Once upon a beach

Chapter 1

I had been invited to my childhood friend's birthday party, at her family beach house. I wasn't really the one to go to parties but I hadn't seen her in a couple of years and I really wanted to see her. We got into different high schools and then different colleges, plus we had grown apart the last couple of years. But we were still e-mailing each other occasionally, almost every week. She was an athletic and was the head of the cheerleader squad while I was an artist with an eye for photography and painting. After a lot of thought, I decided to go. I wore my long black dress with an airy cardigan and my black hat which I put on a little red rose on as it was a birthday party and my black Dr. Martens.

I left home and walked to the bus stop that was just a few blocks away from me and I was just in time as the bus turned the corner to my bus stop. I got on and payed for my ticket, found an empty spot at the back of the bus and put in my earphones and hit shuffle on my iPod. The first song to come on was "you've seen the butcher" by Deftones and I closed my eyes to rest my head against the window as the bus started to drive. At the next stop a lot of people in my age went on, being loud as most young adults are these days and showing no respect for other people on the bus. A older couple stared at them and shook their heads and I felt so sorry for them, I would guess people didn't behave that way when they were young, but the ride continued. I was hoping they would head of before me but they didn't, they got off at the same stop as me. I let them walk ahead and they screamed and was so loud that I overheard them with my earphones still plugged in. "Just perfect" I thought to myself "They are going to Tina's party, why the hell did I go? I knew there were going to be these kind of people at her party and I hate these kinds of things. There're always people who scream and are too drunk to even stand up, vomit everywhere and people going crazy. But I'm doing this for Tina, not myself" I walked as slow as I could as I didn't want to walk in with them, I watched as the others went inside the big beach house, the music was loud and wasn't exactly the music I enjoyed listening to. As I came up to the house and rang the bell I looked around, nothing had really changed much through the years. It was still all the same, just sadder. The plants had changed from flowers to bushes that needed a bit of a trim and the grass had been changed to stones. I stood there waiting and got lost in my thoughts when the door suddenly opened and there she stood, beautiful as ever.

-Oh, you came! She said with a big smile on her face.

-Of course, I did, I said.

-Come on in, don't just stand there!

She dragged me inside and led me into the living area, she was always so cheerful, the total opposite of me, I'm more the laid-back kind that doesn't say much and is always awkward and speak my mind. She introduced me to some of her friends and they started to talk about shit that I had no clue about so I slipped away without a word and no one noticed. I went to the bar which was pleased at the back of the living area, it was crowded as hell and I had to zig zag through the whole bunch before I got there. I poured myself a drink and went up the stairs in the hallway as it was too noisy downstairs. They had put up more photos since the last time I had been there, a lot of them was on Tina and her older brother Tomas. But a few family photos were up there as well and a lot of photos of Tina in her cheerleading outfit. I found the door to the balcony and headed outside, it was so nice with fresh air and it was a bit calmer out here than inside. I put my drink on the railing and leaned out of it looking down, there was a few people in the pool throwing things at each other, jumping of the bar, that was outside, into the pool, it was crazy to see them doing all those things. I looked up in to the sky and watched the sun slowly going down instead and tried to keep the noise out of my head. I started to think back of all the summers I had spent here with Tina and her family, I felt like a part of the family back then. My parents didn't have much money so I spent a lot of my time here. I thought back to all the fun we had on the beach, all the dancing we had done, all the pictures I had taken of her.