𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 || baxter radic

12.

◈ 𝒃𝒂𝒙'𝒔 𝒑𝒐𝒗 ◈

If I could go back in time and ask Maybelle if everything that Summer had said was true. Maybe I would have her trust. Maybe I wouldn't be spending all this trying to convince her that she had been the one all along. She watched me chase someone else for far too long. I should have known from the way her finger trailed along my skin that she wasn't taken. That she was interested.

I should have known when I watched May's face drop after kissing Summer that May was invested. But Summer's voice always lingered in the back of my mind. It made me lose trust myself. It ate away at every thought I ever had about May.

When Summer and I kissed, I was caught up in the moment. Lost in the mess that Summer was making for herself. I was trying to move forward because I was sworn off of Maybelle. I had kissed some random girl. I had kissed Summer. It was all to escape the Maybelle virus that was tearing me apart.

I even watched Maybelle break after kissing Summer but I was still trapped. Summer's voice still screaming at me. It took everything in me to not chase after May. I eventually did though, after confessing to Summer that I messed with her board on behalf of my sis. My mind was in a tizzy. I lost May, I lost Summer. So I went searching.

I found her at the beach, in her hideaway. I knew it's where she'd run off to. It's where she found her comfort. I only learned that after I had finally spotted her. It's what made her feel close to something she wished she had. Even though I had just ripped her heart out—kissing her best friend—she still went to a place we shared together. A place that reminded her of me.

"Maybelle?" I walk up behind her. She doesn't startle. Doesn't even react to my voice at all. She'd numbed out her mind, just like Summer and Poppy had with all the alcohol they had consumed. "Summer's mom is looking for you." I lie because it's what I do best. It's the night of confessions though, I'm half shocked I don't spill the feelings I've had for her all along right then and there.

"You can tell her you found me and I'm fine." Her voice in a deadpan tone. She doesn't want me here. But I need to be here.

"You see, I don't think she'd take kindly to me arriving back without you. I'd rather live to see another day." The joking tone doesn't hit, and honestly I never expected it to. It was more for me than it was to cheer her. I didn't need to find myself in even more of a mess, lost in another unwanted confession.

"Bax, I want to be alone." She glances at me. Even in just the moonlight, I can tell her eyes are glossy. I can tell she's been crying. The blue in her eye's is dark, a red swelling around them. I've made her cry. At least looking back at it now I know I'm the reason.

"No can do." I drop on the sand beside her, but I say nothing more.

I watch her wipe her nose a few times. I even catch a few sniffles. But I don't see any tears roll down her cheeks. I don't even acknowledge that she's been crying. It's better for her that way. I knew she didn't want to confess, there was no point in trying to force it.

She breaks the silence eventually. I don't expect it. I hear her take a few staggered but deep breaths before she asks. "Why do you like Summer?"

I'm taken aback by the question. It whirls around in my mind for a while. The tension building the longer the question hangs in air. "Are you asking to try and turn her against me? Seems like something you'd do."

I don't know why would of all things to say, this is what I come up with. I think a part of me thought that if I tried to jab her the way she jabbed me on tryout day, that things would fall back to how they were before things got complicated. But that was asking too much. There were too many love triangles in this group, we had all become a tangled web of love. A place I never thought I'd find myself.

"Honestly, I don't really care at this point." She drops her head to her arms. They're propped up on her knees, closing herself off from the world around her. She's completely and utterly exhausted. She has no will to even protect her best friend anymore. I've never seen her like this. I hated it.

"You asked so clearly you do care." I mimic her position on the sand, looking her straight in her very sad eyes.

"You two are just so perfect." She speaks in the most undermined, untruthful tone I've ever heard. The tone is so unconvincing that I half think she must know that I liked her first. But then she storms off and doesn't look at me for days.

It's not until Nationals. It's not until she learns the truth of my sister's paths. It's not until Summer tells her I've decided to pack my things to leave. She tried to convince me to stay, just as Summer did. She begged me to compete. To stay and do what I worked so hard for.

"Bax, please just stay." Her hand grazes against my skin, just as it did when we first met—when her fingers traced along my tattoo. She almost convinces me in that touch. God, I want to melt right in front of her. Not Summer, not my team, not my sisters, her.

"I'm not giving either of my sister's the opportunity to say they won anything more. They don't deserve it." I rip my arm away from her touch, nearly ripping my own heart out in the process.

"But what about Summer?" But Maybelle does it for me. I didn't want to surf for Summer. I didn't want to surf for anyone but her. I tried to convince myself that Summer was what I wanted. That she is who was good for me. But she chose Ari. And I had chosen Maybelle, even if at the time I still believed she was taken.

"I'm sorry. I can't." I walk away without another word. I leave. I go home. And I don't see her again until I spot her, sitting at the edge of the beach, waiting for me to dip my toes into the sand, and lose myself in the ways of the water.

If she couldn't see me surf in competition and cheer me on from the sidelines. She was going to do it on the beach. By herself. Where she thought that no one saw her doing it. And she did that every day until I finally had enough.