Distance

prologue

July 2005

No clouds were in the sky. The sun was shining on this day in Anna Maria Island, and little 10 year old Selena Reyes was running along the shoreline, searching for seashells. Her long, cola brown hair was wavy from the salt in the air, her sun-kissed skin was shiny from sweat and her hazel eyes inspected the sand, searching for coquinas burrowing to hide from her tiny hands. She had almost snatched one up when she came across the most fantastic sandcastle she'd ever seen.

Whoa... she thought to herself, leaning down to inspect what she believed to be an architectural wonder (in all reality, it was a mound of sand half-heartedly shaped into a somewhat-cylindrical pile). Selena began to add seaweed and seashells to the castle, trying to make it pretty.

"Hey, get away from my castle!" a boy screamed, running towards Selena with an angry look on his face. "You're going to ruin it!"

And that's when she saw Carter Montez, a 12 year old boy who lived a few houses down from her. They'd never spoken to each other before. Carter was short for his age. He had shaggy black hair and light green eyes with olive skin. You could tell he was much paler when he wasn't tan, but so was Selena.

Selena stood up, crossing her arms and looking at the boy.

"I was just making it prettier," she stated, looking down at the castle with a sparkle in her eye. "We both know it needed pretty things on it."

Carter scowled at her. How could a little 10 year old think she knew better than him, who was obviously was so much smarter?

"And how do you know what it needs? You could have easily built your own. Mine was simple, a lot better than yours could ever be," he argued with a frown.

"Whatever," Selena said and bent down to pick up more shells. Carter slowly started picking Selena's shells and seaweed off his castle, but decided to just stomp it down.

"Hey, do you wanna go get ice cream?" Selena asked the boy, a big smile on her face as if their little argument hadn't just occurred.

Suddenly, Carter perked up, all anger on his face gone. "Sure! I'll race you there!"

And the two were gone, sand flying in their wake as they raced to the spot that would soon be a staple of their friendship.