released my ponytail with a sigh and wished that I could scratch the salt and brine off my tongue. Harper should've known better. Chin tucked, teeth clenched, and drowned in as much self-pity as I had in a three-foot ocean depth, I took another sand walk of shame. The board and paddle cut two small paths en route to the rental shack.
"Elle, wait!" Harper's voice rang out. One arm clutched her board, and her breasts bounced out of a teenage boy's wet dream. "If I run too fast then I'll pop out of my top and give myself a black eye."
Saying she had a way with words was an understatement. My quick and descriptive punches always stayed internalized unless I was with her or Jake. She could keep her biting insults and sex appeal; my arsenal included quiet stubbornness and the ability to hold lifelong grudges.
Despite my stomach impersonating a saline fish tank, I laughed. "No one needs to see that."
"Let me carry yours." She dropped her gear and reached for mine, but her hands stopped mid-air. Her smirk over my shoulder turned me away from whatever boy put that glimmer in her eyes.
With a laugh, she gave me a playful shove. My right ankle rolled, and I knocked into a group of guys standing between me and the board shack.
"Hey, watch it," one snipped as I smashed his shoulder.
Momentum encouraged me to fall flat on my face. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for impact, but a warm, strong arm slipped over my racing heart. Large, warm hands turned me over. Despite muffled contact from my sweatshirt, tingles spread from where his fingers gripped. I cracked my eyes open to a shadowed face. Two beautiful green eyes blurred into four. Or, I assumed they were green. With the sun setting, I couldn't tell.
"S-sorry," I stammered with more breath than voice.
"S'okay, baby." The face smiled with a flash of white teeth. My eyes didn't travel any higher because arrogance ruined his deep voice. "Girls fall at my feet all the time. Although, your face would make any guy's knees weak."
Baby? Seriously? Talk about one of the most offensive pet names, second only to angry Chihuahua. Moment killed.
"Ugh." My palms shoved away a hard chest. As I fell, my heart sank lower than my dignity, and gales of laughter followed me down. Six pairs of knees surrounded me, attached to athletic, chiseled calves dotted with various stages of hair growth.
Jocks.
Never again would I get involved with one of them. I was related to their king, whose presence in my life was already too much.
"Careful baby, you dropped this." Mystery Jerk handed me my phone. I snatched it back with a glare. Nausea rolled through my stomach, which I clenched.
"Oh, fuck! Are you okay?" Harper's frantic voice called. "Move, knuckle draggers."
I tipped back my head. "Harper!"
Her pink flip-flops parted the sea of legs one shin kick at a time. She grabbed my wrists and pulled me into a cage of broad shoulders and chests. I gagged at the mix of deodorants, colognes, and stinky testosterone overload wafting around me. The tight confines from a concentric entrapment of hard muscles and arrogant smirks pressed in on me. Such similar builds, muscles glistening in sweat and corded in tension, struck me immobile.
Cocky arrogance. Broad shoulders. Overpowering arms.
The enclosure of bodies blurred. Weakness struck the back of my knees, and the sand shifted under my feet. I gasped and caught my breath in my lungs, where it burned.
Not again.
Focal point. I need a focal point.
A black and red "S" block letter on the corner of their T-shirts sufficed. I stared at the closest one and willed my breath to slow. Once it leveled, these particular jocks didn't deserve a second glance. They weren't from our school.
Harper pulled me away and dusted the sand off my backside with her palms.
"Need help?" Cackles split through the evening air, followed by catcalls and suggestive comments asking if I had anything that needed to be kissed.
"Guys, enough. Her girlfriend's got it," a third taunted.
I glared mental laser beams at them, swatted away Harper's hands, and turned my back on this herd of idiotic meatheads. Talk about a worse distraction. "Chivalry is dead," I said indignantly over my shoulder. "And she's not my girlfriend, but I wouldn't expect any of you to know what one actually looks like."
"Sorry," Harper whispered over my sand stomps. "I didn't mean to make you trip."
The boys gawked as we returned my stuff to the paddleboard shack, tossing them at the feet of a burly, disinterested guy. Muttering, "Thanks," I wobbled back to our towels with the weight of perverted eyes on my ass.
"It's okay." I directed my strongest glare at the boys, whose lips curled up into smirks. Ugh, that look. My skin crawled.
"Ignore them. They're not worth adding deposits to the five-knuckle shufflers' spank banks." Harper walked me around a group of eight-year-olds projecting they were bored with everything in life. "Still want to watch the sunset?"
"Yeah." I nodded. "Did you see their shirts? Assholes from Salesian."
She scrunched her nose and eyebrows together. "Total assholes."
One of them scanned her curves and grinned. "Come here, babe," he called over the kids' heads. "Happy to give you my full, undivided attention."
"I'd rather shave my nipples off with a nail file than take your sausage factory tour." She flipped him a middle finger, but I groaned at her choice of words. She baited him into-
"Match made in heaven..." He extended his hands and gestured a few pelvic thrusts. "Your buns, my meat stick."
Had it been me, I would've turned away mortified. But Harper relished in these ego-crushing opportunities and, other than her lips twitching up at the corners, she was unfazed. "I don't eat hot dogs!"
And I won't eat those again. "I'm so glad witnesses are hearing this." I wanted to cover the closest kid's ears, but I sat with a grunt.
"See that, kids?" She pointed at Mr. Hip-thruster's continuous piston gyrations. Did he have an off switch? "Don't do steroids."
His obscenities reminded me of Jake. Where was he, anyway? I rolled my eyes. "I can't with these misogynist egos."
"Same." She surrendered her board to another round of catcalls, which earned the boys her two middle fingers. "Speaking of guys with more than one shared brain cell, how's Alex? Is he doing that stupid school thing you applied for?"
"I don't know." I shook my head. "I haven't heard much from him. And no, he's not doing the ambassador program."
"You're the only one I know who applied." Her coy tone mirrored the gleam in her eyes. "Why don't you text him?"
"What would I say?"
"Umm... how about hi, how are you? Thinking of you? Let's talk about Steinbeck? I don't know." Her chipped black nails scratched her chin.
Alex was quiet, thoughtful, and serious. Our discussions delved deeper than some hot new girl, upcoming party, or jock strap refills. He was the type of a guy I could see myself with in college, my chance to start over with a blank slate. "I don't know either." I grimaced. "This is why we're single."
My joke rolled off her as Harper turned to me. She paused with an unusual hint of uncertainty in her voice. "Ignoring that dick display, are you going to date this year? Not that spineless Henderson. Someone who can gouge under Jake's skin."
A scoff left my mouth at the word 'date,' which pushed my reply out fast and bitter, "No. I'm waiting to expire." She should know better than to ask me that. I'd never date anyone with the sole motivation to piss off Jake. He was insufferable enough to live without that unnecessary level-up.
I didn't need to look at her to know she was unconvinced. "Are you... Okay, Elle?"
"Yeah?" The word came out more like a question than a confirmation, making her frown.
"The nightmare, I mean." Her voice softened. "Sorry for dragging you here. Meeting assholes wasn't in my plan. I only wanted to give you a diversion, even if it's one you didn't like."
She had. I had spent most of the time here focused on the details of why I hated it. A shudder ran down my spine as the images replayed in my mind. I shuddered and closed my eyes, wishing I didn't have them memorized.
I'll never get involved with another football player ever again.
"It's fine." I waved a dismissive hand. "We'll never see them again, so it's nothing."
"Speak for your - oh, fuck!"
Her gaze shifted behind us, where shouts and curses rang out. Anywhere my brother appeared, attention gravitated to him. Jake's confident swagger projected his football field-sized ego within a twenty-foot radius. More than that, he confronted two of the guys that Harper and I abandoned. His favorite frayed-edge Cardinals hat was backward and his bare back and shoulder muscles rippled with his arms raised.
Not again.
By Harper's scoff, the one girl he never impressed remained so. "You'd better sistervention so dick for brains isn't expelled before school starts. Or worse, arrested."
She was right; my hot-headed brother had too much to lose from stupid fights. "He's not getting any of my savings for bail money."
I sprung to my feet, trudging in slow motion as his hands fisted one guy's shirt. "No no no no," I murmured. "Don't do it, Jake."
For once, I moved faster than Harper. My stomach churned as I stepped in the middle of a meathead sandwich and grasped the steel cables of Jake's forearms. His dark brown eyes blackened with rage, his face flushed red, and his right temple's anger vein protruded. A shriek tore up my dry, raw throat, "Jake!"
"Empty threats, Harrison," the guy behind me challenged, his voice full of reckless confidence. "One of these days, someone-"
"Fuck off, Hightower." With a sneer over my shoulder, Jake's arms flinched and loosened my grip. His eyes met mine. "Move, Ellie. This doesn't concern you."
My eyes shifted over my shoulder, to the chest of the poor guy in Jake's grasp. He was... taller than Jake? Maybe he was - nope, another smirker.
"You concern me." I palmed the accelerated beats in my brother's chest. "He's not worth it."
A wall of heat leaned over my back. Goosebumps pricked on the back of my neck, trickling shivers down my spine. A warm breath kissed under my right ear and his words hummed with pure arrogance. "Promise I'm very much worth it, baby."
Seriously? Not the place, and never the time. Whoever this guy was, his inability to dial down the inappropriate schmooze deserved another over-the-shoulder glare... directed at his chest.
"Bitch boy." Jake's biceps tightened outside my shoulders. "You have five seconds-"
"Stop! And listen, you." I whirled around to a gray T-shirt. Bubbles of discomfort rose in my stomach, rolling it with nausea. I covered my mouth with both hands. "You..."
Harper's hand cupped my elbow. "What's wrong, Elle?"
"Ulp." An internal kick heaved my stomach and sprung tears from my eyes. I cupped my mouth and shook my head. The giant in front of me blurred. "You... Oh, fuck."
Another lurch slacked my jaw. Bile-tinged bubbles erupted from the back of my throat and escaped as a hiccup.
"I-I oooouuugghhhh." I doubled over the pain folding my stomach in half, expelling its contents on the feet of Jake's punching bag.
Here we go!! I hope you enjoy the new beginning chapter. Poor Ellie, this is not an ideal first impression. Let's meet the guy next!
When I edit/replace, all comments are buried at the bottom of each page, but I would love to hear your reactions! Thank you.