Jones

Ch 72

Buzzcut season~Lorde

    Todays our last day in Santa Barbara. We leave tomorrow morning. It was a nice long weekend. I took the time to clear my mind. Today we're at the beach. Angie loves the beach so right now she's the only one in the freezing cold water. Her dad is with her. He's holding her boogie board under her as she leveled it to match with the miniature wave about to crash under her. Her face crumbles as the water takes her away and a scream leaves her body. She looks over joyed when she comes back up. We start school in about a month and I'm not ready to go back to something that I once enjoyed. Im not ready to face my fears. I look over at Crystal who is hiding behind sunglasses while trying to wait for the sun to come out from behind the clouds. 

"Take a picture, it'll last longer" she says surprising me because I could've sworn she was sleeping. 

I finally build up the will power to get in the ice cold ocean. I just know that my body will eventually go numb so I won't feel how cold the ocean is. 

When Angie sees me making my way towards the ocean inch by inch her eyes widen. 

"Come on in! I've been waiting for you" she says and trudges threw the recurring waves to get to me. 

I hold out my arms and allow her to aid me through the icy water. Her dad is standing in the surf with his hands on his hips and a prominent smile on his face. I'm sure he isn't staring at me and Angie so I take advantage of the moments of freedom we have. 

"Lets go deeper." she says with what looks like drugs in her eyes. She tugs on my arms but I dig my feet into the sand.

"No its too deep out there." I say trying to get her to pity my fear of the ocean.

"Its ok I'll be with you you'll be fine." she says and stares into my eyes. I feel a sense of comfort when the words leave her mouth because just the thought of her protecting me if anything were to happen is heart comforting. I shake my feet out of the wet sand and follow her inch by inch. 

"Ok this is deep enough" I say when I'm soon up to my waist in ocean water. 

"It'll be 'deep enough' when its up to our shoulders." she says turning around to me and yelling over the waves. The sun finally starts coming out and I can now see past the ocean mist that was fogging my view of the ocean. I quickly get over my fear of shark infested, deep waters and continue going out to sea with Angie. I turn around to see how far we are from shore and all I see are two little dots, Crystal and Grace, playing in the knee deep area.

"Angie are you sure we're safe?" I ask with worry written all over my face.

"Why would I take you somewhere that I know you'll be in danger?" she says and stands still and lets the slight waves carry her. The waves are getting lighter because we're so deep. once one small one begins to form we're lifted off the ground and set back down once the waves pass. Angie lasts back and floats above the sea foam. I kick my legs and try to keep my feet off the ground just incase I have to make a quick swim away. 

"Angie" I say almost speechless when I turn around and see a wave probably taller than a skyscraper coming towards us.

"What is it?" she smiles and stands back up. Her face mutes when she sees the wave. 

She starts screaming when it gets closer but theres no point in swimming away because its too close and either way we'll get wiped out. The last thing I see is a shadow being created by the falling wave and Angie going under the water to avoid impact. Im toppled by the wave and my body is dong uncontrollable backflips under the water. I try to figure out which ay is up which way is down but I try to wait it out until the wave settles. When I feel myself skid across the ground I know we're near shore. I stand up in the thigh deep area and remove the salty hair that has glued itself to my face. 

"ANGIE, ANGIE." I scream because she hasn't surfaced. I look at the water and see if I can see through it to see her bright pink bathing suit. I don't see it. 

"Oh god oh god" I say and start swatting at the water as if its going to move out of my way by doing that. 

She pops up not too far from me but not in my peripheral view. 

"THAT WAS AWESOME LETS GO BACK." she says and swats away her hair. I trudge through the water over to her because she scared the lights out of me. I feel the bottom of my eyes start to heat up like I'm going to cry. 

"Why didn't you come up sooner?" I say and tug her closer to me by the strings on her bathing suit. 

"Pauls, I'm fine" she says innocently still catching her breath. 

"You scared me." I say and hug her salty body. 

"Darling, we surfaced in different spots, and not too far apart. We're ok." she reassures me. 

"We aren't doing that again. If you die, I'm doing to kill myself." I say and drag her by her hand back to land. 

I take off my soaking wet t-shirt and sit on top of my towel. 

"where are my parents?" Angie asks Crystal. 

"They went back to the hotel and said to come back when we're ready.' she says from under her shades. We're leaving tonight at around 8 and I'm hoping my mom is ok with me sleeping over Angie's.

"Are you guys ready to go back?" Angie asks and everyone collects their junk before walking through the scorching sand to the hotel behind us. 

We get up and make our way back to our hotel. Angie's wet feet kick up amounts of sand that add an accent of earthy tones on her legs. I look at crystal who is trying to be cool about the fact that she's walking uphill in sand with feet feet but can't take it. I turn over to Kassidy and see that she's completely red because the sun chewed up her skin but she is too embarrassed to acknowledge the face that her skin is crisp and cracked and she's in pain. Grace who volunteered to carry two umbrellas a cooler and three wet towels but is struggling because a 13 year old girl can't handle that type of weight but she's doing it anyway because she is Grace the soon to be owner of a Merit scholar. Then theres Angie who winces and 'ahhs' at the recurring stings of the hot tiny rocks on the bottom of her feet but already has an infamous reputation for being the overly sensitive girl who does everyones homework. And then theres me, Paulina, that one bitch that has a boyfriend who she doesn't really love but is putting up with it because the centralized idea around middle school is to maintain a fake reputation that gets you from getting  you shunned by a group of people lower on the middle school food chain. 

Enough about our status. Its getting late and after we all shower we get ready to go to a comfy dinner downstairs in the dining halls. Angie's parents take their awkward seat at their own table and the girls and I claim our own table a few tables over.  Dinner is quiet. School starts soon and no one is is quite ready to find out what is going to happen in the year before us. 

After dinner we make two trips to the car to load our stuff in and by 9pm we're on our way home.  We'll be stuck at Angie's house until tomorrow because when we get back to the valley it'll be too late. 

Its about 11:30 when we get to Angie's house and all we want to do is knock out. 

"Get some sleep girls, you can sleep in as late as you want tomorrow morning." Angie's mom says when we walk in the house. We follow each other up to Angie's room. The second the door closes, bras start flying of, scrunchies get wrapped around wrists. Angie kicks off her slippers and crawls into bed next to me. 

"Go to sleep." she says and turns off her lamp.

I close my eyes and sleep instantly flushes over my eyelids. I can't help but ponder over the fact that school starts in two weeks. I'm not ready and I'll never be ready. Whats going to happen between now and the future? Thats the problem. I don't know.