by McKayla Box
If that’s what they are.
I hurry inside, noting with weird satisfaction that the bathroom is exactly how I remembered it. I peer at my reflection in the mirror, frowning at my distorted features, and wash my hands and dry them, and the whole time, I wonder if I should just go home.
The girls are nice but I’m not in the mood to talk about me, or work at forming friendships. I came to the party for one reason only.
To see Hayden.
And he isn’t there.
I run my hand through my hair and sigh.
It was probably stupid to think he was serious about meeting me here.
What if he did it as a prank? Mess with the new girl. Hell, maybe Charity and her friends were in on it, too.
I know I’m being ridiculous but the thought stings and I’m not surprised when tears begin to well in my eyes.
“This is so stupid,” I mutter.
I just need to go home. Go home and prep for tomorrow and what I’m sure will be the hell of my first day of school.
At least I’ll have Ben.
If he’s really my friend.
I have no idea what to think anymore. My head is full of doubts, my inner voice reminding me that I left Playa Del Mar a nobody and that’s how I’m returning.
Blinking back those stupid tears, I take a deep breath and head toward the door, fully intending to march straight home.
“I thought you might have fallen in or something.”
Hayden is waiting outside, lounging against the cinderblock.
My heart skips a beat. “What?”
He gives me a slow grin and nods his head toward the bathroom door. “You went in there ages ago. Was thinking you were never gonna come out.”
I’m at a loss for words.
He’s here.
Outside the bathroom.
Waiting for me.
Chapter 9
Hayden pushes off the wall and plants himself in front of me. He’s wearing navy blue board shorts and a Hurley t-shirt, and his hair is damp. I wonder if he just got out of the shower or out of the ocean.
“You’re here.” It’s a lame thing to say but it’s all I can come up with.
His smile widens. “Where else would I be?”
I toe the crack in the sidewalk. I’m still holding my sandals. “I don’t know. I didn’t see you at the bonfire.”
“I was running a little late. I saw you head toward the bathroom and followed you up. And then you stayed in there forever.”
“It was five minutes.”
“Ten.”
I shake my head and roll my eyes. He can be maddening as hell but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad he showed up.
“Come on,” he says. He grabs my hand and folds his fingers around mine.
Nerves fire inside of me. This isn’t some friendly grasp to tug me along. He’s got me in his grip.
In every way.
“Where are we going?”
He’s leading me down the sidewalk, away from the party.
“Someplace away from all those boneheads.”
“I thought we were going to the party.”
“I changed my mind.”
We walk a little ways down the boardwalk, past a breakfast restaurant with shuttered doors and a bar with a patio that looks out on the ocean. Past a sunglass hut and a boogie board rental place, and a little house that refused to sell out to the retail that now lines the sidewalk.
Hayden takes a quick right turn, onto the beach. There is a lifeguard tower on the sand and he pulls me toward it.
“What are we doing?”
“Walking,” he answers.
I try again. “Where are we going?”
He stops in front of the lifeguard tower. “Here.”
“Here?”
He gently nudges me toward the ladder that leads up to the elevated chair. It’s at least fifteen feet off the sand.
I look at him.
“Climb up.”
“What? I shake my head. “No. We could get in trouble. It says so right there.” I point to the sign that identifies what city violation we’d be breaking if we trespass.
Hayden just laughs and lifts me off the sand.
“What are you doing? Put me down!”
He has me hoisted so high that his mouth is on my neck. His hot breath sends shivers down my spine. His arms are wrapped tight around me and the lingering smell of his shampoo, a heady, clean scent, tells me his damp hair is from a shower.
“Just go,” he tells me, planting my feet on the second rung.
I can’t argue because he’s climbed the bottom rung, crowding behind me.
His hand cups my ass. “Go.”
I squirm out of his touch and drop my sandals to the sand before forcing my feet up the ladder. I need both hands.
A few seconds later, I pull myself to the small decking. I scoot over, making room for Hayden.
“See?” he says, sitting next to me. “Isn’t this nice?”
I try to slow my beating heart and look out at the ocean. The sun is just a memory but the clouds are streaked pink and purple, a palette of color before the night sky erases them into blackness. Waves crash onto shore, small, choppy ones that tumble one after another. Off in the distance, I see the party, the bonfire a bright orange glow against the sand.
“This is illegal,” I say, shifting my gaze and glancing at the darkened sand surrounding us. I almost expect to see the police with guns drawn, demanding we come down.
“Relax. No one cares.”
“How do you know?” I look at him. “You do this often?”
“Every chance I get.”
“So this is your game?” I ask. “Get the girl alone and then bring her up here?”
He smiles. “I was thinking of having a turn-style installed. Then I could actually count the number. I'm all about accuracy.”
“Gross.”
He laughs. “You've got the wrong idea about me, Fuego.”
He shifts, and now his thigh is touching mine. It’s a small thing but I focus on it with laser-like intensity: the heat of his skin, the softness of his shorts pressed against my bare leg.
“So now what?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“What do we do now? Now that we’re up here.”
“I guess we could have sex?”
My mouth drops open.
“Relax,” he says, chuckling. “Why do we have to do anything? Why can’t we just sit here?”
I don’t have an answer for him. Because I can’t figure out why in the world Hayden Mayfield would want to sit with me.
“The view up here is pretty awesome,” he says, his voice soft. “I know you could go up to the cliffs by Canyon Ridge and get just as good of a view but, I don’t know…there’s just something cool about being on the beach and being this high up. Bet it’s kind of like how the gulls feel, you know?”
I sneak a peek at him. His profile is arresting. The straight nose, the chiseled jaw, the swoop of tousled blond hair.
“Tell me something about you,” he says.
“Like what?”
“Anything.”
I can’t think of a single interesting thing to say. “Um, I just moved here a few days ago.”
“Moved back.”
“Yeah,” I admit. “Moved back.”
“Where were you?”
“New Zealand.”
“The whole country?”
I smile. “Christchurch. Well, just outside of it.”
He nods, and I wonder if he knows where it is. If he knows that the country I called home for the last four years is two separate islands, and that they have native people called the Maori who have been treated just like the Native Americans in the United States. If he knows that a woman was elected prime minister, a woman who isn’t married to her partner and whom she had a baby with, and how no one in the whole bloody country cares because their nation wasn’t founded on Puritanical roots.
“Did you like it?�
�� he asks. “Living there?”
I think immediately of Jada and Lucy. Of our shopping trips and our movie nights, and learning all the crazy kiwi lingo and struggling to understand their accents. Of finally having friends.
“I did,” I say softly.
“Why did you come back?”
I contemplate telling him. He’s a good listener and he is asking all the right questions.
But I don’t want to admit to my parents’ divorce, to talk about my grandfather’s death, or the fact that my mom is headed out first thing in the morning so she can look for a job because my dad has decided to contest paying her alimony. Child support, sure. But providing money to the woman who gave up any hope of a career to raise his child? Yeah, he wasn’t interested.
“Just circumstances,” I murmur instead. “The usual shit.”
Thankfully, he doesn’t press. “I don’t remember you,” he says, looking out at the water. “From before.”
I laugh. “I was pretty unmemorable.”
He turns his gaze to me. “Why do you say that?”
I shrug. “Because I was. No one noticed me. I spent lunch by myself in the cafeteria, sort of huddled in a corner, my nose in a book. And then when recess rolled around, I parked myself on a bench and read.”
Recognition flashes in his blue eyes. “Wait. I remember.”
I give him a skeptical look. “You do?”
“You always sat by the recycling bin in middle school – you know, the one the school’s environmental club turned into the Recycle Monster.”
I picture the trashcan painted green, with wide eyes and the can opening painted a garish red for a mouth. I was pretty sure not a single kid in the environmental club had an ounce of artistic skill.
“That was me,” I tell him.
“And recess…” His voice drifts off. “I think I remember. You wore your hair in a ponytail almost every day.”
I don’t bother hiding my surprise. “How do you know?”
“I told you. I remember.”
My heart swells at his words. I thought I was invisible, that no one noticed me back in those days.
But Hayden did.
“Are you happy to be back?”
No.
That’s my immediate thought.
But then I look at Hayden and the way his eyes are locked on mine, the feel of his leg pressed against me.
“Maybe.”
He touches my thigh, gives it a soft squeeze, and my stomach feels like I’ve just dropped down the steepest roller coaster.
“I am,” he says.
I swallow. “Why?”
“Because now I get the chance to know you,” he murmurs.
Before I have the chance to process the words, he leans toward me and touches his lips to mine.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
Hayden Mayfield is kissing me.
His hand shifts to my waist, then my back, and he deepens the kiss, his tongue gently probing mine. I curve my arm around his neck and his arms squeeze around me, his hands roaming my back, my sides, his fingers trailing the underwire of my bra.
I pull away, trying to catch my breath.
He looks at me, a half-smile curving his lips, his dimples barely visible.
“Wow,” I say. My hands are shaking and I’m trying not to be obvious about how much his kiss affected me.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. His hands have shifted, one on my waist and one on my thigh. “I’m definitely looking forward to getting to know you better, Fuego.”
I don’t respond.
I can’t.
Because his lips find mine again and I’m lost.
Chapter 10
“How was the party?”
I’m sitting at the kitchen table, my stomach a web of knots, when my mom walks in. She’s already dressed, sporting a pair of black slacks and a cream-colored blouse, her hair done up in this soft knot at the back of her head, and she looks nothing like the mom I know. She’s all professional looking and my heart lurches a little. I’m starting a scary ass adventure today, but she is, too.
She looks way more ready than I feel.
“It was fine.” I stare at the two buttered pieces of toast on my plate. I’ve only managed to eat two bites.
“Just fine?”
Warmth spreads from my belly, radiating out to my limbs. My night was more than fine. I spent an hour on that lifeguard tower with Hayden, doing a little bit of talking and a whole lot of making out. I somehow managed to keep my clothes on, but just barely. And he was more than happy to do a little exploring over my shirt and jeans.
“No, it was good.”
“Did you meet some new kids?”
I shift my mind away from Hayden’s roaming hands and mouth and think about Emily and her two friends.
“Yes.”
Mom smiles. “Good.”
I watch as she makes herself a cup of tea. “Where are you going today?”
She plays with the tea bag, dunking it up and down in her mug of hot water, swirling it in circles. “I thought I’d take an Uber over to the temp agency in Canyon Ridge. I can meet with one of their placement specialists, maybe do some assessment tests, and see what I can find. And then I’ll start looking for a car. I think there’s a couple of used lots that direction.”
At least she’s thinking positively, focusing on what she can find—and not if she can find a job. And getting a car. That’s going to be a necessity.
“You should eat.” She nods at my plate. “Did you make a lunch?”
I shake my head.
She frowns. “You’re going to be starving.”
I am pretty sure my stomach is going to eat itself today, but I tell her, “It’s fine. I have money. If I get hungry, I’ll get something at the cafeteria or from the vending machines.”
She purses her lips, looking like she’s about to say something, but then stops. “Do you want me to take you to school?”
I try not to look horrified. But I’m a senior in high school and there’s no way in hell I’m having my mom take me through the drop-off line. “No, I can walk,” I tell her. “It’s only a few blocks.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod.
She sips her tea. “You sure you’re okay?”
I nod again. “I should finish getting ready.”
I grab my phone and push out of my chair. It buzzes in my hand and I glance down at it as I walk down the tiny hallway, back to my bedroom, my heart lurching at the thought that it might be Hayden.
Instead, Ben’s name flashes on the screen.
Hey. So I won’t be at school today.
My pulse quickens, and my thumbs tap out a reply.
What? Why?
I’m sick. Can you believe it? First day of school!
Are you serious?
Yeah :(
I slump onto my bed.
Ben was going to be my life preserver, the thing I could cling to as I navigated my first day at Playa Del Mar. We didn’t have all the same classes or anything—in fact, the only one we shared was English—but it was still comforting to know that I would have someone to eat lunch with and a familiar face to look for in the halls.
And now he isn’t going to be there.
That sucks. I hope you feel better soon.
Me, too. I’ll text you later and see how the day went.
He signs off with a string of emojis and I fall onto my back, letting my phone hit my chest.
I’m not sure I can have a worse start to my day.
A nagging voice tries to remind me that I know more people at school than just Ben. Emily and her friends will be there, and they will probably say hi.
And Hayden will be there, too.
That sets off a whole new set of worries and I start to wish that I were sick, too.
Because staying home in bed sounds far better than venturing—alone—into a brand new high school.
Chapter 11
Playa del Mar High looks exactly
the same as I remember it.
In all my years living in town, I only visited the school once, but I drove or biked past it all the time when I was younger. It is an older school, a maze of low-slung, concrete buildings lined up in neat rows, connected by a web of sidewalks. Lockers line the interior “hallways” adjacent to the room entrances. There is a theater—I saw the school’s production of Annie in that building when I was fourth grade—and a gym, and a more modern-looking building that houses the admin offices.
I walk onto campus, trying to ignore the curious stares cast my direction. It is painfully obvious that everyone knows I am new.
I keep my head down and make a beeline for the attendance office. The email from school suggested I stop in there before heading to my first class.
The inside of the building is as sterile as a hospital. White walls, white counters, metal filing cabinets. An older woman with curly red hair and cat-eye glasses is perched in an ergonomic office chair positioned behind the counter.
“Can I help you?”
I tell her my name and that I’m new.
Her expression brightens, and I wonder if new students are a novelty. “Oh, how lovely,” she says. “You have your schedule? You should have been able to access it through the campus portal.”
I nod.
She taps the keyboard of her computer and a minute later, the printer next to it spits out a sheet of paper. She thrusts it in my direction. “Here’s a list of your classes, just so you have it handy.”
“Thanks.” I also have it on my phone, which doesn’t require killing a tree to produce, but I decide not to mention that.
“We have a special treat for you,” the woman tells me.
I glance at the nameplate by her desk. Mrs. Spitzer. “You do?”
She beams another smile in my direction. Her front tooth has a small smear of pink lipstick. “We know it can be difficult to switch schools and to be the new student.” She clucks her tongue sympathetically.
