Beautifully Broken

Chapter 9

We decided we would walk to the pier. It really wasn't that far away from the beach house; we followed the path by the beach.

"What's our school like?" Tyler asked. Honestly, I was surprised by his question, given I only found out he will be joining us for senior year last night.

"Well, you can probably already guess that Basketball is our main sport, I mean we have other teams, but the basketballers are the only one's that are any good. It's not a massive school and for the most part everyone gets along. There's the usual, cheerleaders, nerds, jocks, drama club," I shrugged. 

"Right, so where do you and Kara fit in. You don't look like the cheerleader type, yet your friends with the basketball captain, isn't that the high school cliche?" he laughed.

Smiling, "I am definitely not a cheerleader! I am not that co-ordinated! We go by KK at school, I guess you might say we are popular, but only because we get along with everyone. If someone was being bullied, we are usually the first to step in too. I guess that's where we gain our respect. Plus, all the guys fall over their feet for Kara. Don't get me wrong, there are certainly some girls that don't like me, or us." 

"I see. Why don't they like you?" he asked curiously.

"They are threatened. In their perfect world the basketball captain and his friends should be into them, not friends with Kara and I. I mean, it's never stopped the boys hooking up with them, they just don't like how close we are."

"Interesting. I mean you did hook up with my cousin though?"

"That was just a silly freshman year party hook up. We didn't even date, honestly, I'm just close with the guys, they are like brothers."

He nodded. I looked over at him, smiling slightly.

We approached the pier and it was so busy with families everywhere. As we neared my favourite beach kiosk, I pulled Tyler towards it. "Want an iced latte?" I offered. 

He politely declined and waited back a bit from the line while I ordered and collected my favourite drink. We then continued walking towards the end of the pier.

Memories of my childhood started flooding back. This was my favourite place to come on summer nights. Mom, Dad, Drew, and me. We would get a drink from the very same kiosk, then walk down to the end and watch the sunset together. That was back when we were a family and enjoyed spending time with each other.

I took in the pier in front of me. It was huge and considered one of the highlights of our small beach town. It stretched out into the ocean, people enjoyed fishing from one side and often there would be groups of friends jumping into the water off the very end. A little way down we could see a small crowd gathered and music playing. It was common for there to be a musician of some sort playing for donations too.

Today was a trio, we stopped to watch, and I recognised the tune immediately as 'Sweet Home Alabama', one of my favourite classics. We moved towards the front of the crowd where we could see two young girls around 7 or 8 years old dancing in front of the trio. These young girls set the mood for everyone with their bright smiles and soon enough I was also swaying to the music. 

The girls noticed me and pulled me to dance with them. I looked at Tyler and shrugged my shoulders, joining them to dance in front of everyone. A smile had formed on his face as he watched us dancing. Seeing him smile only made me smile even more. 

Before I knew it, these little girls had pulled Tyler towards us to dance too. I was utterly surprised when he gave in to them immediately, the four of us dancing to the beat and laughing. As the song came to an end the crowd cheered, but my eyes were only on Tyler.