Page 17 of Ever After

“I already paid for the room. It makes no difference to me if you stayed with me or not, since I had plans to stay here already.”

“I know, but you even paid for the food and drinks yesterday. I don’t want you to feel like I’m bumming off of you. And I’m sure you didn’t have plans to pay for an extra person.”

He curls his lips inward and looks at me and says, “I had plans for an extra person.”

“Oh, that’s right. At least let me pay for some dinners then.”

“Okay, deal. What are you up for today?”

I turn my head, looking at the bed.

“You want to go back to bed?” he asks.

“Sort of,” I say in a hushed voice. He’s going to regret asking me to stay with him. “What time is it, anyway?”

“About six in the morning.”

“Six in the morning! What the hell are we doing up?”

“You passed out after we went back to the room around eight last night. I fell asleep too.”

“I’m sorry if I’m ruining your time.”

“You’re not. You’re giving me more company than I had all week.”

* * *

After my long five-hour nap, Jay and I decide to go to the Turtle Beach, which is on the North Shore. When I woke up, Jay was lying in bed next to me on his phone. He waited all morning for me to wake up. I thought we could check out another beach since I didn't want to be boring. When I searched Google, the Turtle Beach came up as a beach to see.

As we are approaching the beach, I hear a little girl’s voice squeal in happiness at the sight of the turtles. I focus my gaze on her as she bounces lightly in place.

The turtles are surrounded by a rope railing, preventing anyone from approaching them. A person from a wildlife organization is speaking to a crowd about respecting turtles and not getting too close to them.

“Oh wow, they’re bigger than I expected,” I say.

A few turtles are sleeping in their shell, and it makes them look like big rocks. There is another floating in the ocean. I look over to my left and see one making his way out of the water toward the beach. The turtle flops down onto the sand like he’s exhausted.

My grin comes up from my lips that reach ear to ear.

“Did you like the turtles?” Jay asks.

“Yes, they’re cute. The little girl's reactions made it better.”

We find a little spot on the beach and lay our towels down. We stopped at a gift shop to buy ourselves inflatable donut floats. Thankfully, the gift shop blew them up for us because I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

“Are you ready?” Jay asks.

We get up and head to the water.

We’re both holding each other’s hands and resting our heads back on the tube as we move in sync with the waves. The waves keep splitting us apart, and I finally grab onto his hand to keep us together.

It feels different being here with someone else other than Aiden. Aiden is the only guy I’ve spent time with since we started dating. Not being around him was something I needed to clear my head and understand what I needed…given he pushed us apart. All the tension I was holding onto for us to work out was causing me to make choices that weren’t the best. I never realized how much it was dragging me down by holding onto him and the idea of what we could be again.

“What are you thinking about?” Jay asks.

“A little bit of everything.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

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