Wrecked Book 3 (8 page)

From there, I had to be careful. It was an overhang that I was standing on, not a porch or balcony, and it wasn’t exactly designed to hold a lot of weight. But I’d been on it a thousand times since I was a little kid and I knew where to step to avoid falling through the weak spots.

I reached the window and peered inside. Beck was sitting there, leaning over a book that was propped open on her desk. She looked engrossed in the story, lost in the words on the page. I’d always wondered about that. It didn’t make sense to me, not really. Books were a waste of time—and the more my mother tried to push them on me, the more I wanted to just slammed them closed and throw them across the room.

What was I going to find in a book that was more useful than what I could find in life?

When Beck only continued to read, I finally got impatient and knocked on the window. She jerked at the noise, her head whipping towards the window so fast I was worried she’d snapped her own neck. But she hadn’t. When she saw it was me on the other side, she grinned broadly and headed over to the window. She opened it and let me in.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, still grinning.

I gave her a sly smile. “Get your bathing suit, sweet pea, we’re going to the beach.” I winked at her.

“The beach?” she asked. “What the hell is at the beach at eleven thirty at night?”

I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly. “You won’t know until you come with me and find out, now will you?”

Beck thought it over, hesitating. She glanced back over at her book and I could tell that she was debating bailing on my brilliant plan to go out and make mischief. Sensing this, I jumped in quickly, “C’mon, Beck! We only have a few days left before break! Are you really going to waste it reading some book by some stuffy old dead guy who wore those collars that they use to keep dogs from licking themselves?”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that. “It wasn’t to keep dogs from licking themselves!” she argued, putting her hands on her hips.

“Yeah, it was to keep guys from licking themselves.” I winked at her and she laughed again.

“Okay, okay,” she said, holding up her hands in a sigh of surrender. “Let me get my swim suit.”

I smiled triumphantly and after she changed we headed out, sneaking out her window the same way I’d come.

We were lucky, because the beach was within walking distance from our houses. I'd lived only a block from Beck since we were little kids. We’d been friends ever since a neighborhood bully had pushed her into the mud and I’d thrown a perfect shot at his butt.

As we headed down to the beach that night, Beck looked over at me. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked as we got closer to the water. “I mean, it’s pretty dark to be swimming in the ocean.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “So? We’ve been swimming since we’ve been able to walk. Earlier, even. I think we can handle the water.”

She still looked unconvinced and I let out a sigh. “Besides,” I finally said, mostly to soothe her nerves. “Probably, we won’t even get into the water. It’s a beach party, not a surfing competition.”

This seemed to ease her worries a little bit and we made it down to the beach without any more complaints or concerns from her. When we got there, the bon fire was going strong and there were a bunch of kids already dancing to music that was supplied by someone’s speakers and iPod.

I grinned widely at Beck and grabbed her hand. “C’mon!” I yelled and dragged her into the crowd of dancing people, near the fire, as she laughed.

We danced together for a long time and when the drinks started to get passed around, I took mine quickly and chugged it. Beck went a little slower than me. She was a petite little thing, smaller than me by several inches, and she didn’t spend a lot of time drinking so she was a little more cautious than I was.

But that didn’t last long.

By two in the morning we were all dancing and laughing and stumbling all over each other. We were shoving each other and saying how awesome we were. The booze had hit us hard, and we couldn’t help but feel empowered by it.

There was nothing we couldn’t do.

So when I got the brilliant idea to strip and head to the ocean, not even Beck’s level head thought it was a bad idea anymore. Instead of protesting or having a problem, we were just left with that assertion from earlier, the one where we were strong swimmers,
expert
swimmers, and we’d be fine no matter what.

We were in the water before anyone even noticed we were gone. The moon was out and the stars seemed unusually bright and with the alcohol in our systems, the water seemed just the perfect amount of cool.

We were alive in the night.

Until the waves started coming. At first, they were just baby waves. Nothing we couldn’t handle. We just laughed as they crashed over us and jostled us about. We came up just as quickly as we went under and neither of us were worried.

We’d be fine.

But then the waves became higher. The water turned colder. And the night went dark. A storm had rolled in, faster than anyone could have predicted. On shore, the bonfire was flickering out and people had started to drunkenly collect themselves to leave. They headed out, some going to their cars and trucks, and others just beginning the short walk home.

No one even noticed that two sets of clothes were laying by the water as two best friends began to struggle against the alcohol and the sea.

The wind began to blow, stronger than it had earlier that evening by quite a bit. It made the waves taller and taller and suddenly we weren’t on easy street anymore. Beck was having a hard time staying above the water and each time she disappeared beneath the surface, I felt myself begin to panic.

“Beck!” I tried to yell as I saw her dip beneath the waves. Bubbles came up around where she’d gone under, mixing with the froth from the water. I tried to swim over to her, but the current was pulling me away. Between that and the storm that was starting to barrage me with water, I couldn’t get to her.

“Beck!” I called again, struggling.

Panic was flooding me when I saw her pop her head up above the surface once more. Relief surged through me, making me double my efforts to get to her. But there was no point. Beck went under again and I never made it to her. I never saw her come back up, I never managed to break free from the current. I just got pushed farther and farther away as the spot where Beck went under disappeared from my sight.

I made it through the storm fine. I made it to shore and spent what felt like an hour, but was closer to minutes, yelling for her, calling out so that she would know which way shore was. But I didn’t see anyone moving in the night.

In the end, I had to go for help. I didn’t want to leave the beach, I didn’t want to stop searching for Beck, but I had to go for help. My phone wasn’t getting any service because of the storm and I knew Beck didn’t have time for me to wait for the storm to pass.

It was too easy to get lost in something that covered two thirds of the world.

I ran home and went straight to my mother’s room, hoping she was there and would know what to do. But she was gone again. She was a nurse and she’d been getting the night shift a lot lately. She wouldn’t be home for several more hours. So I called the police.

They mobilized quickly and started searching the water, but it was no use. Although they searched through the night, through the storm, until the sun peaked up over the horizon and all of the clouds had disappeared, they didn’t find Beck.

It wasn’t until they went closer to the jagged rocks that lined the outcropping of rocks near shore that they found her. She was dead.

After I told Kass my story, I spent a long time crying in her arms. She shushed me and stroked my hair, telling me how terrible of a thing that was to lose someone I loved so much. I didn’t understand why she was comforting me. How she could stand to be anywhere near me, much less touch me, after learning the truth?

But she told me that it wasn’t my fault. That everything that had happened… it had all been a terrible, stupid accident. That I was just a dumb kid and no matter how bad it was, how guilty I felt, I shouldn’t have to carry that sort of guilt around with me for the rest of my life.

I wasn’t that same stupid girl anymore, she told me. I could be a better person. I
was
a better person.

Even after I cried myself out, I went back upstairs to my room and curled up into my bed to dry sob. I didn’t know if I could ever believe that it wasn’t my fault, or at least that I had grown up enough that I wasn’t that same stupid girl who would make that kind of mistake, but I was grateful to Kass for saying it anyway.

I realized that she really was my friend and that I could trust her.

I spent about half of the day just curled up under the covers, not caring about anything. Kass came by to check on me a few times, but I told her I just needed some alone time for a while. She stopped by one last time to tell me that she was going to James’s, but that she’d be back tonight and to text her if I needed anything.

Then I had the house to myself. All of my roommates were out today—as I should have been—and it was the perfect time to sob and mope.

I managed to drift off to sleep a couple of times, but never for long. Visions of Beck drifting underwater, drowning as I tried to save her, kept haunting me, causing me to jerk awake each time I tried to sleep. I just couldn’t get her out of my head.

I don’t know what I’d expected after I confessed everything to Kass, but I thought maybe it would bring me some kind of closure. Maybe I could move on after everything that had happened and finally live my life the way I was supposed to be living it.

Which is how, exactly?
I thought to myself. Was I supposed to be living it as some wild child, going to parties and making out with random guys? Doing drugs and riding motorcycles? Was that what I was supposed to be doing?

My thoughts were interrupted by my phone. It beeped at me, letting me know I’d gotten a text. It was the standard tone, letting me know that whoever was texting me I either didn’t know, or was new enough that I hadn’t assigned a ring tone.

I hesitated. I hadn’t been having that much luck with texts lately and the last thing I wanted to do was deal with Miranda finding my number and texting me or something else ridiculous.

Still, I didn’t want to just wallow here either. Did I?

Reaching out from beneath my covers, I grabbed my phone off the bedside table. I opened it and saw that it was a text from Derek, not Miranda.

Had a good time last night. Can’t wait to see you again… Wanna get coffee today?

I tossed my phone aside. It probably would have been a good idea to go see Derek today. Get out of the house, visit with him, enjoy his company… He would be a great way to take my mind off of everything that happened, but I just couldn’t make myself get up and do it.

So when I got a second text, I thought about just ignoring it. I didn’t want to hurt Derek’s feelings. He was legitimately a nice guy and I liked him, but I didn’t want to see him right now. There was too much going on and I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

When the phone buzzed again after a few minutes to remind me that I had an unread text, I caved and snatched my phone up again. But when I opened the text, it wasn’t from Derek. It was an unknown number.

Can we meet? We need to talk. I’m sorry about the girl. Our first date. Old main?

It could have been anyone. It could have been a wrong number. A lot of people could have had first dates in old main, right? But I knew it wasn’t a coincidence and it wasn’t a wrong number. Logan texted me and without even thinking about what I was doing, I threw off my covers and went to the shower to get cleaned up. I sent him a quick text while I started the water, letting it heat up.

Twenty minutes.

I showered and slapped on some make up, dressing warmly—but as attractively as I could manage in skinny jeans and warm boots. Then I headed out to meet Logan. I didn’t think about why or what our conversation would be when I got there.

I tried my best not to think about anything at all. It was difficult, but instead of focusing on all of the things that were exploding in my life, I thought about how cold it was. It felt like frost was in the air, maybe we’d even see snow sooth. I wrapped my arms around myself tightly,

“You said you were sorry about the girl,” I reminded him, crossing my arms over my chest.

He took a deep breath and nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Yes. I am. I never should have—”

I interrupted him quickly. “Which one?”

Frowning, he asked, “What?”

“Which one?” I asked again, putting more emphasis on each of the words. “Which girl are you sorry about?”

He cringed and I knew that he knew what I was talking about. “You saw Amber,” he guessed.

Amber. I don’t’ know why something so simple and benign as a name hurt me so much, but it did. How dare he know her name? The least he could have done was make sure she was some meaningless fling! But no. She had a name.