Page 15 of Surge

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Ivy had offeredto spend the night, but I needed to be alone. For the last couple of days, I had been refusing to believe my mom could have run off, but now I needed to entertain the idea that she had.

What other explanation was there for her silence, the missing expensive belongings, and the missing money? But would my mom do that to me?

It had to have something to do with my dad and the three assholes looking for him. I assumed Morgan was also, but he hadn't approached me at school yet.

I checked my phone for messages for the billionth time and stared at the ceiling. I still didn't understand why Jax would want me to contact my father. Was he mad about the lost sea life?

It angered me too, but I wasn't to blame for what happened. Maybe my inaction was what was angering him and I needed to step up and volunteer with an organization that helped the relief efforts.

My phone dinged and I swiped to open a text from Aiden.

Aiden: Miles just texted me and asked me on a date!

Me: What? That's amazing! About time he got his head out of his ass. You've liked him forever.

Aiden: Ivy told me what you found.

Me: I don't know what to do.

Aiden: I've been brainstorming all the ways your mom might know Jax's dad. They all grew up here, right?

Aiden sent me all his theories. Most of them were ridiculous, but one stood out. They might have known each other from high school. She never talked about high school and wasn't friends with anyone from when she was younger. All of her friends were transplants from other areas or went to Salinity Cove High at a different time.

I had none of my mom's friends’ phone numbers to call. Not that they would know where she was, but they might know if she was dating someone without telling me. What if she had secretly been dating a woman and they ran off together?

I jumped up and ran up the stairs to the office to grab my mom's yearbooks. I sat down at the desk and went to the index to look up my mother. I wrote the pages on a sticky note so I wouldn't have to keep flipping back and forth.

She was on the swim team, and so was my father. I closed the freshman book and opened the next. I was starting to feel like it was a lost cause when I spotted a photo on the swim page with a guy that wasn't my father with his arm around my mom's neck, pulling her to him and kissing her cheek.

I went to the caption.

Finn West.

My eyes went wide and I went back to the freshman book, locating him. I started skimming through the comments written by friends on the inner cover and autograph pages and came across one written by Finn in the junior book.

Nat, I can't wait to spend the summer with you.

My mom hated being called Nat. There was no signature or note from my father. The senior book stared up at me and I wiped my hands on my shorts before opening it. After a few glasses of wine, my mom mentioned my father taking her to senior prom. She'd never once mentioned Finn West.

In the senior book, my mom wasn't even found on the swim team. The only picture I could find of her was her senior portrait. It was like she had stopped doing any activities.

It seemed like my mom had been with Jax's father, but sometime between junior and senior year, started going out with my father. It made no sense why Jax would be holding that against me.

I had to be missing something.

* * *

The next dayat school was torturous, waiting to see what they would do next. A few fish comments still reached my ears, but both Blake and Jax were impassive toward me in our classes together.

At the end of the day, I went to my locker, and inside was a folded note. Forty-eight hours. I shuddered and crumbled the paper before throwing it in the trash.

"Something wrong?" Morgan Wade, Salinity Cove's resident daredevil and playboy leaned against the locker next to me. "You look a little flushed."

He stroked my cheek with his knuckles and I pulled away. "Why are you assholes always touching me?"

His smile dropped as he thought about my question. "Why are you letting us touch you is the more important question."

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