Chapter Three
Reese
“Oh, Reese’s Pieces, you’re going to love this beach. Only locals come here,” Beth said as she slid on her designer sunglasses, checking her lip gloss in her rearview mirror.
I quietly chuckled at the mention of the word ‘local’ and her in the same sentence. They’d only been living in Hawaii for three months. I also refrained from rolling my eyes at the nickname she has had for me since we were three.
“How was your first day of orientation?” Beth asked as she literally jumped down from the driver’s side of her lifted truck. I tried to get out of the truck and found that, even at my height, I struggled to put my feet on the ground.
“It was fine,” I said casually. “It was a normal first day of trying to stay awake.” When I originally planned my travel itinerary a few weeks ago, it seemed totally fine to land in Honolulu on a Sunday night and start orientation at my new hospital the next day.
Now, though, I felt like a bus had run me over.
Beth laughed at this. “Is it really that boring?”
“It’s all admin stuff. Usually, it’s a PowerPoint on the mission of the hospital and why it’s a good thing you have a job with them.”
Beth unpacked some beach towels from the bed of the truck. “Do you want to boogie board?” She asked, pointing her head towards the orange foam boards poking out in the back.
“Um, no, thank you.” Even though I was fully recovered from my eight hours of vomiting on a plane, I didn’t know how to boogie board, and wasn’t feeling adventurous.
“I can teach you!” she said, as if reading my mind.
“Maybe another time.” I tried to shrug it off casually.
She shrugged too, slamming the back of the truck closed. “What time do you have to be at the hospital tomorrow?” We started heading towards what I assumed was the direction of the beach, but I couldn’t see the water over the large, sandy hills.
“8:00 AM. I have to complete a training class for their computer system, but I’ve used it before, so I bet it goes quickly.”
We cleared the hill, and the vast ocean stretched out in front of me. The water was aqua blue and so clear I could see down to the soft sand at the bottom. I could feel the heat radiating from the sand as I slipped off my sandals, letting my toes dig in as we walked down the hill.
There was only one other group lounging at the other end of the beach. I could barely see two women lounging on beach towels and two men in the water. I couldn’t see their faces, but I could hear one of them laughing even from here. It was a loud, thunderous sound that startled me.
“What does your schedule look like for the rest of the week?” Beth asked as she settled on a spot to lay her towel down.
“More new employee training until Friday. Then I’m free until Monday, when I have my first and maybe even last day of orientation on the unit.”
She began undressing, and I nervously stalled, wondering
if I could get away with wearing the oversized T-shirt into the water.
When I’d gotten to baggage claim in Honolulu, I had been taken aback at the sight of my barely five-foot, perfectly platinum blonde, and extremely busty cousin.
She looked like every classic Barbie doll I had grown up playing with.
So much so, I thought she could have given Margot Robbie a run for her money.
We had waited over an hour at baggage claim, and after the last bag had been claimed, my luggage was nowhere in sight. After speaking with an airline employee, it was confirmed that my luggage had never left Denver, but that they would send it out on the first flight the next day.
When my luggage still hadn’t arrived today, despite the airline assuring me they hadn’t lost it, Beth had insisted that I borrow one of her bikinis, but I was now having regrets.
After slipping it on, I had asked if she had a larger shirt for me to wear over it, and instead, she came back with one of her husband’s shirts.
The man must have been a giant, because his shirt went down past my knees.
Beth promised he wouldn’t mind, but I had yet to meet the man myself.
He hadn’t been at their house when I’d arrived late last night and was gone before I’d gotten up this morning.
All I knew about Derek, Beth’s college sweetheart, was that he was ridiculously handsome (thank you, Beth’s Instagram) and that they had been married for eight years.
“They don’t train you longer than that?” Beth asked, her face scrunched with worry.
“It depends on the hospital,” I said. “A rare few give you two weeks of orientation, most give you one week, but I’ve had plenty where I only get one shift. Honestly, I need to know where all the supplies are, and I’m ready to go.”
“That’s impressive,” Beth said in awe. “You ready to soak in the water?” she asked, flaunting her high-waisted yellow bikini. Her body looked flawless, and her skin had a healthy glow.
I had been following Beth on social media for years now, and not a single picture or video did her justice in real life.
She was absolutely gorgeous, and her 550k Instagram followers seemed to agree.
Online, her life seemed so perfectly put together.
She posted almost every day about her adventures.
Meanwhile, I lived my life stuck in a hospital.
I looked around the beach again and confirmed that the only spectators were still far away.
I internally screamed as I peeled the shirt off, wondering if my white skin would blind Beth.
I felt exposed in nothing but a bright pink, cheetah-print bikini.
I was not a busty girl by any means, but I felt as though my breasts were fighting to get out.
Knowing my luck, the first wave I encountered would set them free.
How the heck did Beth wear this thing with the bazookas she was carrying around? The last time I’d seen Beth, neither of us had hit puberty yet, so I was surprised to see how much more she had been given in the boob department, and how I towered over her with my five-foot-nine-inch frame.
“Hot damn, Reese,” Beth whistled. “You’re fucking hot.”
I instantly felt my cheeks heat and fought the urge to throw the oversized shirt back on. I hugged my arms close to my body, but it only made my breasts bulge more.
I avoided eye contact with her and reached for the sunscreen. “Will you get my back?” I asked.
“Oh, you won’t burn at this time of the day.” She waved me off.
“That’s not true. You can get skin cancer from various times of sun exposure throughout the day,” I argued.
Beth looked at me incredulously, but she took the sunscreen from me anyway. After getting slathered in white zinc, she took out her phone. “Let’s get a selfie!” she squeaked excitedly.
“I don’t really like taking pictures...”
“Come on, Reese! We haven’t been together for years. I want to document this moment,” she said, her eyes pleading with me.
I sighed as I leaned in, trying to hide my body behind hers. She took about thirty pictures before she was satisfied and finally put her phone back in her bag.
“Okay, I’m ready. Now, be careful not to drift too far out. Sometimes there are jellyfish a little further out,” she warned.
“No worries, I doubt I will go that far.”
Beth turned and full-on ran into the crashing shoreline. I carefully walked in and waded through the water until it reached my waist. Beth made her way back to me, her smile shining in the evening glow.
“Should we have waited for Derek to get off work?” I asked as Beth floated around me.
“Nah. He texted me earlier saying he probably wouldn’t be home until closer to nine or ten.”
“Is that normal for him?” I asked.
“Ever since he got promoted at the beginning of the year, he has nights where he has to stay longer.” She smiled at me, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
I couldn’t help but compare Derek’s work schedule to what my dad used to do. It started as a few extra hours here or there, but then it quickly turned into my dad being gone on Sunday nights for ‘work.’ Little did my mom and I know that ‘work’ was really the woman he was cheating on her with.
“You know,” I moved on, “I’m happy we came out here tonight. It’s so peaceful.”
Her smile was brighter now, her eyes almost matching the water's color. Beth was a natural beauty, and she usually put a good amount of effort into her appearance. Tonight, though, she had taken off her makeup for the beach. It made me feel more comfortable about the fact that I rarely wore any.
“I’m happy you’re here,” she said earnestly.
“I’m hoping to get out more and do more things than I did during my last assignment,” I admitted.
“Oh, no! Wasn’t Denver a good time? I heard the skiing is great,” she said.
“I don’t know, B. Maybe I would have enjoyed Denver more had I been there during the summer,” I said as I remembered how it had been freezing when I’d arrived in January.
“I learned the hard way that even on warm days, most trails were still icy in shady areas. It only took one time for me to slip on my butt and rip my yoga pants to decide I’d never try again. ”
“Ouch!” She made a sympathetic face. “What about the skiing? The mountains are right there.”
“I thought that too, but I learned from my coworkers that the nearest ski resort was a two-hour drive. I didn’t want to spend four hours of my day just driving.
” What I didn’t tell her was that my coworkers had invited me once, but I chickened out at the last minute.
It had nothing to do with the drive and everything to do with my nervousness.
I had never skied before, and trying in front of people I barely knew scared the hell out of me.
Not to mention, it sounded like a guaranteed way to risk ending my contract early with a broken wrist.
“Four hours? That’s nothing. You’ll find that for such a tiny island, it will take more time than you think to get places around here. There’s a lot of traffic and congestion. And everyone is on island time.” She rolled her eyes at this.
“Not a patient person?” I asked, happy the conversation had turned to her.
“Not at all. But I’m getting better. We’ve been out here three months now, and I think I have my cussing down to a minimum when I drive.”
I laughed at this, not able to picture my petite cousin with road rage.
“What do you want to do while you’re out here? Do you have a list made?” she asked as she leaned back into the water.
“Nothing in particular,” I said. I’d tried making a list, but I wasn’t even sure where to start. All I knew was that I wanted to enjoy my time here.
My mind drifted back to my last shift in Denver. I had overheard some of the women I worked with talking about my last day. I was in the locker room, collecting my things to leave, but they were in the next row and couldn’t see me.
“What was her name?” One of them had asked. “Cassie?”
“No, it’s Reese.” It was one of the charge nurses who’d answered.
“I thought she just started a few weeks ago,” the other one said.
“Nope. She’s been here since the beginning of January. She’s a great nurse, just not a memorable one.”
“I’m going to miss Ophelia,” the other said. Ophelia was another traveler who’d been there at the same time as me. “That Reese chick, though? I won’t notice that she’s even gone.”
My stomach had dropped at this. I knew I was quiet, but I thought I’d been somewhat liked that time around.
I looked over at Beth, and her usual smile was gone, as if she were deep in thought. Online, I always saw her posting pictures of her out with friends and having all kinds of adventures. But now, I wondered if a lot of it was for show. Maybe Beth had been just as lonely as I was.
I lay back in the water and started to float.
My mind cleared as I let the waves push me around, listening to the loud ‘whoosh’ of the water in my ears.
The sun was getting closer to the horizon when I finally sat up from the water.
I looked around for Beth but didn’t see her.
The water had carried me further out and closer to the other group on the beach.
I could now see the two women lying on their stomachs atop colorful beach towels. They were giggling, their dark brown heads turned towards one another.
The men I’d seen earlier were now at the shore, throwing a football back and forth.
There was a shorter one with black hair and bronze skin.
A slight belly gave him almost a dad-bod, but he didn’t look older than his mid-thirties.
He laughed the same loud, booming laugh from earlier as he threw the football over his friend’s head.
His friend was his complete opposite, much like Beth and me. His friend was tall and lean, with tan skin several shades lighter than his. He had dark blonde hair that seemed to have some natural highlights from the sun.
I found my attention stuck on him as I felt a sharp sting on my left leg. I almost yelped at the pain and panic, thinking about every Shark Week episode I’d ever seen. When I looked down, I saw two purple, almost translucent blobs by my legs, with wispy tentacles.
Oh. My. God.
It was the jellyfish Beth had warned me about. Their squishy appearance mesmerized me when another tentacle swung back into my left thigh. Fight or flight finally kicked in as small bolts of lightning struck across my leg.
“Shit!” I yelled out.
I felt another bolt of lightning hit my lower back, and I swung around to see five more jellyfish behind me. Adrenaline and the basic human instinct to survive took over my body.
I started swimming back to the shore as if Sharknado was chasing me.
I might have been screaming, but it was hard to tell over the sound of my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
Saltwater splashed over my vision, and I couldn’t even see where exactly I was going until I collided with a solid, tanned chest.