You're Already Mine

Chapter Seven

TW: Minor SH

The trees fade into sandy grasslands as we pedal further down the bike path. I take a left, curving into a V-shaped turn onto the gravel trail leading down to the area.

My favorite beach is off the main street. A bike road, followed by a gravel trail, leads down to an asphalt clearing where there's a basketball hoop, wooden bench, and bike rack. There's a thin overgrown path leading the way in a miniature tunnel formed by trees, which curves downward to the right and leads down to the actual beach.

We park our bikes at the rack, and I guide Clover down to the water.

"How long have you been coming here?" Clover asks, amazed. "Like I said before, I've lived here almost my whole life, and I've never seen this area."

"I come here whenever we're on vacation in the town at least once during our stay. We've been coming here every summer since I was seven."

"And you're.. how old, now?"

"Fifteen."

"Wow."

I realize now how much of a missed opportunity it was not to bring my new puppy here; Cocoa would absolutely love it.

"We have a lot of extended family in Maine," I explain.

"How many siblings does your dad have?"

"Well, they each have six, plus a set of married parents."

"Oh."

A silence stretches between us.

I look out over the ocean, at the thin line of mist that separates it from the already slowly darkening sky.

Suddenly, we're looking for rocks. I don't really know how it happens, but we're both wandering the shore with our heads down, picking up small stones to put in our pockets. We look up at each other at the same time, and I gaze into her deep brown eyes. With an image in my mind, I scour the shore until I find a smooth brown rock with occasional green specks that fits in the palm of my hand, and walk over to where Clover holds a partially icy blue rock up to the sun.

"Um.. Clover?"

She's broken out of her trance, and I show her the rock. Clover looks down into the palm of my hand and immediately her face lights up.

"It looks like your eyes!" I say, smiling.

"It does! And I have one for you!" She takes the brown rock and places the blue one into my still outstretched palm. It's part of a tourmaline geode, a small rough shard of black stone with spikes of icy blue gems crystalizing from one side.

"I love it!" I place it carefully in my pocket, and she does the same with her rock.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" she asks.

"Depends on what you're thinking," I say.

"Oh yeah? Watch me."

She does a running cartwheel along the shore, then jumps up in a star shape. Then she faces me at the shoreline, starting to do a backflip into the water.

"Um, I'm not sure that's-"

But she lands on her feet, ankles deep into the waves, facing me, before I can finish my sentence.

"Are you wanting to do a photoshoot or something?" I pull out my phone, opening the camera app.

"No, silly!" she says. "I just have a lot of energy tonight."

I laugh and put my phone away. We run along the shoreline together, skipping in the shallow waves until we reach a cave. Once we step on a few spiky anemone, it becomes clear that this cave is not for us, so we run back along the shore to our spot.

"You okay?" I ask when we stop running, trying to catch my breath.

"Yeah. The one I stepped on wasn't that sharp."

"Good."

A few minutes after we get back to our spot, the sun starts going down. We fall asleep together on the beach.

I wake up at midnight.

Clover is sitting on the boulder facing the sea, her back facing me. I hear her talking to herself. What is she saying?

I stretch, and then inch closer. Is she crying?

"Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why would you do that-"

"Clover?"

I can see her start to hit herself, so I quickly walk over and sit on the boulder next to her, slowly pulling her arms down to her lap. Her eyeliner is smudged and tears run down her face.

She won't look at me.

"Clover?" I say again.

"Are you mad at me?" she says quietly.

I'm surprised. "Mad? Why would I be mad?"

She shrugs. "I mean.."

I wait patiently.

"I think.. I can love you. I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"My boyfriend broke up with me yesterday and said it was my fault. So I don't know what to do now."

I pull her into a hug, and she cries into my shoulder.

"Why would I be mad?" I ask again.

"I don't know.."

"Would you like to get out the sparklers? Would that help cheer you up?"

She nods, so I go back to our spot, dig in my backpack, and pull out the thin oblong cardboard box containing a few sparklers. We light them and gaze at the fire for a minute.

We run around on the beach, waving the sparklers around for about half an hour before they burn out and we get tired.

"So what should we do now?" I ask.

"Well, it is pretty dark outside, so maybe we should start heading home."

"What time is it?"

She checks her watch. "Half-past ten."

A long silence stretches between us.

"Can I get your number?" I blurt out.

She looks up cautiously, and then her face breaks out into a huge smile. I let out a sigh of relief. We exchange numbers, sending verification texts to make sure we're still messaging each other, pack up our stuff, and leave.

Clover Hitchens xx: u awake

I smile. I'd been waiting for her to text all night. It's now half-past one in the morning, and my cousins are asleep as Nimona, which we didn't finish last time, portrays Nimona and Ballister celebrating the fact that they released shocking footage of the Director making a confession to the entire kingdom.

I take another bite of pasta and smile, typing a reply.