“Okay, I’ll try harder.” I dropped my chin, focusing on the guitar and the proper positioning of my hands on the strings.
Storm’s fingers skated down my arm, sliding across my skin on their way toward my hand.
His gentle touch awakened a flurry of sensations. He awakened so many sensations. He was blindingly bright like a cloudless blue sky. A gale force rattling the canvas of a sail. The sun dazzling like diamonds as it danced on the surface of the ocean.
We were just friends. I knew that was all we were. But it wasn’t all I wanted us to be.
Storm
Nine years ago
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my shorts as I stood under a tree—a champagne cork palm. I knew the name of it and most plants because of my best friend, Lotus Irving. Ironically, her brother, Cork, was named for the sturdy spindle-trunked palm. Lotus’s father adored her and her brother, and had named both his children for the plants that he most loved. He was so very different from my old man.
My eyes narrowed on Lotus as she exited the school and crossed the front lawn. She walked toward me, but she wasn’t alone. Dwayne Ray, once her tormentor, was now a wannabe boyfriend, and he was making his move. Each Friday when I picked her up from school to take her surfing, Dwayne wormed his way a little closer. He’d had a thing for her since elementary school, seeing like I did that she was on the verge of becoming more unforgettably beautiful than ever.
My fingers curled into fists inside my pockets as he tucked a strand of her gleaming mahogany hair behind her ear. He was going to kiss her, and I needed to let him. Dwayne was her age, thirteen, and she was only my friend. Unlike the girls I fooled around with, I shared my inner truths with her.
She meant something to me. In fact, she meant everything. No one else counted.
But it didn’t seem right, Dwayne and Lotus. He didn’t know her like I did. He saw only her outward beauty. There was so much more to her than what could be seen.
“Yo, Lilly!” I called.
Her head snapped up, and her uniquely shaped eyes scanned the lawn, following the direction of my voice.
I knew the moment she found me. I felt it, the connection of her gaze to mine. It rocked me like a lightning bolt, right in the center of my chest.
Her expression brightening, she touched Dwayne’s arm. She said something to him that made him frown, then skirted around him on her way to me.
In the past, Lotus might have run to me. She loved our Fridays, surfing at the bottom of Sunset Cliffs, almost as much as I did. But lately, she seemed troubled, less carefree.
I knew some was her sensing and reflecting the tension I had going on inside my home, but some of the tension was her own. Her dad was dating, and I knew it hurt her. It was confirmation that he no longer expected her mother to ever return from Thailand. Though her parents had never officially divorced, Lotus hadn’t forgotten her mother, and had never fully gotten over the pain of that abandonment.
“Hey, you,” I said when she reached me. “How’d school go?”
Unable to resist, I reached out and brushed a long strand of her dark brown hair over her slender shoulder, probably the same strand Dwayne had touched. I wanted my touch to replace his. It was a douche move, but I didn’t care. I was edgy about Dwayne, edgy about Lotus and me. Honestly, I was edgy about a lot of things.
“It went well.” She smiled, and being on the receiving end of her happiness jolted more high-voltage current through me. “Miss Ryan read my poem in poetry club today.”
“Nice.” I returned her smile with a grin. “Which one?”
“Alternate Ending.”
“Ah.” That was the one Lotus had written about her mom staying after falling in love with her father instead of returning to Thailand. “That must have been intense for you.”
“It was, a little.” She nodded, a sudden dark cloud chasing away the previous sunniness of her expression.
“I’m sorry. Here,” I said gently. “Let me have that.” I slid her backpack off her shoulder and onto mine, wishing I could take on her heavier emotional burdens as easily.
“Thanks.” Licking her lips, she dropped her gaze.
Does her heart race, and her mouth go dry when I touch her?
Sometimes I thought that she felt what I did. But even if she did, it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t cross that line. She was too young, and even if she weren’t, I wouldn’t risk messing up our friendship.
Lotus was the only person I could share my feelings with. The only person who truly understood me. She knew I was an outsider in my own home. She knew how trapped I felt, sandwiched between an older and a younger sibling who, unlike me, resembled my father and were acknowledged by my mother. My older brother, Saber, did everything my father asked him to do, wanting to earn his approval. My younger brother, Shield, hid behind Saber, doing his best to be invisible.
Me? I didn’t have it in me to try to fit in anymore. I’d accepted that I didn’t belong.
“You sure you can carry all that?” Lotus watched me as I grabbed the two surfboards, hers and mine, that I’d leaned against the trunk of the palm.
“Two surfboards and backpacks?” I scoffed, noting that her pretty brown eyes were darker than usual and flecked with fire. That usually meant she was excited. “Yeah, I think I can handle it. C’mon. Let’s get going. Good surf’s not gonna wait.”
Nodding, she fell into place at my side.
We walked companionably on a route that was familiar. The wide sidewalk took us around the perimeter of the school. Then we turned left on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, strolling the palm-tree-lined street past residences and a couple of churches before crossing over Newport Avenue, the frequently photographed thoroughfare that led through the center of downtown Ocean Beach. Downhill our path would go until it ended at the water’s edge, a concrete pier on the left and the three-story Ocean Beach hotel on the right.
“You’re awfully quiet today,” I said, giving her a long, searching side glance. “Everything okay at home?”
“It’s all right.” She shrugged one shoulder.
“I don’t believe that’s true,” I said, and she glanced at me.
“How do you—”
“I know you,” I said quickly, keeping her from attempting to deflect me. Her shoulder shrug was a sure indication something was bothering her more than she let on. “And I care about you. You’re upset. I could tell when I picked you up. Tell me about it. Is it because of your dad’s dating?”
“Yes.” Lotus sighed. “It’s just weird. Uncomfortable. Awkward. Honestly, I guess I’m a little jealous that he doesn’t have as much time for me as he used to.”
This was one of the many things about her that I admired. That she could be so candidly honest about her most vulnerable emotions.
I wasn’t wired that way. My feelings were emotional land mines, so I buried them deep inside me.
“It’s understandable that you feel that way.”
I stopped in front of one of my favorite houses, a small whitewashed bungalow with a red clay roof. The front lawn was filled with pink bougainvillea, purple oleander, fragrant white plumeria blooms, and lush green palms. The yard appeared to be overgrown, but it was planned overgrowth. One of her dad’s designs. If only the chaos inside me could be tamed as prettily.