Stay (Completed)

Chapter 1- McClellanville

Maria’s POV:

Living in McClellanville was never something I had ever questioned. It was where I grew up and it is where everything I know is. Now of course, it’s not like I am completely closed off to the rest of the world. I read Seventeen Magazine and watch all the normal teen TV shows just like everyone else. I just have no desire to leave and explore. I am in a peaceful bliss of a town and I love it. This feeling was coursing through my veins as I walked down to the beach from my house. It was a beautiful 78˚F, perfect beach weather. To my surprise, the beach was already filling up with people. It was 9 o’clock in the morning and the first week of summer and yet tourists and vacationers, as well as the local townspeople were setting their chairs up for a day at the beach. Nevertheless, I was determined to get my morning jog in.

Evan’s POV:

It had been a rough drive coming from southern Wisconsin all the way down to McClellanville, South Carolina but my family and I had made it all in one piece. I thought I was going to have to shoot my dad for his incredibly loud snoring ability but despite not being able to sleep for two days, I was doing okay. I hadn’t initially wanted to come on this vacation. In fact not most teenage guys put in my position would like it. Spending your whole summer in a town you have never heard of, with little to no connection to your friends back home isn’t exactly what I had in mind. But when my dad told my younger brothers and me that he had rented us a house on the beach to spend the summer in, none of us really argued.

Ever since our mother had passed away last year, things had been rather tense in our household. Our dad could barely keep himself going and my brothers, Tommy, Jack, and I didn’t know how to react or deal with our dad’s grief. We knew she was slowly dying for a while, once the doctors informed us her cancer had come back and it had spread to practically every vital organ in her body, we knew there was nothing they could do for her but keep her from being in too much pain.

Those last few days were the most difficult. My dad eventually left the hospital and drove around town for a couple hours. Mom started to cry when he left, but a quick push of a button and she was asleep from the drugs again. That left my brothers and me. I told them to say goodbye to our mom and I took them to the Dairy Queen across the street from the hospital.

Being 17, and 6 years older than my twin brothers who had just turned 11 the month before, I felt like I had to be their father that night. I told them to order whatever they liked and we would go back and see mom before going home for the night. They agreed and we ate our ice cream in silence. That was when Tommy asked me a question I will never forget for the rest of my life, “Do you think mom would want us to go on vacation? I mean she has been saying she feels terrible for using all of our money for her treatments…Evan do you think….when she dies…she would want us to go on vacation?”

I had no answer for him. But the next day after the doctors called to tell us she passed and after the funeral the week after that, I asked my dad the same question Tommy had asked me that night. I hadn’t expected it to happen so soon, as mom died in March, but I was glad dad agreed to it. I could tell we all needed to get away from home for awhile. And that is why we packed the car June 1 and arrived June 3 in McClellanville, South Carolina.

       Walking through our rental home for the summer I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. I was expecting a cottage or something along the lines of a rundown cramped beach house, but this had wood floors, a glass wall in the back that opened up to a porch, swimming pool and a path that went right down to the beach. As I went to find the bedrooms, I saw one with a bunk-bed, when Tommy and Jack would stay, and to the right of that my room. It was decent too, with a TV and lounge chair as well. I was starting to think I was going to like it here.

       I went back out to grab my suitcase and other items to take them to my room. After putting what I could away I grabbed my tennis shoes and decided I was going to go for a run on the beach. It was almost 10 and I loved running right before it got too hot. Hopefully there wouldn’t be too many people on the beach already. I yelled “See ya!” to my family and ran out the back door and down to the beach ready to explore my new home for the summer.