Change in Heart ▪ Enoch O'Connor

IX.

Ashnar never really liked bathing suits. She had only worn one twice; one in the rain and once at the beach. It was revealing and scratchy, large in certain areas where she was lacking. But when offered a warm day at the beach, there was no way she was wearing a dress. 

 Ash sat in the sand with people she hardly knew, most of them being boys. But they didn't pay attention to the girls as a normal boy anywhere else would do, and all the peculiars were just focused on the fun of the ocean. She felt happy with the warm sun on her skin, the salty air blowing her brown tangles, and peacefulness of the rushing waves. 

 After finding a place in the sand for her hat and dress, she swam out to where her toes hardly touched the seafloor. She floated on her back, flowing with each wave. The excited cries of the children were distant, and she was alone. Her face was crinkled from the sun and as she wished for sunglasses, she wished Mother were there with her. Mother always loved swimming, and had promised Ash trips to the ocean, which never happened from weather and rough currents.

Ash heard a sudden splashing to her left, and looked up for the person, not seeing anyone. Ash let out a small laugh and swam a bit farther, hoping it was Millard. She stopped swimming and realized she could no longer touch the sea floor, nor see it. She faltered in a moment of panic, and desperately reached out to swim back towards the shore. She couldn't tell where exactly Millard had gone, which scared her even more. 

"BOO!"

 Two voices shouted behind Ash, and she screamed, head dunking under the water for a moment. She jumped, arms flailing and striking whoever. 

"Ow!" 

Her eyes popped open, seeing Hugh with his arm around Millard, both laughing.

"You guys can't do that to me!" Ash said, trying desperatly to get to where she could touch the sand.

Both boys laughed at the struggling girl, Hugh standing in front of her with his head just above the water.

"Need a little help?" Hugh said, a bee flying from his mouth. Ash shrieked, and began swimming/splashing away, with the bee following close behind her. Her feet hit the floor, so she dove under the water and swam the rest of the way to the shore. 

She saw Hugh following after, and once she was safe on the shore, she marched to her things. She looked back after hearing him still laughing, sending a glare towards him.

"Sorry, Ash," Millard said, sitting down in front of the brunette. Hugh went and sat beside Fiona under a shady tree, who was twirling grass between her fingers. Claire and Olive were inbetween building a sand castle, running from the waves, and yelling at Horace to swim out, who insisted on wading ankle deep in a suit with the trousers pulled up. Emma, Victor, and Bronwyn were swimming, seeming to be racing each other, Emma giving up and holding onto Victor. Enoch sat by himself underneath a large tree with some clay and dolls, striking Ash as odd. 

"What is he doing?" Ash asked Millard, gesturing towards Enoch. 

"Oh, he is just playing with his dolls. He makes them all the time," Millard replied. 

A teenage boy playing with dolls? He didn't even seem like the kind to do that.

"What does he do with them?" Ash asked, bewildered at the thought. 

"Why don't you ask him," Millard said. So she did exactly that. She walked over to Enoch who didn't pay attention to her, and plopped down in front of him, crossing her legs beneath herself

"What are those for?" She asked him. He stopped whittling at the clay and glared up at her. 

"What does it matter to you," He said rudely, returning to his whittling. 

"Well, I just wanted to know," She responded softly. She leaned away from him, afraid he was going to stab her. 

"You don't need to know." Enoch responded, gathering his things and moving away to a smaller tree. 

"Well, sorry," Ash mumbled, then standing and walking away.

He made Ash curious. He seemed to be physically capable of being nice, as he complimented her last night. But he put up a dark facade, angry and sullen with everyone. What her mother saw in him, Ash had not one clue. 

Ash walked across the warm sand back to Millard, plopping down in a huff.

"Why is he so mean?" She complained. He shifted in the sand a bit and started taking clumps of sand, pouring them on his legs. 

"Nobody really knows about Enoch. He has always been mean to everyone, since the first day we all met him. Something must have happened to him, or maybe that's just the way he is. The only person to ever know about him was your mother. She told me he was quite the romantic," Millard said, placing his hat on his head, and dumping more sand on his feet.  

Ash let that settle in her head. There could have been millions of explanations, but she refused to come to a conclusion. He was just a big mystery. 

Ash and Millard went to join the group in the water after conversing, who seemed to just be having a large water fight. Ash was the shortest of the group, being only 5'2, she just had to tread water, and be drowned by the amount of water Victor and Bronwyn pushed at Emma, Millard, and Ash. She had to hold her hand out, she was coughing hard. When her coughing fit seized, she noticed everyone was staring at her.

"That's odd," Millard said, swimming towards her. Ash felt worried, and started backing away slowly. 

"What's odd?" She questioned, shielding her eyes with her hand to look at the peculiars. Millard seemed like he was going to say something, but then stopped short and shook his head, his hat shifting back and forth. 

"Never mind," Millard said, turning back to the shoreline. She felt he was putting up a nonchalant act, and she felt tense as they went back to splashing.