Love On The Beach

Chapter 1

Aria

“Aria.”
“Hmm…” I hum.
“Aria!!!”
“Huh? What?” I snap back into the real world.
“Did you hear us?” My mother snaps. She looks at my ears and notices my earbuds. She rolls her eyes. “Aria Elizabeth Chase!!! Get those things out of your ears now! We are talking to your principal!!!”
I groan. “Sorry mother…” I quickly put them away before she gets even more upset. Then, my mother snatches my book away from my hands. I groan even louder.
“Stop reading, too! Show some respect, will you?” She glares at me, and I cower. “ I am so sorry for her,” she says to my new principal, Mr. Hawks.
He smiles at me. “ No, it is alright, Ms. Chase. We definitely do not have a lot of readers in this school, so it’ll be nice to have her here.” He points at me. “I feel like you will absolutely love our library.”
My head perks up from looking down at my hands as I was scolded by my mom. “Really??? How big? How many books???”
He laughs with delight. “Oh yes ma’am! We have lots of books! Top to bottom, front to back. You will love it, indeed! But first, of course, you have to get through 3 days before you can go.”
I frown. I can never wait that long. “Oh…alright then.”
“That reminds me,” he says, “we need to give you the tour. There is a nice young man outside my door who is a bookworm like you, ready to show you around the school.”
“Oh…” I say with a sigh.
“Ooooo! Another chance to make a friend!” My mom says.
I scoff. “Like that’s gonna happen.”
“Oh, I don't know, Miss Chase. This guy is a lot like you. His name is Aaron Rowling. Nice young man. Love his last name, too. The same last name as the-”
“Author of Harry Potter,” I interrupt.
“Precisely. Give him a chance. You may leave when you are ready.”
I turn and stare at the door, deciding if I should walk out or not.
“Come on, hun. Go on. Go meet him. It can’t be that bad,” my mom says.
Oh, it definitely can be…
“Alright. I’ll go.” I smile at her before I get up and walk to the door. I gently pull down the handle, taking a deep breath, and open the door to find a guy on the other side of the hallway, on a bench, and…
Reading.
I look to see what book, and, funny. He’s reading the 7th Harry Potter book.
The door creaks, and he jumps. He looks up at me and stares. He quickly puts the book down.
Is he embarrassed?
I walk towards him with a smile on my face. “Hello,” I say quietly. He tries to hide the book behind him. “Oh no. Don’t hide it. I love reading too. That’s one of my favorite books.”
He looks up at me again and stares, shocked. He then shakes his head, as in a daze. “Sorry. Hello. You must be Aria. I’m Aaron. Pleased to meet you.”
He holds out his hand for me to shake. I shake it.
“Pleased to meet you, Aaron.” I smile. Once I let go, I say, “So, I hear you are the lovely young man giving me a tour of this ‘amazing’ school!”
He laughs. “Yea. ‘Amazing’ would be a lie.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Oh really?”
“I mean, it's okay. The school and teachers are great. Some of the students can be a really, REALLY pain in the butt, if you know what I mean.”
I laugh. “I guess that’s expected.”
“Very. Shall we start the tour?”
“Yes. I suppose we shall.”
He leads me down the halls towards the lockers, which I saw earlier when Mr. Hawks gave me mine.
“This is my locker,” Aaron says as he points to the one with a lot of stickers about books and movies and other random things. His locker is next to mine.
“Oh nice. My locker is next to yours,” I say.
“Sweet!”
Then he leads me to all the classrooms the juniors take since I am a junior. I see all my classes I will be taking, and then he shows me one of my favorite rooms of all time: the orchestra room.
After we go around the whole school, we actually start talking like normal, like friends would, and not a tour guide and a random person.
“So… new student. I get how that feels,” he says. “ I transferred here when I was a freshman.”
“Yea. We moved from my hometown after my dad-” I stop myself.
I haven’t talked about him at all since the funeral…
Aaron looks down. “It’s okay. I know what you are talking about,” he says as I shed a tear. “Hey, it's alright. I get it. It’ll be okay.” He puts a hand on my back.
I gently nod.
“I would get all sad or depressed, but what helps me is, well, reading. It helps me a lot. I assume you may do the same thing as well.” He smiles.
I smile back, wiping the tears from my eyes. “ I do read. And listen to music. It calms me down.”
“Yes. It does help a bunch.” He laughs. “ Well, we are done with the tour if you want to go back to your mom.”
“Oh… okay.” I stare at him, he stares back, neither of us knowing what to do.
“Well, hang on one second. I wanted to ask you… if you would want to be my, uh… friend…” he says shyly. “ You seem like a nice and friendly girl.”
Nice and friendly. No one has ever really complimented me like that. Especially a guy I just met.
And… I’ve never really had a guy ‘friend’…
But I like the idea.
“I would love to,” I say, smiling.
“Really?!” he exclaims.
“Of course! You would be an amazing friend.” I pull out my phone and ask, “ Want my number?”
His eyes widened. “No girl has asked me that ever!”
“That’s surprising, seeing how you’re a good-looking guy.” His cheeks turn a shade of red.
“Thank you,” he says, as he puts my number into his contacts. “I’ll text you sometime Monday morning.”
“Sounds good!” I say with a thumbs up. “Well, I better head back, so my mother doesn’t get suspicious. I’ll, um, see you sometime soon.”
“Meet me in front of the school by all the benches. I’ll see you there.”
“Got it. See you soon, Aaron!” I say with excitement. I haven't been excited, really, about anything in a while.
“Bye Aria!” He hugs me.
Woah…
That’s new…
I quickly run off toward the principal's office. I walk in and see the principal handing my mom the schedule for me.
“Hey mom,” I say
“Hey hun! How did it go?” she says.
“Well, I made a new friend!”
“That's awesome!” both my mom and Mr. Hawks say.
I just smile.
“Well, we must be going then. Thank you, Mr. Hawks. She will see you guys on Monday,” my mom says.
“Yes, indeed. Have a good weekend! You’re gonna love Del Norte High School.” Mr. Hawks says.
“You too,” I say, walking out of his office with my mom, hoping that this will be the start of an eventful and amazing school year.