Chapter 1
Chapter One
Eva
Standing at the end of the pier, I take a moment and get lost in the ocean’s ever-changing waters.
Watching as they change from dark blue to green is hypnotizing.
It puts me at ease and calms every thought in my mind.
I’ve always loved how with every wave that crashes into the pillars, the ocean churns and gives way to light blue and then white.
Releasing a sigh, I take a deep breath and tell myself what I always do standing at the edge of this pier.
This is where I belong.
I continue to watch the seaweed swaying beneath the ocean’s glistening glow. When the crisp breeze picks up enough, the mist from the waves dampens my skin.
Orange County is home, even if my mailing address tells the world differently.
Overhead, the seagulls call out to one another.
They fly out across the water to places unknown, their secret hideout will forever be a mystery to the people below them.
Glancing around, I’m suddenly aware that the pier is more crowded than normal, and lots of people have decided to gather tonight to watch the sunset.
Tourists with cameras in hand gawk and point at the amazing sight.
Locals might take the sunset for granted as they hurry around in their busy lives, but it still steals their breath when they slow down long enough to look at the paradise around them.
I wouldn’t label myself a tourist, more like a relocated local.
I make sure everyone knows I was forced to leave what I view as utopia, the end of the rainbow if you will, as a preteen when my father got a job transfer he couldn’t pass up.
My parents moved me and my older brother to northern California to start a new life.
It’s something I vow to never let them live down.
I love it here in my hometown. The ocean is in my veins: the rise and fall of the waves, the salty mist that engulfs your body, the way the noise from the birds and people mix together in complete harmony.
These things make up who I am and all I could ever want to be.
When I am here, I can breathe, the deep soul-confirming, this is where I belong, type of breathing. Something I never feel up north.
The last of the sun slips beneath the glistening horizon.
I gather my thoughts the best I can, and with light disappointment, I reluctantly turn to leave the pier.
It’s later than I expected, and I told Gwen I would meet her at Longboards, a local pub on the main drag, just a few minute's walk from the pier.
Gwen and I have known each other since I moved north.
The two of us bonded immediately, and there is nothing we don’t share.
We’ve absolutely been through it all: first loves and first heartbreaks, the experiential stages of high school and early college, Gwen’s parents’ endless fights and threats of divorce, and even family tragedies like when death stole Gwen’s younger sister in a sudden car crash a few years back.
We haven’t known each other our whole lives, but the bond between us is strong.
She’s my best friend, my sister. The one person I know I can always trust, always rely on.
We both applied to the same college straight out of high school: Long Beach State.
We had dreams of southern California beach life.
We even looked for apartments and picked out a few contenders, positive we’d ride off together towards SoCal.
We were so sure that the best was yet to come, and we were confident we’d conquer it all together.
Gwen was accepted, but I got a rejection letter.
We looked the same on paper, and there was no explanation. It was just one of those things. The rejection was not nearly as bad as the fact that Gwen got to live out my dream of moving south while I was forced to stay in the mud and dirt of northern California.
Still, it gave me added reasons to visit and move if I could ever afford it.
Trying to survive in northern California is hard enough, the amount of money you needed to sustain a life in SoCal is insane.
I have my savings, and recently, I started taking steps to hopefully make a move possible.
I took a gamble and applied for a position at the L.A. Times.
My degree in journalism is the one thing in life I’m the most proud of. It’s the one thing I drown myself in when everything else around me won’t stop spinning. It’s the one thing I won’t allow myself to give up on.
A reporter position at the L.A. Times is all I’ve ever wanted, and even though they responded and said they found another candidate, I asked if they wouldn’t mind keeping my resume on file, or if I could follow up with them later to see if things had changed.
Which is why I’m keeping it my little secret and not telling anyone for now.
Not even my hotheaded crazy best friend, who’s waiting for me at one of our routine meeting places.
It’s packed when I walk into Longboards.
That’s what Saturday nights are like at any bar on Main Street.
I train my eyes in the direction of the bar, searching the faces for a glimpse of Gwen.
With no luck, I look around at the tables near the back and eventually see her cozied up in the corner with some bar hound I am sure she only met a few minutes earlier.
Gwen catches my eye and immediately waves me over. “Ev, Ev … over here!”
Maneuvering my way through the thick crowd, my annoyance thickens as drunken men and drunker women bump into me.
Orange County is a tourist destination, that’s obvious.
But even people who live inland come to the beach on the weekends, making an already crowded location even more hectic—and most times insanely frustrating.
The bar life annoys the hell out of me, although Gwen loves it. She thrives on it. The thrill it gives her is enough to make me laugh and endure it at least a few times when we finally get the chance to hang out together.
“I was just talking to … What’s your name again,” Gwen asks her flavor of the night as I approach the table. She is already slurring, having taken no time starting the night off without me.
“Excuse me … I’m talking to you! What’s your name?” she continues pestering the stranger, poking the poor guy in the ribs. His attention is already elsewhere, on some younger, early-twenty-something, batting her eyelashes at him from a table close by.
“Tom, the name’s Tom,” he says, barely glancing back at Gwen.
I throw my purse on an open chair at the table and then proceed to take off my coat, cautiously sizing up the situation in front of me.
This is not exactly what I wanted to encounter on what was supposed to be a girls’ night out, but I’ll go with it as long as I can figure out a way to ditch the stereotypical man-whore later.
“Nice to meet you, Tom.” I try my best to hide the annoyance in my voice. Tom’s attention still hasn’t moved from the girl at the table next to us. Rolling my eyes, I look around the bar in the hope of catching the attention of a nearby waitress.
Bar hounds are all the same. They always prey on the easy and vulnerable, and unfortunately, there are many conquests readily available to such a sorry excuse of a man. Not my Gwen, though. She’s the kind that’s in the wrong place at the wrong time on a very bad day.
Gwen leans in close to me and whispers, “I met him here last night. He bought me a drink, and you know how I can’t say no to free drinks.”
Holding up her nearly empty beer bottle, I smile sadly. Oh, I know.
After her sister’s death, Gwen has gone on a downward spiral.
She has some days, weeks, and months that are good, although some, she drowns herself in substance abuse.
I could never hold it against her. I have no idea what I would succumb to if I ever lost a member of my family, and I never want to find out. I’d probably lose my damn mind.
My best friend studies her bottle for a minute, and then chugs the rest of its contents at a lightning-fast rate. This is obviously a bad day. Time to put up a guard for the both of us since there is no way she will be thinking clearly.
A waitress finally appears and asks the table if we wish to order anything more.
Her attitude and annoyance are evident as I try to raise my voice loud enough for her to hear me.
I order a Tom Collins, my go-to drink whenever I need something on the strong side.
As I place my order, the man-whore Tom waves his hand in the sense that he can’t be bothered, still unwilling to take his eyes off the barely legal girl to the right of us.
The waitress and I both roll our eyes in a silent acknowledgment of disgust. She leaves, and Tom finally turns his attention back to our table.
As he meets my eyes for the first time, I can’t help but think it’s only due to the fact that the young bar slut he had been trying to flirt with got up and left the bar.
“So, what’s your friend’s name,” he asks Gwen without ever taking his eyes off me.
“This is Eva, but we all call her Ev,” she replies. Her attention is now on her cell phone. She’s checking social media, or texting someone, no doubt. Gwen loves her phone. It barely leaves her hand and hardly ever leaves her side.
Tom continues staring at me. He licks his lips and his eyes graze over every inch of my body.
The pit of my stomach begins to revolt at the idea of what must be going through his mind.
His stare is enough to make even the vilest of women uncomfortable, and I have to stop myself from getting up and leaving the table.
I’m definitely not in the mood for nasty barmen who think every girl that walks into their life is theirs for the taking. Swallowing hard, I tell myself I’m here for Gwen, and from the looks of it, she definitely needs me right now.