Chapter 20

Part 1

“Get ready, we’re going to the beach today,” I heard Will say through the phone first thing after I woke up.

“Huh? The beach? Now?” I asked, sounding half-asleep still.

“Don’t tell me you just woke up.”

“So what if I did?”

“Do you know what time it is?” he asked.

I turned on my phone for a second and saw that it was already 2 in the afternoon. “2 P.M,” I responded while yawning.

“It’s 2 in the afternoon and you just woke up?

“It’s a weekend and hockey season is over,” I said. “I can wake up whenever I want now.”

“Whatever, I’m not going to judge your sleep schedule.”

“Good.”

“Get ready soon though. An Uber’s coming to pick you up in like 30 minutes.”

“What the fuck! That soon?”

“You better hurry your ass up.”

“Where are we going anyway?” I asked.

“I already told you earlier. The four of us are spending the day at the beach.”

“What do you mean the four of us?”

“As in me, you, Rebekah, and Xela.”

“Oh no.”

“What’s so ‘Oh no’?” he asked. I could sense the mischievous smile coming from him. I already knew what he and Rebekah were up to.

“Nothing, nevermind.”

“Good.”

“On second thought, I’m not going.”

“What? Why?”

“I’d much rather stay at home and do nothing all day,” I lied. To be honest, I was really looking forward to going to the beach, but I wasn't up for playing any of Will’s and Rebekah’s games.

“Come on, it’ll be fun!”

“You guys go have fun yourselves then. You don’t need me to come along with you.”

“There’s an Uber coming to your house right now and the driver will be really mad if I tell him to turn back right now.”

“Okay.”

“I swear it won’t be like last time where we intentionally ditched you guys. This time we’re all going together in an Uber,” he tried convincing.

“Why are we going in an Uber anyway if I have a car?”

“Apparently Rebekah came over to your house already and rang the doorbell a couple of times but nobody was answering.”

I thought I remembered hearing some doorbell sounds while I was still sleeping, but I was way too sleepy and lazy to pick it up.

“That’s not right! Hailee should’ve answered the door- Oh wait, nevermind, she probably snuck out as usual,” I said. “Why didn’t she just call me? I’m more likely to answer that.”

“One of her friends threw her phone in the lake yesterday.”

“Oh. How’d she get an Uber then?”

“She walked over to my place after walking over to your place and ordered the Uber on my phone.”

“So she’s with you right now?” I asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Can I speak to her for a second?”

“Okay…” he said while handing over the phone to Rebekah,

A few seconds later I heard Rebekah’s voice come through the phone. “Hi Johnny, we’re going to the beach!”

“I know,” I said. “So apparently you got your phone thrown into the lake and decided it was a good idea to come over to my house and ring the doorbell to get me to pick up so we can use my car to drive to the beach.”

“Uh huh.”

“And after I didn’t pick up, you went over to Will’s house to order an Uber and Will decided to call me AFTER you ordered the Uber.”

“Uh huh.”

“So why didn’t you just call me on Will’s phone BEFORE you ordered the Uber so we could use my car???”

“Shut up.”

“Can you just give the phone back to Will?” I sighed.

After a few seconds, it was Will who was on the phone again. “So are you coming?”

“Fine.”

“Great. We’ll pick up Xela after you.”

Part 2

When I got in the Uber, Rebekah and Will were already there sitting in the back seats. I sat in the front seat next to the Uber driver, and Xela slid into the back seat between Rebekah and Will after we arrived at her house.

The whole car ride was about 2 hours long. During that time we all just pretty much talked about what we were going to do there or anything else really. Conversation filled the air the whole time, and we were all pretty excited to get there.

When we got there, there weren’t too many people accompanied by us as it was still only May. The girls and Will changed into their swimming suits while I set up our area. I didn’t get the opportunity to go swimming with them as I was in a rush and forgot to bring my swimming shorts, which the girls were pretty bummed out about. While they had fun in the water, I was relaxing and trying to get an early tan, but it wasn’t working out too well as it was neither bright or hot enough yet.

We also did other stuff like play beach volleyball with another group of people (which by the way, Will and I were complete ass and had to get carried by the girls), bury me in the sand, and build huge sand castles together.

We spent around 5 hours there, and it was altogether a really fun time for all of us. It finally came to that time of the day where everyone else on the beach was heading home, and the four of us sat down together, coincidentally at the same spot where Xela and I sat last time.

“Whew, what a day!” Rebekah said, letting out a breath of fresh air. “Let’s do this again sometime.”

“Summer’s almost here. We can pretty much do anything then,” I said.

“Yeah, but first we have to get past exams,” Will said.

“Ugh, exams,” we all groaned. “The best time of the year.”

“It shouldn’t be too big of a deal now though. I mean we all got accepted into our colleges and eerything, right? What’s the worst that could happen, get kicked out of our program because we failed our exams?” Will said.

“Let’s not worry about exams and college for now,” Xela said. “Today’s supposed to be our chill and relax day.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Let’s worry about that later.”

“Think about the upcoming summer though. We get to live every day however the fuck we want before we go off into our busy lives in college,” I reminded them.

“Yeah, we gotta start making plans soon,” Will said.

Suddenly, I noticed Rebekah’s weird look on her face and knew something was up. “You alright, Rebekah?”

“Yeah, sorry. I just really gotta go pee right now.”

“Do you know how to get to the washroom?”

“No.”

“Well, you go straight back, turn left, walk straight again, turn right, go around this building, walk straight again, make another left, and then walk straight again and you’re there.”

“Thanks?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll find it.”

“Is there any easier way?”

“Nope.”

“Okay,” she said before taking off and heading the way towards the washroom.

After five minutes, Rebekah still hasn’t returned from the washroom, which wasn’t too surprising considering the route. The remaining three of us kept talking until Will’s phone started to ring.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“It’s...uh- my...my… mom,” he responded nervously. “My mom’s calling.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, hold on a second,” he said before picking up the call. “Hello? Yeah, uh huh.. Okay… Right now?? You sure?? Okay, okay. I’m coming right now!”

“Everything alright.”

“Yeah, uh… That was my mom. She’s here right now to pick me up. You guys call your own Uber. I’ll see you later,” he said before taking off and running away as fast as he could to the parking lot.

“Hold on, wait a minute!” Xela said. “COME BACK HERE ASSHOLE!” she stood up and tried yelling at Will.

I grabbed her arm as a signal to sit down again and tried to calm her down. “It’s fine, just let him go,” I said. “They did this for us so the least we could do is follow their plan.”

She sat back down on her spot and I let go of her arm. “Rebekah’s not coming back either, is she?” Xela asked.

“Probably not.”

“Guess like it’s just the two of us again then….. again.”

“Yep.”

Part 3

Followed by that was a nice moment of silence which lasted for a few minutes. It wasn’t the awkward and irritating silences we usually had, but this time a calming and relaxing one.. We heard the sounds of the seagulls and the ocean while we looked off into the ocean in the evening sky. It was almost exactly like last time, except this time without all the snow and everything.

Suddenly, Xela broke the silence after some more time passed. “That Alyssa girl, she’s really something.”

“What’d she do?”

“You don’t know already?”

“No.”

“She baited him into cheating on me with her through texts and showed me the texts.”

“I figured as much.”

“It gave me an excuse to break up with him though.”

“Why? Did you want to end it earlier?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“Why didn’t you then?”

“I don’t know. Every time I tried to I guess old memories just kept coming back to me.”

“From 6th grade?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you regret it then?”

“What?”

“Dating him.”

“Not really,” she answered. “It made me realize a lot of things I would’ve never learned otherwise.”

“Like what?”

“That relationships weren’t as I thought they were. I used to think it was all fun and magical and you feel like you’re the most important person in the world, but it was nothing like that.”

“What was it actually like then?”

“I don’t know. I kind of felt trapped half the time and bored the other half.”

“You guys looked pretty happy together.”

“That was just to piss you off for being a jerk,” she said. “Hey Johnny, can I tell you a secret?”

“What?”

“I really liked you.”

“I know.”

”Of course you knew,” she said. “What about you? Did you like me?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” I said, smiling. “That’s for you to find out.”

“Fuck you,” she joked along.

“What about now?” I hesitated to ask and put back my serious face. “Do you still feel the same?”

“No, not really. Things have changed since then. I liked the idea of being in a relationship more than I liked you back then probably. Now that my head’s clearer, I don’t see the need to rush things.”

“I get it,” I said faintly.

“Is that disappointment I hear?” she asked jokingly, turning her head towards me. I proceeded to do the same thing.

As her head leaned in closer, I started to lean my head in closer too, to the point where our foreheads were touching each other’s and our eyes were staring directly into one another’s.

“Just a bit.”