❝ Is this your disgusting attempt at saying hello to
me ❞
❝ I see you still have the same attitude from when I last saw you ❞
IN WHICH, leila vader spends the summer trying to win first place of the National East Coast Surfing Championships all whi...
chapter one. the vaders, fishers, and conklins heat waves.
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Belly Conklin had loved Conrad Fisher since she was 12 and that was enough to keep Leila Vader away from him romantically, even if she didn't want to. Leila and Belly had grown up the only two girls in Susannah, Laurel, and Ruby's put-together family, and because of that the two girls grew up closer than the boys ever had. Leila's father had taught her how to swim at a young age and eventually, she took an entire summer teaching Belly. Whenever Leila practiced her surfing tricks, Belly always came to watch. While the boys went places that the girls didn't, Leila and Belly did the fun things that had their brothers and the Fishers begging to join them. If anyone asked, they were sisters and that's how their mothers raised them to be. So when Belly pulled Leila outside away from family breakfast one day to tell her that she had a huge crush on Conrad, Leila let her heartbreak while she forced a smile.
Leila knew that if it came down to it if he ever saw them more than the annoying girls of his mother's friends that he had grown up with, Conrad would never pick between the two of them and she would never give him any other option but to choose Belly.
While it killed her, she stopped going to him for advice, she never gave him any more random and stupid would you rather questions, she didn't buy things she thought he would like, and she stopped collecting seashells for him every time she went to the beach. She and Conrad would walk down to the beach every night at eleven on Thursday nights and stay at their designated spot for hours until it was Friday morning and for distance between them, she stopped going. But he never did. He went alone and he waited up for her. He never mentioned it or brought it up because he was embarrassed. He kept quiet and so did Leila, and eventually they were no longer the closest, they were barely friends.
When they weren't at the beach house in the summer, she tried to stalk on him social media wishing that he posted more but he never did. Everything that she heard about him was from her older brother Oliver. He and Conrad were the oldest, only a couple months apart and since they were young had hopes that they would go to the same college. Conrad only went on social media when Jeremiah forced him to like his post or any of the Conklins or the Vaders' posts. Leila had a sponsorship with a popular brand that made swimwear and wetsuits and every time she shared a photoshoot post or pictures with friends or selfies of herself, he had noticed that she always wore the seashell necklace.
"Leila Vader, get rid of that look on your face" Ruby Vader directed towards her youngest and only daughter who had been sulking in the backseat, staring out of the window like she was on her way to the first day of school and not Susannah's beautiful beach house in Cousins.
"What look? This is my face."
Her backpack had been on the ground in between her legs and her favorite surfboard was taking up the seat next to her. She had already decided that as soon as they got to the house, she would go straight to the beach, she wouldn't even unpack. Oliver was sitting in the passenger seat writing a conclusion paragraph for one of his summer courses that he got a head start on and eating Sour Patch Kids, leaving the yellow ones for Belly because he hated them and she liked them.
