Chapter 4
Chapter Four
ELIZABETH
Summer Before Eleventh Grade
Choices and Regrets
W e’ll be heading to the Outer Banks next week for July Fourth. Our families—mine, the twins’, and Ryder’s—rented a huge ten-room, three-story beach house on Topsail.
North Carolina has the best beaches, but Topsail Island is my favorite. It’s sandwiched between the green ocean of the Atlantic to the east and the placid waters of the sound to the west. Serenity Point at the southern end of the island is nothing but flat, fine-grained sand that goes on as far as the eye can see. When at the beach, I wake up every morning before sunrise and walk down to the point just for the chance to see a pod of dolphins play in the waves or swim up the channel.
Between Topsail and the mainland is Banks Channel and a network of channels and sandbars. Julien and I love to walk along the sandbars to find hermit crabs, sand dollars, and conch shells. My jar collection now takes up all the shelves on my bookcase in my room.
“I’m not feeling this one,” I tell Maria and take off the swimsuit I just tried on.
“Decent?”
“Yep.”
My dressing room door cracks open, and I pass her the red two-piece to put on the discard rack.
“Try the yellow one.”
Knowing I’m not going to like it because yellow clashes with my pale skin and blonde hair, I humor her anyway. Just as I expected, I hate it.
“I think I’m done.”
I get no answer.
“Mar?”
Taking off the hideous yellow monstrosity, I go through my pile of favorites—a bright blue bikini with matching halter top, a long-sleeved swim shirt that zips up the back and comes with matching bikini bottoms, and a muted green one-piece paired with black board shorts—and cringe when I add up the total. There goes all the money I saved babysitting for a year.
When my phone chimes, I check my messages. Hailey sent a heart GIF and Julien sent a thumbs up, but nothing from Ryder or Jayson yet. I took mirror selfies of the winning pieces and sent the photos to the boys and Hailey for their opinion.
Maria stampedes into the dressing room just as I’m zipping up my denim shorts.
“Sexy boy alert!”
“What?”
“Sexy. Boy. Alert!” she whisper-shouts.
She scares the crap out of me when she pounds on the stall door.
“Hurry up!”
“Chill. I’m coming.”
I give my reflection a thorough once-over in the mirror. My hair has really grown out over the past few months. It’s halfway down my back and keeps a permanent wave—which I love by the way—but the temperatures are too hot right now for me to do anything other than tie it up into a high ponytail. I’m considering cutting it. I wonder if I’d look good in a short bob.
Sliding my feet into my sandals, I grab my stuff and unlock the door.
“Jayson and Ryder just walked in.” Maria bounces on her toes as she peeks around the corner.
Ryder seems to make her nervous. She said it was because he was totally and utterly hot, and she couldn’t deal with all his hotness. Those were her exact words verbatim.
I don’t disagree. He is hot. Jayson, too. Unfortunately, as they’ve grown older, their level of hotness has exploded exponentially—as have my crushes on them. Once all three of them hit their growth spurt, Jayson and Julien shot up to over six feet. They’re so active in sports, their muscle mass compensated for the sudden height gain. Ryder filled out as well, mostly due to all the heavy lifting he does on the regular in his dad’s garage. The cute boys I grew up with are turning into devastatingly handsome men, and I’m stuck as the ugly duckling best friend.
My sandal catches on a bump in the carpet and flies off.
“Hurry up. They’re coming this way.”
Hopping on my left foot, I redo the strap and buckle. “Calm down.”
She glowers at me over her shoulder. “You calm down.”
I roll my eyes. Sometimes, she can be a major drama queen.
Grabbing her arm, I pull her from the dressing room.