Summer Days to An End

Chapter XII.

After a week had passed since their trip to New York, the group had chosen to remain apart for some time, not because there was nothing for them to do, but rather because it was nearly impossible to bring them all together; especially if both Selah and Lo were involved. So, knowing that doing any activity that included one but left out the other would inevitably cause an argument, they all agreed that none would have to do in the place of some.

However, this agreement did not sit well with Miyo.

For her, having to see her two closest friends fighting over someone that one of them had been in love with for years was far from appealing, as it would be for all. As such, something would have to be done about the ongoing situation, something by someone who was on the outside looking in.

"Where are you going, Miyo?" Her sister spoke in a soft voice as she came to her bedroom door, and turning away from her things Miyo walked towards her.

"I'm going to meet my friends at the beach to talk to them about some things." She began, not wanting to shed too much light on what she was about to do, even though it was only her younger sister.

"Like what?" Mari continued.

"Well, there are a few issues that haven't exactly been solved between them, so we're going to meetup to hopefully talk things through and fix them," Miyo explained, tucking her phone into her back pocket along with her headphones.

"So they've been fighting?"

"Not exactly fighting, just not getting along." She tried to correct her, though realizing that her sister's description was probably better than her own.

I should have just said yes, at least that's what it feels like at this point, she thought to herself.

"Well, hopefully you can fix things before they get any worse. Real friends can have their differences, but they should never lead to fights," said Mari, before walking out of the door frame and heading back to her room, whilst her words circulated in Miyo's head.

How can she be so young, yet say something so effortlessly true? Miyo wondered, puzzled by the fact that her sister was only a mere ten years old, yet had given her advice that had so clearly depicted the situation, with barely any details about it.

Taking her sister's words into careful account, Miyo gathered her things as she stepped out of her room, closing her door behind her as she walked down the hallway and towards the front door of her apartment, just as she came across her mother in the kitchen.

"I'll be gone for a short while, Mom, I'm just going to see Selah and Lo at the beach. I'll make sure to be back before dinner," She spoke, and lifting her small, brown eyes from the stove, her mother answered her silently with a gentle smile.

With that, Miyo went out the door, taking the key to their garage downstairs as she decided to take her bicycle to the beach, mindful of that being her most convenient method of getting there without taking a car.

"This plan better work." She whispered under her breath as she took off down the street, swiftly making her way through the city sidewalks as she used the small grains of sand scattered across the ground to lead her to her destination. A few minutes later, she had arrived at her desired time; just after Lo, yet just before Selah, being sure to keep the two at bay.

Parking her bicycle a few meters away, she spotted Lo sitting on a hill of sand near the edge of the water, her bare feet buried in the sand as she rested her sandals beside them.

"It's good to see that you came," Miyo called out to her, and turning her head Lo caught sight of Miyo making her way over to her, before shyly looking back at the crashing waves.

"Well, I figured I owed you an apology for what happened in New York. I shouldn't have smacked your hand away like that. I wasn't even upset with you, so it wasn't fair for me to treat you like that," She explained, and taking off her shoes Miyo sat next to her in the sand, inhaling the cool ocean breeze as Lo kept her eyes on the sand.

"That's okay, I know you didn't mean anything by it." She answered, and Lo turned to face her as she gave a small smile, before the sound of a car pulling up by the sidewalk a short distance away from them caught their attention.

There she is, Miyo thought to herself as the car shut off, and out from the driver's seat stepped Selah, catching a glimpse of Miyo's figure on the beach as she made her way towards her, before abruptly stopping as she recognized the person right next to her. Swallowing her pride, she continued in the same way as before, choosing to hear Miyo's explanation before making a scene.

"What is she doing here?" She began once the three of them were together, and both Miyo and Lo rose from the ground to answer her.

"I have a name, you know, and I could actually ask the same thing about you," said Lo, and within moments Miyo could feel that her plan was quickly approaching a backfire.

"Can you two please relax? I called you both here separately so that we can resolve this issue once and for all, because if we don't, it'll be nearly impossible for us to spend time together in the future." Miyo interjected, and with rolling eyes and tense sighs, the two agreed to work with her plan.

"Honestly, I don't see why you can't just accept what Finn's trying to say to you. Yes, he has feelings for me; so what? How does that have anything to do with you? I mean, besides the fact that you're clearly jealous," snapped Selah.

"You think I don't know that this has nothing to do with me? Please, he made that pretty obvious when he decided he didn't have the balls to even talk to me about it, so you can have him for the half-ass guy that he is. Secondly, I am not jealous of you, Selah. If I was, I wouldn't be taking the time to speak to you right now." Lo responded in a similar tone, turning away from both Selah and Miyo whilst slipping on her sandals, as though she were about to leave.

"You know, you're quite the hypocrite, Lo. You could be head over heels in love with someone, yet the minute you find out that they don't feel the same, you treat them worse than dirt. It just goes to show how spoiled and shallow you are, and how much you can't accept when things don't go your way." Selah added in a critical tone, and immediately Lo froze as her back remained turned to them, resisting the urge to clench her fists as let out a long breath of air.

"I'm sorry, what did you just call me?"

"You heard me. I said you're spoiled and shallo-"

"Don't you dare call me either of those things!" She turned to shout, the sand beneath her flying into the air around them with the swift motion of her feet.

"H-How, how could you call me those things, when you know the kind of life that I have, when you know all the things that I've experienced? Do you think I chose to be raised this way? I'm sorry if I don't know any better, but I wouldn't expect you to understand anyhow; it's not like you know what it means to live in a broken family." Lo continued in a contrasting tone, and immediately both Miyo and Selah understood what she meant.

Remorseful of her words, Selah hung her head in shame.

"Oh, so now you feel bad? That's funny, well don't worry about it: I don't need your apology, and I don't want it either. I'm going home, I'm tired of being here," were Lo's next words, and facing the sidewalk behind them she began walking over the small hill of sand that they stood upon and back to her car, before pausing to say one last thing.

"Thanks for trying to do this, Miyo. Don't worry, I'm not going to hold the way things ended against you, because it wasn't your fault. At least I can say one of us actually cares about how I feel." She muttered weakly, before continuing towards her car a few meters away from Selah's.

Silently, both Miyo and Selah watched as she drove away from the beach, the wheels of her car stirring up the sand from the lot in which she parked and blowing the grains into the air.

It was at this moment that the two of them realized that some things are better left alone.