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People are everywhere. Small families sitting on the beach, children digging up sand with their bright plastic shovel-and-pail sets. Plenty of laughter fills the air. The occasional frustrated cry from a child. Lots of couples out walking their dogs. An older gentleman with a shock of white hair and a bright-red sun visor sitting jauntily on his head approaches us with a metal detector, his movements slow and methodical.
“You ever find anything?” I ask the man as he scans the sand surrounding us.
“You’d be surprised by all the things I find,” he says rather cryptically, walking away.
Scarlett sends me a look once the man is out of earshot. “He must have a lot of patience.”
“If he’s helping people look for their valuables, I think he’s doing a great service,” I say softly, my gaze stuck on the old man as he walks farther and farther away from us.
Until I can’t see him at all.
We’re quiet for a long time, lost in our thoughts, and for the first time in days, I don’t mind being in my head. All the clutter and garbage and Roger’s insistent words leave my brain, clearing it completely, and I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
“This is nice,” Scarlett murmurs, her focus still on the ocean.
“Yeah, it is. I can’t remember the last time I felt like this.”
She turns toward me. “Like what?”
“Like my normal self,” I admit.
“I know how long it’s been. Since the day before my party,” she says.
She’s right. Everything turned upside down the moment that kiss was caught on camera. I haven’t been the same since.
“Do you miss it?” When I give her a confused look, she explains, “Feeling like your normal self.”
“Sort of. I don’t know. Things were pretty mundane in my life before this all blew up. I remember thinking a couple of months ago, ‘Is this it? Is this all I’ve got to give? Selling birthday greetings online for fifty bucks a pop?’” I kick off my slides and nudge my toes into the cold, wet sand. “I didn’t know what to do. I considered going to college, but for what? I didn’t like school. We were all still in high school when the band was first put together, but they had us doing classes after we finished our recording sessions, and I graduated when I was barely seventeen.”
“Do you regret missing out on a normal high school experience?”
“Hell no.” I make a face, thinking of my past high school life. “I wasn’t anybody special in high school. Definitely not a part of the popular crowd, so when I got this chance to actually be somebody, I took full advantage of it.”
I wasn’t a loser in high school, but I definitely wasn’t popular either, and deep down, I always wanted to be. The idea of fame, of being in the entertainment industry, whether through acting or singing or whatever, appealed to me ever since I was a little kid.
“I didn’t like high school either,” she admits, tracing her fingers through the sand. The hem of her dress keeps fluttering in the wind, exposing her slender thighs, and I remember how I grabbed her there earlier. As if I own her. She didn’t push me away either. “I was so glad when I finally graduated. I just wanted out of there.”
“Wasn’t that long ago,” I point out.
“A couple of months.” She shrugs, her gaze stuck on the sea. “Feels like a lifetime ago.”
I totally agree.
“Were you planning on going to college, or did I ruin that?” Pretty sure I didn’t ruin any college plans. I remember her telling me about the gap year she was planning on taking.
“You definitely didn’t ruin anything. I just—I don’t think I knew what I wanted to do. I still don’t. I sort of had the gap year planned with Rachel, but we hadn’t made any real concrete plans, you know what I mean? And my parents were insisting I go to college after I took that year off, but...” Her voice drifts and she wrinkles her nose. “I don’t know if I’ll go. That might not be for me.”
“What is for you then, Scarlett?” My tone is teasing, but I’m dead serious. I’d love to know what her future goals are.
I mean, she’s young. I get it. My future goals at eighteen went up in smoke. I blew them up with my shit behavior.
“I don’t know. Turn into a famous influencer and travel the world?” She shrugs. Giggles even, her cheeks turning pink. “That sounds ridiculous.”
“Not if it’s what you really want to do,” I say, nudging her shoulder with mine. “And nothing sounds ridiculous to me. I’m over here being given another chance, which just goes to show that anything is possible. Even if I do feel like I’m on the verge of fucking everything up.”
“You have a very self-defeating streak within you, Tate.” When I glance over at Scarlett, I find her already watching me, her brows lifted expectantly. “What? It’s true.”
“What exactly do you mean?” I readjust my feet, burrowing my toes deeper into the sand so I can’t even see them.
