Atlantis Tide Breaker

Atlantis Tide Breaker, Chapter Two

Chapter Two

First Day Frenzy

Lied.

Again.

About everything?

Gill’s admission infiltrated my brain. What did he mean about everything?

About his version of the events under the ocean or between us? About his kisses this past summer or about this kiss now?

His mouth tempted. I wanted to kiss him. I’d missed him so much. Missed his smile and his touch. Missed his kisses.

But I couldn’t let him take advantage of me.

Whoa. I placed my hand on his chest and pushed. Anger that he’d tried to trick me gave force to my shove. “What did you lie about exactly?”

His eyelids flew open. The soft expression on his face froze like dry ice. His eyes circled like one of the tropical fish he use to tell me about.

“What?” Was he dazed from our almost-kiss or trying to figure out another lie?

“You can’t just tell me you lied and then kiss me.” My temper exploded in words. I refused to let his touch sway me again. “I’m not a child. A kiss doesn’t make everything better.”

He backed away. “I’ve already said too much.”

“You haven’t said nearly enough.” I took a step toward him.

He blanched, his skin turning white underneath the light line of freckles crossing his nose. He turned, jumped over the railing, and fled.

Too fast to follow.

I’d waited hours for him to head back to Maris’s house. He’d never shown. The thought of searching for the object crossed my mind several times, but I didn’t know what Gill looked for. And Maris hadn’t asked me to help.

That fact soured in my stomach. Friends helped friends. Did this mean she didn’t consider me a friend anymore?

***

Gripping the marker tightly in my hand, I organized my planner and folders in my room that night. I wrote subject headings like Calculus and Physics while my thoughts drifted back to the scene with Gill, and to Maris.

I glanced across the backyards to Maris’s bedroom window. I still couldn’t believe we wouldn’t walk into Ocean View High School together. That we wouldn’t sit at lunch together or go to swim practice together.

My eyes burned, but I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t give in to my sadness. I had to be strong. Besides I didn’t want red, puffy eyes for the first day of school.

I’d changed a lot since middle school. I went from being a weak nerd to a popular fashionista. Learned how to blend in, to dress like the other kids, talk like them, even flirt like them. I protected the real me with this glammed-out girl.

I had a lot of surface friends, but only Maris knew the real me. And the glimpse I’d shown Gill right before he’d left this summer.

Pain from his rejection stung again like a returning rash. A rejection of the real me. I picked up the extra set of house keys off the floor and tossed them across the room. The keys hit the wall making marks in the blue paint and then clattered to the floor.

I slapped my forehead. “I left the back door unlocked.”

The cop had watched me lock the front door, but he didn’t know I’d gone in the back. For being a genius, I could be forgetful.