June has only one more summer before she marries her high school sweetheart. She intends to make the most of it, but she has no idea what is waiting for her in Dolphin Coast. Socks on the Beach is a tale of steamy love, jaw-dropping heartbreak, and...
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(tw: sexual assault)
My nude body trembled with the ferocity of deathly winds from the Gods. Sickness and death. Fear. No tears yet but my skeleton rattled a warning for the oncoming storm. Teeth against teeth.
"Could I have a moment alone, please?"
"Yeah, um..." Moose trailed off as he pulled his boxer briefs and pants on, entrapping the limp beast between his legs and leaving the room with a string of awkward well-wishes and stolen glances at the glassy-eyed girl in his bed. I stared at a The Dark Side of the Moon poster, my fleshy body hanging beneath me with posture forgotten, until the red-faced man was gone.
Alone, I split.
Crawling my exposed body onto my stomach, my sticky arms and elbows tucked under me to apply pressure to my aching chest, and I sobbed facedown. His navy sheets smelled like stale sweat and miscellaneous food crumbs tickled my thighs, but I didn't care.
Pearl told. Or Perry. Either way: my whole life was about to change. My ribcage heaved and rattled, taking in gulps of dry air big enough to fan the flames inside of me, flames which I believed to be eternal. Rage and loss. Betrayal. My phone dinged.
10:14 PM Mother: The Maxwells know too, if you were wondering.
I hope Dean is okay...
Dean!
I jolted to a sitting position before frantically calling my now ex-fiance and putting it on speaker phone, holding it in front of my tear-stained face. My sinuses burned and I sniffled.
Ring... Ring...
"June?"
"They know, Dean!" I didn't need to specify for him to understand.
There was a staticky shuffle. He cleared his throat.
"Well, shit... They know everything?"
In lieu of a response, I cried into my phone in a guttural way, sobs erupting from my rhythmically clenching and spasming abdominals. It was a physical pain and a primal fear. Open air acrobatics in the heart of a painfully naive girl. I had no clue how the real world worked and I hadn't seen the safety net until it was gone and my toes were on the edge.
Knees knocking; I looked down.
"Dean, I don't know what to do. I thought that I could do this, but I don't... I can't..." Cold, cold panic shot down my sore throat, and I winced, pained and unsettled.
"Hey, hey. Slow down. What exactly happened?" His voice was soft.
Filling Dean in through fits of uncontrollable laughter and crying, I wrapped up with an enthusiastic, "-and now she's dead to me!" right before thinly cased bone rapped against the other side of Moose's wide door, paint-splattered.
