Prologue

September, 2010

 

 

“You’re leaving.”

       The bottle of colored sand from the beachfront store in Coronado fell from Isabelle’s hand and shattered on the wood floor. Brightly-colored grains of sand now littered the ground beneath her feet.  “Crap,” she muttered, but it was half-hearted at best. She didn’t really care about the stupid bottle anymore. It had been a gift from him, and it was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

       Rain took two steps forward into the room. “You’re leaving,” she said again. This time it was a question, but Isabelle still found it difficult to muster the answer. It was a simple, easy word, yet so impossible to say out loud. Saying it out loud made it real.

She swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

“I don’t understand,” said Rain. “School doesn’t start for another two weeks. Summer isn’t even over yet.”

“I don’t care.”

There was silence. Then, “Why?”

She turned to face Rain. The smaller girl was pretty, Isabelle decided, though she hadn’t really thought much about it since they had become friends. Rain’s olive-toned face was littered with freckles, but somehow they made her look unique and delicate, like a child. Her long, dark-brown hair was tangled and curly, and her green eyes glittered wetly, as though there were tears fighting their way to the surface. But that was impossible, of course---Rain wouldn’t be crying. No one wanted Isabelle here anymore. And could she blame them, really? All she did was start problems between everyone, and she was tired of it.

“You know why,” she said finally.

Rain played dumb. “Remind me,” she murmured.

“Carter is gone.” It surprised her to realize how badly those three little words hurt. Like a knife to the ribs, cutting off her air supply and making it difficult to breathe. “And it’s all my fault, and now no one will speak to me. Kyle is avoiding me like the plague. Nina won’t answer my phone calls, and neither will Sam.” She sighed. “I ruin everything good, Raindrop.”

She collapsed onto the bed, feeling the tears coming on. It had only been a few days since the huge blowout between Carter and Kyle---a blowout that had been, ultimately, Isabelle’s fault---and now Carter was nowhere to be found. Kyle was around here somewhere, but studiously avoiding her. Even the other girls wanted nothing to do with her anymore, not since she’d basically broken up their group. And for what? All because she’d wanted to have a little fun this summer, the summer before sophomore year. It was supposed to have been perfect. She was supposed to come to Malibu and have the time of her life---not ruin everyone else’s.

Rain plopped down beside her. The two girls stared up at Isabelle’s cottage ceiling for a long moment. Just as Isabelle was beginning to count the freckles on the white cardboard panels, Rain said, “It’s going to be okay, you know.”

Isabelle scoffed. “How? Carter is gone, and all our friends hate each other. And it’s all my fault, by the way.”

It was silent. “This is the part where you reassure me that it really wasn’t my fault,” grumbled Isabelle.

“You know I can’t tell you that. I’m your friend, and I won’t lie to you.” She sighed. “He’ll come back, and they’ll all get over it---eventually. We’ll get through this,” she said. Rain turned her head. “We’re each other’s, you know? We can’t let go of our friendship over some tiny little road bump."

Rain wasn’t as sexy as Isabelle was. She wasn’t as smart as Sam, or even as wildly interesting as Nina. But sometimes, Isabelle thought, she was the best out of all of them. She said the right things when you needed to hear them, and stayed quiet when you needed to hear nothing at all. Isabelle had never really had girl friends, let alone a best friend, but it surprised her to realize that Rain was the best friend she could ever have.

She placed her hand inside Isabelle’s and squeezed. “Say you’ll stay,” she said, and her green eyes searched Isabelle’s with the kind of hope that made her feel like everything was coming together again.

“I’ll stay.”

Author's Note

I don't know what I did :( I think I accidentally deleted the prologue when I made this a "book" instead of a "story".

Reviews

[ayele marie dalmeida]

I wish i had a friend like rain , who understand me too. anyways this is very interesting and i can't wait to read more about carter and what happened. i wonder how she broke up the group. nicely written.

[SquinklaPsyOps]

You have done a great job of writing.

This is a very compelling and interesting piece, well written with a strong, clear voice and easy to read.