Clouded Waters

Chapter Seven

 "Boo," called a faint, yet familiar voice. I could hardly hear it over the roar of the sea's waves. Darkness had fallen and though I could no longer see the ocean, I could hear it perfectly fine. A comforting hand fell on my shoulder. I followed the shadow of the hand, up to the arm and eventually met my mother's kind eyes.

   "Hey mom," I greeted returning my gaze to the dark abyss of an ocean.

   "Hi sweetie," she had responded. I watched as a silhouette of my mother's body sat down in the sand beside me.

   "Something wrong?" My mom asked, puzzled. Her voice had one of those paternal tones to it. It wasn't a sound that told you that there was trouble, but more like one that would be accompanied with a lecture about life. Lucky for me, I had never gotten one of those. Well, not from my dad at least. Mom was a completely different story.

   "Not really. I mean, I got what I wanted-"

   "And I am so proud of you for that. Those ISC surfers don't know who they're dealing with," my mother's words had cut through my own.

   I took a deep breath but it was only a failed attempt at me trying to clear my head. Ever since I talked with Dylan earlier, I had been feeling bad. Well 'bad' couldn't really describe how it was. Guilty. That sounds more accurate.

   "Yeah, I know mom. It's just that...well, I broke a promise...and it was to this guy I hardly know...so why do I feel so guilty about it?' I inquired. Even though I haven't broken many promises before, I do not that a broken promise has never had that effect on me.

   "Maybe the promise was something you wanted too. Perhaps because it didn't happen, you're upset about it," my mother had proposed. I gave a shake of my head.

   "All I want to do is surf."

   "You can't live your life on a surfboard. One of these days you'll have to come back to dry land, remember that." With those words, I was left by myself.

   I don't know how it was possible, but I awoke the next day without the urge to jump into the water. In fact, I actually headed in the opposite direction when I left the house.

   I have decided to take a trip into town. The last time I went must have been at least four days ago. Who knows maybe a break from the water could be good for me. I headed for one of my favorite places to shop at, the Ala Moana Center. It’s a shopping center that pretty much had whatever I want when I needed it. Not only that but it was open-air and I kind of needed something like that at the moment.

   I walked into the mall and allowed my eyes to do a bit of wandering before my feet had. There wasn’t really anything that caught my eye. A person had though, Aly. I could see her rummaging through one of the racks over at Payless, which was one of her favorite shoe places. I made my way up to the second level and into the store before you could say ‘perfectly pampered pink pumps’ though I don’t know who would want something like those. I approached Aly and watched as she skimmed the various amounts of sandals or the perfect pair.

   “Oh, these are cute,” I said taking one pair of golden ones into my palm before handing them over to Aly, “Don’t you think so too?”

   “Uh, yeah. I don’t think I have anything to wear with them though,” she responded putting the shoes back in their place. The girl hadn’t even looked at me.

   “What about that shirt you got three weeks ago? The one with all the rhinestones? That one looked really cute,” I commented. Aly stopped at a pair of green flip flops with a confused expression on her face before she smiled broadly and finally took a gander at me.