Chapter Two

~Day One~

Jake and I were startled awake the next morning to a banging on the door. I groaned and put my pillow on the top of my head. I heard Jake chuckle next to me and roll on his back, stretching.

"Come on you two!" Macy yelled. "We found a bed and breakfast down the road! We wanna go eat! Get dressed!"

I sighed and rolled out of bed, throwing my pillow on Jake in the process. Jake laughed and put my pillow back in it's place while sitting up. I pulled some clothes out of my bag and let Jake take the bathroom first this time. I waited until he closed the door of the bathroom and I got dressed and threw my hair up into a ponytail. I took my turn in the bathroom after Jake and once I was done, we left.

It didn't take long to get to the bed and breakfast. In fact, it only took about ten minutes. It didn't take long for us to get seated either. We sat down and ordered.

"So," Jake began. My attention quickly turned from Miriam and Macy's conversation about some girls in our school, to Jake.

"How did you sleep last night?"

"Fine." I replied, nodding. "You?"

"Pretty good. I feel kind of out of place with the couples and us being the only single people...you know?

What brought this conversation on? Was he just thinking about it, or what? I guess it didn't matter. It was just a conversation.

"I guess I kind of do." I replied.

"Do you think it was planned?" He asked quickly.

I played with the rim of my orange juice glass. Did I think it was planned? For us to get together? Miriam had been complaining lately that I didn't have a boyfriend...I think she even mentioned Jake once.

"What do yo mean?" I asked finally. I wanted to know what his position was on this situation. If he was thinking the same thing as I was.

"Like," he paused and leaned forward in his seat, "do you think Miriam and Patrick and them set us up to get together?"

I stopped circling the rim of my orange juice glass and thought a moment. So he was thinking the same thing as I was. It didn't seem like it couldn't be true. I'm sure Miriam had this plan in her head once she brought up the idea of coming to the beach for our spring break. I started circling the rim of my glass again.

"Probably. But who cares?" I stated.

He let out a snuff of air, chuckling slightly. What was so funny about that?

"Yeah. We probably won't get together anyway." He said, leaning back in his chair again.

I stopped again, looked up at him, and raised an eyebrow. I know he didn't mean it like that, but I wasn't about to let him realize that just yet.

"I don't mean it in a bad way! It's just one of those things that...I don't know how to explain it." He said hurriedly. I laughed. His reaction to me was priceless.

"I get it." I said. He laughed nervously and took a drink of his own orange juice.

I took a moment to look over his features. He was muscular and he wore a lot of Hollister and Ambercrombie, which I just realized. Of course, I didn't care what clothes he was wearing, it was just interesting. He had short, spiked hair that was blonde. He was actually really cute.

We all finished eating and started trying to decide what to do that day. I wasn't really much up for anything, but I didn't say anything> I just went with the flow.

"Why don't we just spend today on the beach? We did take a...what? Seventeen hour drive to get here last night." Patrick suggested. He had to be exaggerating. We didn't drive seventeen hours...did we?
'I'm okay with that." I replied. One day to relax was fine with me. Actually, it was perfect, just like I was wanting earlier.

"Sounds good." Jake agreed. He gently kicked my foot under the table with his own. I looked at him with a playfully raised eyebrow and he smirked and winked. I rolled my eyes, smiling. Jake was pretty cool. I kicked his foot back and he gave me a knowing glance.

We got up from the table and headed out to the van to go back to the cabins.

Once we got to the cabins, we all changed into our swimsuits quickly and headed out to the beach. I was ready to get out and get into the warm sun. Jake and I had the cabin freezing cold since we knew the outside weather, even though being Spring, would be pretty toasty.

I wore a black, white, purple, and pink two piece; it was one of my favorite swimsuits that I owned. Jake went with me down to the lawn chairs and he set his stuff next to mine.

"I'll hang out with you," he began; he sat down, "and let them have their mush gush time."

I laughed. I looked at Macy and Jame, who were laying on the sand just being the weird couple they were. Then I looked at Miriam and Patrick who were out in the ocean splashing at each other. I watched as Patrick grabbed her by the waist and twirled her in the water. I smiled and turned back to facing the sun in my sunglasses.

"I don't know," I began teasingly, "I'm a pretty boring beach person. I just sit around and sun bathe."

"We can change that." He got up and pulled me from my own chair. I groaned loudly. Moving was not in my vocabulary right now--I just wanted to relax.

"Nooooo." I complained, but I allowed him to drag me out to a surfboard rack that was covered in dust and sand. There was no point in trying to complain and get out of it.

"Ever been surfing?" He asked, pulling a blue and white board off the rack and handing it to me. I took it and scoffed, giving him a look. Have I ever been surfing...

"I live in Califronia." I replied. "Of course I have."

He smiled at me and we walked by our stuff and I grabbed my board shorts out of my bag. Before getting into the water, I pulled them on and quickly followed him into the water. He was a ways ahead of me, but I caught up quickly. We both waded out and got up onto the board. he smiled at me and we went onto the waves.

We came back to our stuff soaking wet and laughing. We had put the boards back where they belonged and sand was sticking to our legs and arms from pushing each other into the sand. I pushed him down one more time and laughed, and before I could sit down, he grabbed my ankle, causing me to let out a small scream and all down next to him. We cracked up again and he looked over at me. His eyes then looked behind me.

"Whoa..." He said quietly. I turned onto my side and looked over the horizon. It was the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen. The sun was it's normal yellow, but it had a ring of orange--like fire--around it and the horizon had hues of red and pink and a magenta purple. Behind all those colors, was the deep blue of the darkening sky.

"Come on." Jake said after awhile. "Let's go ask the guys if they want to have a bonfire."

I looked behind me where he was originally laying, but he wasn't there. I stared at the space, confused, but when his hands appeared in front of my face, I looked up. I took them and he helped me get to my feet.

"Thanks." I replied. I started brushing sand off me as we walked over to the rest of our group. Who knew someone could get so much sand on them in such a little amount of time...

"Hey, guys." Jake said to them. "Let's have a bonfire. I mean, we can have plenty of bonfires the rest of the week too, but."

"That sounds like fun." Macy squeaked. When I say squeaked, I literally mean squeaked. Her voice was so high pitched I think that's all she could do.

"James, let's do it!"

I was kind of confused on why she wanted permission from James, but I ignored it. They were both a weird couple from the start.

"Alright." He replied. We were doing it whether he gave us the go ahead or not. The annoying prick. He really was a prick. I didn't really like James from the moment i met him.

We all headed back to our cabins and started cleaning up. I wanted to take a quick shower to get the sand out from all the crevices on my body. I grabbed a few snacks from my bag, because I hadn't eaten since that morning, and I'm sure you could hear my stomach from across the country.

"Let's bring some hot dogs and marshmallows." Jake suggested from the bathroom. I made a face and threw my snacks back into my bag. I had forgotten that Jake brought a cooler full of stuff for a bonfire. Why wasn't it in the fridge yet?

"Do you want me to just take the whole cooler?" I asked him, staring at the cooler.

"Sure."

I pulled it from the side of the couch where it was close to an air conditioning vent. Jake had finally come out of the bathroom and I was able to go in and take my quick shower to get the sand out of my hair and off of me. I had brought in a t-shirt, short-shorts, my boat shoes, my North Face jacket, and fresh underwear to change into. I loved the ocean, but I didn't like the effects that it had on my hair. The good thing about the salt water was that it made my skin soft.

Once I was done, Jake and I headed out to the freshly made bonfire. Miriam had brought out the metal stakes to roast the food on and Jake offered to make me a hot dog. My stomach quickly agreed and Jake chuckled at the sudden noise. My face reddened. Thankfully, Jake changed the subject.

"My mom was hesitant to let me come out here." Jake said. "You know, with the whole teenagers going alone thing."

I felt a pang of pain in my heart instantly. Mom...

"I wouldn't know what that feels like..." I simply replied, trailing off and starting to stare off into space. I didn't mean to sound harsh if that's what it came out like.

"What do you mean?" Jake asked, curious. Apparently it didn't come across like that, thank goodness. But his question was somewhat difficult for me to answer...

"My mom died when I was eight. It was...uhm..." I swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump in my throat.

"She was killed." I finished, the lump hurting worse.

"In a car accident?"

"No." I surprisingly didn't feel like crying. The lump in my throat said otherwise.

"Uhm, it was a serial killer."

"Oh." Jake messed with his shorts and looked up at me, sincere. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. He came to our house, acted like a friend. I didn't know what was going on, I was eight. Mom told me to go play hide and seek, because I always hid in my toy chest. I heard a loud bang and waited what seemed like forever. Dad came in not too long after. I asked where mommy was and dad said 'a better place'."

I left out the details of the blood on my dad's nice dress shirt and tie. thinking about that image brought up the memory.

I sat on the ground, playing with my brand new Barbie doll. Mom's gift to me for being such a good girl in such a big crisis. I didn't quite understand what the big crisis was, but I got a Barbie out of it, so I was perfectly fine with it.

There was a knock at the door. I looked up from playing Barbie and watched my mom answer it. She started to back slowly away from the door. A man came in with a gun pointed at mom and he shut the door behind him. Once he noticed me, he placed his gun in his coat pocket and sat on the couch behind me.

"Cute little girl you have." He said to my mother. "Gorgeous red hair."

I placed my barbie doll on the floor and went to my coloring book at the coffee table. This guy creeped me out. I watched him as he took one of my coloring books.

"May I color with you?" He asked me. I looked up at mom and she nodded. I pushed my crayons to in-between us and continued coloring, watching him wearily.

"You're welcome to call your husband. Invite him over." The man said as he started coloring a cat. Mom nodded and grabbed her phone off the kitchen counter. I watched her dial dad's number and before she could call him, her phone went off.

"Hello?" She asked. I turned back to my picture of a mermaid and started coloring the tail purple.

"Yeah...he's here." Mom said. I looked up at the man and watched him mouth a word and my mom quickly complied. Dad's voice filled the living room.

"Adolfina, be careful. Please. I know Ness is with you right now, she shouldn't be in the crossfire. I'm sorry she's still there. I tried to get there quicker." Dad's voice kept rattling on. I remembered. I was supposed to go to Miriam's right now. Just like all my other siblings went to their friend's houses for the day. It was supposed to be 'mommy and daddy day' as my parents called it.

"Leon, it's okay. She's sa--" Mom was cut off by the man.

"Your little girl is a sweetie, Leon." He said. "Your wife is a beauty too."

Mom blushed and set the phone down by me. I continued coloring and waited to say anything to dad.

"Don't gt my family involved in this. Just leave." My dad said harshly through the phone.

"I want to affect you as much as possible. You ruined my life. Now, I'm going to ruin yours."

"Nessa, sweetie?" I heard my dad say through the phone. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm coloring a mermaid!" I said happily. "It's gonna be put on the fridge!"

"That's good sweetie." His voiced cracked.

"Is something wrong, daddy?"

"Everything is fine. I'll see you when I get home, baby. Fina?"

"I'm here." She responded. I looked at her. She was crying. I got the faintest idea of what was going to happen.

"Fina, I love you so much. You've been so supportive throughout our marriage. You never once questioned my job. That means so much to me." Dad was crying now too.

"Don't be afraid, Leon. I love you. Forever and for always. Nessa. Let's play hide and seek for daddy. He'll have to find you when he gets home!

"Alright!" I said happily. I loved playing hide and seek for dad when he got home.

"My frist and only..." I hear dad say before I disappeared up the stairs. I pushed open the toy chest and shoved things to one side and jumped in. Right when I closed the toy chest, I heard a loud bang.

I felt warmth on my cold hands. I looked down at the hand that was on top of mine. I followed up the arm and saw Jake's sincere face. I smiled at it. He was so sweet, and he didn't have to even say anything. I blinked back a couple of tears that threatened to fall. I was really hoping I didn't have to remember that nasty day. I would always remember dad's final words to mom... His first and only... His first and only girlfriend...

"On a happier note," he began, pulling his hand from mine, "where do you want to go to college?"

"University of Iowa." I stated simply. University of Iowa was far from home, which was what I wanted. After mom's death, dad had become distant, and he never treated any of us the same. He never looked me in the eyes after that day.

"Be a hawkeye girl?" Jake said, pulling me away from the thoughts of dad. I laughed, trying to show I wasn't bothered by our original conversation.

"Yeah. What about you?"

"I'm going to go to University of Iowa too."

"Really?" I asked, shocked. Such a small world that he wanted to go to the same college. Maybe I'd see him there some day.

"Yeah. I want to be a doctor."

"Doctors are cool. They make a lot of money. I wanna be a writer."

"That's cool. Would you allow me to read your stuff now? Before you become a hot shot writer?"

I laughed nervously. No one had ever read anything of mine except for strangers that I never had to meet face to face. I posted on websites quite a big, but I never let anyone close to me read them.

"I highly doubt I'm going to become a hot shot writer, but I might let you read some of my stuff." I smiled. Please don't remember that, Jake. I thought.

"That's a start." He smiled. He took our hot dogs off the fire and put them in buns. We all joked around, leaving our conversation, thankfully, and joining the others'. Macy and James went back to their cabins first after a little while.

I didn't understand how their relationship worked. Most relationships that were freshman senior pairs never ended well, especially when the senior was a guy, which was this case. Seniors let the relationship get to their head and never made it go as far as James and Macy's had. Something had to be going on between them. More than just the relationship. Unless Macy was just psycho, which was a possibility.

I shrugged it off and Miriam and Patrick got up and left soon after, complaining they were tired (or lying that they were tired, more like), leaving Jake and I alone. All we did was talk. We learned a lot about each other, ranging from favorite color, to where we wanted to live when we got older and how many kids we wanted to have. Talking to Jake was different than talking to other guys. We never asked how many kids we wanted to have or where we wanted to live. It was either always about the guy I was talking to, or nothing even close to future plans.

Soon, I was starting to yawn and Jake suggested we go back. I thought this idea was wonderful, I really wanted to get some sleep in case Miriam woke us up like she did this morning. I helped him put out the fire and we joked on the way back to our cabin. Once we got back, we instantly changed clothes. My legs were chilly from the spring night and sweatpants seemed better than my over-sized t-shirt.

We sat up a little while longer and talked some more, rather than going to sleep like my original plan intended; but, I had fallen asleep listening to a funny story Jake was telling me. I knew later I would feel bad for doing it, but he seemed like the guy that would understand and not care.

He picked me up gently and carried me to bed. I could have sworn I heard him say 'goodnight'. Only a whisper in my ear.