At the Bottom of the Bay

Chapter One

Sofia woke in an unfamiliar room. She didn't think she should be awake. That felt wrong.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to turn off her brain, but the feeling of soft linen sheets against her bare arms, an overly-fluffy pillow cradling her head, and a comforter tangled around her legs pulled her back to her body. She wondered if she drank too much the night before, or smoked too much. She supposed she felt hungover, or something akin to it. She pried one lid open, peaking around the room again.

She would have guessed it would be Toby's, or maybe Cam's. Jack was least likely; he hadn't spoken to her since he got a girlfriend. But she knew their rooms, by the overpowering smell of body odor and the musky body spray that endeavored to cover it up. And none of them had sheets this soft or... pink walls?

Okay, so maybe she'd been really adventurous last night. She cast her mind back again, but felt an almost physical sensation like hitting a wall. Suddenly, her forehead throbbed, pain blossoming behind her eyes, and she groaned, rolling over to hide her face in the pillow. It smelled like detergent and her own sweat and, strangely, the ocean. Gross.

The thought that she may have hooked up with a girl last night was less distressing than wondering which girl. Sofia didn't have many... any girl friends. She also didn't have any guy friends, now that Jack was dating Grace Messner. This wasn't her first time waking in a stranger's bed, but she never got used to it. She preferred to keep her hookups with people she knew well enough she didn't have to worry about their mom finding her in their room and throwing her out half dressed.

She wondered if pink-room's parents were home.

The house sounded quiet, as quiet as any house in Avenby. A small town nestled between rocky hills not quite tall enough to be considered mountains, and the crashing surf of a grey sea, nothing was built well here. Walls let through the sound of waves on the shore, seagulls cawing, blustering wind (and, far too often, the feel of it). Sofia could hear all of that from the pink room.

She turned her face toward the window, covered in gauzy pink curtains, and realized the room wasn't pink after all. Just the light coming in.

What time was it?

She groaned again, lifting her head enough to search for a clock. The room was tiny, the end of the bed almost flush with the closet door in a way that meant it had to be difficult to open. There was no space for a nightstand, and she finally located a digital clock blinking 1:30 AM from atop a sticker patched wardrobe.

"Fucking useless," she mumbled, swinging her legs off the bed.

Usually, she wouldn't leave the room without her hook-up, but she had a horrible feeling that whatever she drank or ate last night wanted to make a reappearance. She stumbled for the door, grateful to find a dingy bathroom just across the hall.

Her nose burned with the salt of everything coming back up. She blinked blearily into the toilet bowl, surprised at what looked like regular old water. Even vodka didn't produce vomit so clear.

"Sofia?" a voice said from the hall. A familiar voice.

No.

Sofia turned her head, taking in Kelsey McQuarrie fidgeting in the doorway. Sofia hadn't turned on the bathroom light, and in all the darkness, Kelsey looked a little terrifying. Or maybe that was just because Sofia had always thought she was a little terrifying.

Most people wouldn't think that, looking at her. They would just see an eighteen-year-old girl (they would probably assume she was much younger) with hair too colourless to be blond and too pale to be anything else, a round face like a cartoon chipmunk, pearly-grey eyes made huge behind oversized glasses. She had once told Sofia her father bought all her clothes, and Sofia guessed that was still true because in all the years she'd known Kelsey the girl hadn't switched up her style from baggy jeans and dull, oversized knitwear.