Swept Away

5 - Juillet

Sitting in a car for 7 hours with 7 other people is not for the weak. Especially when 3 of those 7 people are teenage boys. Or teenage adjacent. The one thing I forgot to mention about Ashlyn is that she has a big family. She is one of six kids. And all of her siblings happen to be boys.

Her oldest brother Jack is 21. He goes to college in Arizona, so she doesn't see him very often. Next, is Ricky who's 19. He goes to Remington, so she will be seeing a lot of him next year. Then, there's Ashlyn and then Peter, who's 16. All he talks about is football. Then there's Nick, who's 13. He also only talks about football. And then lastly, there's Matt, or Matty depending on who you're talking to. And he's 8. He's really into baseball right now. And Pokémon.

We arrive at the house a little after 4:00 PM. There's a truck in the driveway when we get there. "Is someone here?" I ask Ashlyn as we pile out of the car.

Ashlyn stares at the truck for a second, "I know that truck, but I can't think of whose it is." She shrugs.

We get our suitcases from the back of the mini van. Ashlyn told me to pack light because, I'll end up wearing the same things over and over again anyway. So I only have one big suitcase full of clothes, and a backpack. I should survive.

We walk up the stairs to the second level of the house. Ashlyn explained to me that the first level is called the stilt level, because there's no rooms or anything. We bypass the stilt level and go straight through the front door. As we walk in it becomes evident how rich Ashlyn's family is. We never discuss it, but Ashlyn's family makes much more than my family does.

It's not like my family's poor, I mean we are wealthy enough to send the 3 of us to France every summer, but we also aren't loaded the way that Ashlyn's family is.When we go to France, we stay with my grandparents for free. When Ashlyn's family comes to Collymore, they rent a house for at least 8 weeks every year. And they rent nice houses, too. That's gotta be like tens of thousands of dollars a year.

"So," Ashlyn starts, "this is the Seven Seas."

"This is not the Seven Seas ," I joke.

The Seven Seas house is gorgeous. Ashlyn gives me a full tour. The house has a light blue exterior and is 3 floors tall after the still level. It's right on the beach, and there's a fenced in section behind the house, with a pool. There's eight bedrooms in the house. Eight? My own house only has three.

Ashlyn and my rooms are identical. Both rooms are beach themed with light blue walls. All the furniture is wood, painted white. There's a lamp on my nightstand that has a starfish as the base. The bedding is white with light blue seashells on it. It's beautiful. The two rooms are connected by a bathroom.

"Oh my god," I say walking down the stairs to the living room, "and you stay here every year?"

Ashlyn laughs, "No. This is only our second year staying at this house. We need more room when we have more guests," she boops my nose, "Now, let's get our bathing suits on, and let's hit the beach."

We both run upstairs and start unpacking our suitcases enough to find our bikinis. I pick out a light purple triangle bikini with white straps. I throw my curly hair into a ponytail. When I come out of the bathroom Ashlyn is already ready in a hot pink scoop neck bikini. She has two towels in her hand and a bottle of sunscreen.

"I want to get tan, not skin cancer," she says when I point out the bottle.

When we walk downstairs Ricky is sitting in the kitchen with a teenage boy I've never seen before.
He's extremely attractive. He's tall, but not lanky. He's got some muscle on him, but not so much it makes him look bulky. He has tan skin and his dark brown hair is tucked under a backwards baseball hat.