"Hey there," a friendly feminine voice called out from behind me.

I turned, clutching my softboard awkwardly in my hands, to see who had greeted me.

An athletic looking girl, about medium height stood in front of me, smiling and holding a large surfboard that was nearly twice her size. She had very pale skin pigmented with a slight tan, pale golden hair, and grey-green eyes surrounded by thick, blond eyelashes. Her eyebrows were the same hue.

I smiled back. "Hello, I'm Nikki."

"You're Charlie's grandkid, right?" the girl inquired, shifting her board in her arms to stick out her hand. When I nodded and shook it, she said, "My name's Wanda." She grinned.

"Okay," I said. "Hi, Wanda."

She nodded. "Charles taught me how to surf a bunch of years ago, so I've been doing it for a while. You ever surfed before this?"

I shook my head. "No, I lived a long time from the beach before we moved in with Grand-dude. We didn't have an opportunity to."

"Well, do you want to go slam a few more?" Shark asked, pointing with her thumb to the ocean. "Looks like there might be a few barrels coming up. It's a great day for this."

I shrugged and followed her into the waves, clipping the board leash onto my ankle and following her lead. Surfing wasn't all that bad, of I had someone to do it with. I still wasn't strong enough for big waves — I kept falling off my board and 'into the soup' as Grand-dude said— but I could take a few easy swells most of the time.

A couple of hours later, I walked out of the ocean, exhausted but thrilled, with the energy of the waves crashing through me. I dragged my board over the sand and strapped it onto the back of my bike to go home.

Well, not exactly home. I mean, it was where we lived, but it didn't really home, you know?

Grand-dude tried his best, and he was a super cool grandpa. He always made sure that we were comfortable and happy, and took us for ice cream on Thursdays, and good things like that. But he wasn't Mom or Dad.

I missed them so much.

So much.

Sometimes I felt like I was okay, and was going to be okay, and that everything would be great, but other times the pain ripped straight through me like my heart was made of tissue paper, at completely unexpected times. It was terrible.

But I tried to shove that behind me as I rode my bike through the town and to Grand-dude's place.

Grand-dude lived in a relatively nice but aged apartment building downtown, a few minutes' bike ride away from the boardwalk. The apartment building was tall and raised on stilts, painted a pale green color. The windowsills were all painted different colors, and I suspected that each apartment owner changed the color to their personal preferences. Grand-dude's sills were painted pastel orange and pink.

His apartment was on the top level, but there were no elevators, just a creaking wooden staircase attached to the side of the building.

I locked my bike in the shed out back and lugged my softboard up the stairs. Why'd it have to be so heavy? Ugh.

Grabbing my housekey (Grand-dude insisted that I carry one), I went inside the small apartment and set my board in the quiver in the corner. Z was sitting on the couch, writing in his notebook while watching anime with my sister. I smiled at the scene. The beach was doing the twins good, I thought. They seemed happy here. My little brother looked up and smiled at me. "Hey, Nik. How were the waves?"

Willa peered over the back of the couch at me. "How many times did you fall off and get scraped up this time?"

I rolled my eyes. "Willa, I'm actually getting pretty good." That was sort of stretching the truth. "The waves were nice, Z. You shoulda been there."

He considered. "You think? Maybe tomorrow."

I nodded, going to sit between them. Willa huffed and scooted over. "So, what are we watching?"

Shrugging, Willa fiddled with the remote. "Attack On Titan, but it's almost over. Then Pokémon or something."

"Oh, okay." I settled between my siblings. It was nice to have them, Willa and Z. We were all that we had left, really. We loved each other, even though we would never say it aloud, because what siblings in their right minds say that they love each other? Not us, anyway.

My phone buzzed halfway through the first episode of Pokémon anime. I looked down at it, and was surprised at who had texted me.

It was Jade, my used-to-be-best-friend, who texted me on and off.

she'd texted.

I swallowed, and answered,

she asked.

I blinked.

Wasn't that a little fast? Weren't there, like, rules for this? Or... maybe not?

Jade replied, completely changing views like she always did. Was she happy or not, I wanted to know.

asked my sort-of friend.

I looked around at my siblings. I would honestly have preferred to stay there, but...

"If you're gonna be texting, go somewhere else," grumbled Willa.

I stood and went to my tiny room for a little privacy. I called Jade.

"Hey, so, what's up?" I asked her.

She huffed into the phone. "Do you have to sound so surprised every time I want to talk?"

"Um..." I clenched my teeth together, feeling angry suddenly. I didn't answer the phone to get told off. "You don't exactly call me ever, unless you need or want something."

I heard a little gasp on the other end. "That's so mean, Nikki! That's not what I do—"

Feeling like a jerk for being mean to her, pretty much one of my only friends, I said, "No, sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

Jade sighed. "You're fine." She waited a minute, then said, "So... my mom."

I pursed my lips, forcing myself to think in her shoes. Her parents divorced, her mom got a boyfriend, they got engaged, and Jade was in the midst of it. She needed someone reliable to talk to, and apparently I fit the bill.

"How's she doing?" I asked.

"Pretty good. She seems happy, so that's good. But remember that thing I said, last time we talked?"

Yeah, I remember, I thought annoyedly. Last winter. "Yes," I replied. "About feeling left out and not nice enough to your mom?"

"Yeah," Jade said. "Well, I think my mom loves her fiancée a lot, so that's good. But I really just want my mom, you know? I don't want another father. The last one was more than enough." She let out a disgusted sigh. "I like him, my mom's fiancée—his name's Lee—, but I sorta wish Mom would wait, you know? I feel like I'm not important to her." Sadness sneaked into her tone.

My heart broke for her, and my genuine feelings took over. "Oh, Jade, I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do?"

There was a pause, and I figured she must've shaken her head and realized I couldn't see it. "No, I don't think so. You listening really helps a lot."

"Okay, well... if you ever need anything, I'm here in... Kill Devil Hills, so..."

She giggled. "I still can't believe you have a surfer grandpa."

"Grand-dude is actually pretty nice," I replied. "I'm kind of liking surfing."

"You don't talk like one," Jade said.

I laughed. "That's because I've not been doing it for years like the rest of them. Plus, I think I'd like to keep talking like a normal person."

We bantered cheerfully back and forth for a while, and then hung up. It was good to talk to Jade, even if we'd started out rocky. I guess that was the beauty of friends: always being able to make up and do-over.

. . .

The next day, Z and Willa went to the pool downtown to try to chase away the summer heat. I rode my bike down to the beach and tried to surf a little, but Wanda wasn't there and the waves were little more than ankle slappers.

Instead, I went to the library to see if I could find something to read.

I approached the old building. It was placed far downtown, so there was only a little of the salty tang from the sea in the air. Climbing ivy covered the side of the building, and when I opened the door to the library, the pleasant, musty smell of books greeted me, along with the clanging of a bell that alerted whoever inside that I was entering.

As I walked gingerly over the threshold, the aged wooden planks that made up the floor creaked soundly under my feet. I loved the sound.

I entered a room filled with bookshelves. Tons and tons of books were stuffed onto shelves with their spines staring at me like every letter was an inquisitive eye that was checking me for a threat.

A voice called out from the back, out from behind a large desk that was crammed with, you guessed it, books. "Hello. Welcome." The owner of the voice was a very tall and imposing looking old woman. She stared me down with an impressive amount of rude unwelcome. She was very wrinkly, with corkscrews of white-grey hair that was piled atop her head in a tower. She was staring down her long, beaky nose at me.

"H-hi." I cursed my timidity. "Is this the library?" I asked because there was nothing else to say and the woman was staring down at me frighteningly.

She snorted delicately. "Yes. What are you looking for?"

"Well..." I frantically searched my head for a genre to read. My mind blanked. "I, uh, like... romance," I blurted. What? I never read romance! The endings were always so annoying to me, for some reason. But before I had time to revise my hasty statement, the woman rolled her eyes and huffed. My pride was wounded, and I stuck with romance. How bad could it be, anyway?

"Here's the shelf," said the librarian, pointing me to a desk behind many others, obviously crammed in the back of the corner, mostly out of sight.

I walked to the shelf, blinking at some of the covers of the books and blushing furiously at others. I spent a good ten minutes staring at the spines to make it seem as though I was looking for a book, and then I turned and walked back past the shelf like I hadn't found the book I was looking for.

The librarian grunted when she saw me. "Find anything?"

A sudden burst of embarrassment came over me. With a streak of boldness, apparently, so I said to the woman, "Actually, I don't really read romance. My favorite genre is actually mystery." I realized that I'd said "actually" twice only after I'd said it.

The woman grunted again. "The mystery shelves are over there," and she pointed to a wall crammed with books.

I thanked the stiff librarian, perused the section for a few minutes, and left.

Riding my bike back through town, I spotted something that made me do a double-take. Someone, actually. A young man with stylish silver hair and narrow, green-brown eyes.

I blinked at Jesse and stopped pedaling my bike for a moment, coming to a standstill on the sidewalk. A thrill rushed through me. Jesse! What was he doing here? I'd missed him, actually. He was always really nice to me, even if he was a little more friendly to my step-grandmother than to me.

I chewed my lips, trying to look older and prettier as he drove by, hoping he'd recognize me.

But then I saw something that made my heart drop down, down into my stomach.

A girl was sitting in the car with him.

They were talking and laughing together, and Jesse had his arm around her as he drove.

She was gorgeous.

I stared at her. What was this awful, sick, diseased feeling in the pit of my stomach? I felt like throwing up.

Pulling up the kickstand, I pedaled onward, fighting back tears. I didn't care that Jesse was here. He'd forgotten about me so quickly, it was almost impressive. Had I ever been anything to him?

When I got to Grand-dude's apartment, I closed myself in my room.

I may've cried. Actually, no use hiding it. I did cry. I sobbed into my pillow until my tears dried up.

Whatever. I didn't need him. I didn't need anything.

. . .