Déja Vu

Fifteen

I like how my sister knows exactly how to lure me out of the room I’ve been trapping myself in for a few days. The Nick issue left me drained to the point that I’ve lost all my energy to interact with my surroundings, not even Carson who sleeps in the same room as I do. I still can’t believe I’ll be without her when she moves out in three weeks. Andy found an apartment to rent within their income budget so he’s taking her from me and they’ll be moving there. I can’t stop her, it’s her husband and that’s her life, but I will miss having her around. We’ve been living together for over a year now, waking up and not finding her is going to be so depressing for me, plus the childhood best friend I’ve lost days ago.

Life keeps on slipping through my fingers, but I’m glad I can let it all go while I’m here. I’ll just let the sea waves listen to my inner cries as I float over them while the salty water embraces me and my pain. The weather has started to cool and this might be my last opportunity to swim this year without freezing, yet I’ve been sitting here doing nothing for the past two hours except letting my brain come up with new ideas and plot twists for my story. I’ve finally resumed working on that story I’ve abandoned four years ago. More like restarting it. I feel like I’m able to come up with new ideas, more details, more spice. Rereading the old draft has made me realize how boring it actually was, seemed like beginners’ stuff. I plot down my new ideas in my notebook so I wouldn’t forget them later as I listen to Naomi complain about how the snack bar didn’t have French fries and that it should be a standard everywhere. She’s actually right, like how does any food-making place exist without the essential amount of French fries? I wasn’t planning on going anywhere that isn’t college anytime soon, but Olivia invited almost everyone I know to have a “trip to the beach” as a type of “bonding time” though I’m certain her main purpose was to get me out. I still don’t get how she convinced Madonna to join us, and what I don’t get even more is how did she convince Sam to spend an entire day face-to-face with Dain. But she’s Olivia James June, there is nothing she’s incapable of.

“I thought you’d be in the water by now.” Andy tells me as he wraps a towel around his shoulder “I spent about a good ten minutes discussing with Car how will we get you to go back home.”

“She’ll only have to worry about me going home for upcoming few weeks.” I tell him as I jot down my last two ideas “Someone is taking her after that.” I didn’t mean to sound shady but I am. She’s been my best friend from before he married her, he can’t just pop out of nowhere and take her away from me. He laughs as he drops the towel back on the chair. How do men dry up that fast? “This is life, Ashley. You have a timing limit with everyone until nature takes her role and separates you, with a certain distance that varies from a person to another. This time can end quickly, end after years, or just never end at all but the distance had affected it.”

“Too deep suddenly?”

“I work on myself.” He winks to me before spinning on his heels to go find Carson. His words just hit the Nick spot inside of me, the boy who I thought was going to have in my life until the end of it, then out of a sudden he just…leaves. It’s awful how one never realizes how valuable something was until it’s gone, even if was aware about its worth, but is always resting assured this something will never slip out of hands.

Wet skin brushes against my arm as Adam takes a seat on the lounge chair beside me, glancing over my shoulder to get a read of what I’m writing. I flip my notebook close as I glare at him from the corner of my eyes “No peeking.” I order him “It’s bad.”

“Yeah you said that last time and I’m still not over the story till that day.” He narrows his eyes at me “You better tell me what happened to the girl and her brother. I’m certain the boy is innocent.”