Page 21 of Fighting the Tide
A few moments later, the first crack of thunder sounds in the night sky while I lose my virginity in the center of its storm.
I’m officially an asshole.
It’s been seven days, an entire week, since my night with Brooke inside the lighthouse, and I haven’t spoken to her since.It’s not that I’m avoiding her, I’ve just been really busy helping Mom out with cleaning and haven’t gotten the chance to go by to see her.We don’t have school, so I’m not seeing her each day, and honestly, I don’t feel comfortable just dropping onto her front porch.
Today I won’t be able to avoid it because I have to help Mom with cleaning the Easthams’ house.The moment we pull onto the driveway, the sound of bass reverberates in my chest.
“Uh-oh,” Momtsks.“Looks like Brooke is enjoying her parents being away.”
“They’re gone again?”I get out of the truck and grab the buckets from the back as Mom slowly gets her feet on the ground.
“Yeah, poor girl.It’s no wonder she acts out.”Mom shakes her head as I feel a pang of regret.I should’ve come by to see her.She’s been alone and probably wondering why I’m avoiding her.
“She doesn’t act out,” I snap as I stride up to the door, then immediately turn around to apologize to my mother but find her with a small smile on her face.“What?”
“You like her.”She steps up onto the porch and pats my arm.“Just be very careful, Nolan.”
“It’s not that serious, Mom.”I roll my eyes and hold the door open for her.We get inside and I look down toward the kitchen and into the backyard, seeing exactly where the music is coming from, and Brooke is not alone.
“Looks like she’s having a get-together,” Mom hums as she heads toward the kitchen with her cleaning supplies.“Take care of upstairs and then you can join your friends if you’d like.”
I want to tell her they’re not my friends, but I take in a deep breath and head upstairs instead.I don’t want to bring my mother into my pathetic teenage troubles.This shouldn’t feel like such a kick to the gut, but I can’t help feeling forgotten.I deserve it because I didn’t once come around after having her in the most intimate way.
“Shit,” I hiss as I clean through the bathrooms and office.When I get to Brooke’s room, bile pushes up my throat as I look around at the disarray.Her clothes are all over the place and used bongs and joint roaches litter the table surfaces.
I start in on the clothes, picking them up and putting them into the hamper, and then I begin to toss garbage into a bag.There’s no denying Brooke is an untidy person.I have no other choice but to be tidy since my ‘room’ is in our living room.
The last thing I need to take care of is the bed.I begin to pull the sheets off because today Mom will be doing the laundry as well, and stop dead in my tracks when I see a box of condoms in the center of the mattress.My hand shakes as I reach forward and grab it with the tips of my fingers.There’s no relief when I find the box still sealed, it’s the fact that it’s here in the first place.So without much thought, I throw it into the garbage bag and throw her sheets into the hamper.
Anger courses through me as I storm back downstairs and head out to the backyard.I know this is irrational, even as I’m fuming I’m telling myself how irrational I’m acting, but it does nothing to quell the rage.I storm by my mother who is on her knees in the bathroom, washing the baseboards, and out through the kitchen to the back patio door.I find Brooke stretched out on a lawn chair at the edge of the pool as Cassie and a few others are swimming in the pool.
I haul open the door just as Cassie calls out, “Hi, Nolan!”
Brooke sits up in her chair and slips her sunglasses off her head to look at me.Her face is a mask of nonchalance as her eyes skim over my form, and I open my mouth to ask her what the fuck is going on when a deep voice intercepts.
“Who is this?”
I turn to find David MacNeill sitting on a chair under the awning, smoking a joint, tattoos covering him from neck to toe.
“The Sears’ kid.He goes to school with us and he and his mother clean my house.Hence why he’s here.Otherwise, he’d be jacking off at the beach somewhere with his lesbian best friend.”Brooke lays back down, slipping her glasses back over her eyes, while I stare at her, my jaw clenched so tight that I fear every molar will be chipped when I pry them apart.
“Brooke!”Cassie hisses from the pool as the two guys they’re with fill the air with raucous laughter.
“What?”Brooke turns her head to look at Cassie and that’s when I recognize the guy in the pool as the blond from the night at the beach.
Brooke speaks but I’ve long tuned them out as I turn back inside and shut the door.Mom stands in the center of the kitchen with a sheen of sweat on her forehead and the mop in her hands.She gives me a sympathetic look that only makes me want to curl up in a corner and perish.
“I can’t stay here, Mom.”I swallow down the emotion clogging my throat.
“I know.”She nods.“Head on out and go into town.I’ll be done in an hour and I’ll meet you back here at the end of the driveway.”I grab the keys off the counter and rush for the door, leaving behind the ridicule of the girl I thought was worth my time.
I was just someone to pass the time with until David came back into the picture.
Instead of going into town, I crave the solidarity of the beach, and even though I will be lucky to find it empty now, I head that way regardless.I park in my driveway and bypass the cottage, knowing my father is probably in there sleeping off another bender.I let my feet guide me as the sun sets, toward the crashing waves.It makes me miss my best friend so much that when I look at our fire pit, I swear I see her sitting there on the logs.I blink a few times, but her form stays there, unmoving as she stares out at the water.She’s wearing a sweater I lent her months ago and her back is hunched as she wraps her arms around her legs.
“Avery?”I call out, unable to hide the hopeful lilt in my voice.
She straightens and then stands when she sees me, her face hidden under the wide hood of my sweater.“I was hoping you would show up,” she says as she drops the hood, showing me a face filled with remorse.
