I stared at him for a long time, affection choking me up. He really was a good friend and I never should have blown him off just because he had a little crush on me. That was bound to blow over, anyway. Surely he was over it by now.
“Thank you,” I mouthed, and he gave me a thumbs-up, his other hand steering the wheel.
I felt so free, so relaxed. I hadn’t felt that good in a very long time and it sure as hell felt good, and so relaxing I just wanted to laugh the whole ride to the beach. I really needed to get away, and I only realized it now that we were on our way.
I quickly checked my phone only to find my battery was almost dead. I didn’t have anyone to text anyway, so I stashed my phone back in my purse and decided not to stress about it.
The drive to the beach only took an hour or so, and then Ryan parked in a lot just next to the beach. Our cove was a little walk away. It was a place we used to go to with our parents, back when Mom still gave a shit about both of her daughters. Ryan’s parents hadn’t had those crazy busy jobs back then, and we spent a lot of time on the beach here. It had been so nice, but now, walking on the sand felt like a different place.
“Do you ever wonder…” I asked Ryan as we walked along the beach, my words trailing off to nothing.
“What if?” he asked, and I looked at him.
His face was blotchy and red, and I knew he was getting choked up.
“Sometimes,” he muttered, and that was all we said on the subject.
There was nothing left to say, anyway. Both our family lives were a total mess. For the past few months, I felt farther away than ever from my mother. She so obviously favored Mandy, and I didn’t want to be a jealous little brat, but it still hurt sometimes.
Just for one day, I wanted to know what it felt like to be her favorite. I wanted to know what it was like to have her attention, her affection. She only gave those things to Amanda though, and I’d just have to swallow that bitter pill down. I couldn’t be jealous of my own sister.
I carried my sandals in my hand, my toes digging into the sand warmed from the afternoon sun, and cool water lapping at my feet. It felt so nice, as if the waves were carrying away all of my worries, washing them away along with the grains of sand between my toes.
We walked in companionable silence until we reached the cove.
I remembered us finding it all that time ago, when we were so much younger, so much more carefree.
We stumbled upon it during low tide, because it was unreachable otherwise. It was a beautiful sandy cove where the only sound was the waves echoing in the cove, and my mind always felt so clear there. Ryan and I used to call it our thinking cove, and I still remember us talking about anything and everything in its peaceful chamber.
We always used to go there in the late afternoons, because that was when the tide was low, and we loved being by ourselves in our very own thinking space. Amanda and Ryan had never been particularly close – I think they’d always been a little jealous of each other – so this was a time and place I only shared with him.
“It looks exactly the same,” I exclaimed once we finally reached it, wading through knee-deep water to get on the sand inside.
I was grateful I’d worn a sundress even though it was getting a little chilly for it now, because Ryan’s jeans were soaked through on the bottom.
“It hasn’t been that long, you know,” he told me, laying his jacket down on the wet sand.
We sat down on it and dipped our toes into the water. It felt so nice being there, reminding me of less complicated times, of easier things. The water washed away my worries once again, and Ryan left me alone with my thoughts. I assumed he needed a moment to gather his own, too.
I thought about it all.
About my mom being so distant, about growing apart with Amanda. Being twins, I always thought she was my best friend. She was the one I confided in, the one I trusted implicitly. She was my sister, after all. But lately it didn’t feel like that at all. It felt like Amanda was building a life of her own, and I wasn’t welcome in it.
It had been months since we’d done anything together, weeks since she’d asked me how things were going. She stopped hanging out with me at school, and at home, she spent all her time with Mom. Neither of them seemed to care about me at all.