Brie goes to the beach alone while she waits for nightfall when she can see Lucinda the vampire again.
Waiting at the Beach
There were hours of daylight left, so I was on my own. Instead of riding alone, I walked onto the beach and wandered along the sand. I’d forgotten by surfboard and wetsuit in my dorm so I couldn’t surf, but I kicked off my sandals, dipped my toes into the waves, and watched the other surfers. The beach was crowded with a sea of strange faces. People screamed, the rides rattled and roared, and the constant pop music drifted down the beach.
The band came out to play their first set at six-thirty, which just added to the level of noise. I wrinkled my nose and walked farther away.
As the sun went down, the wind whipped up and the temperature dropped. I shivered from the cold water but I refused to leave the waves. My favorite place to relax was in the water, yet I’d barely touched it all week. Why had I let myself get so distracted by everything? I’d let my friends convince me that hanging around the Boardwalk would be cool, but instead I’d worried about money and stuck in a crowd of people. It wasn’t what I wanted from my summer.
After sunset, I realized that I hadn’t told Luci where I would meet her. I looked back at the stage where the band was starting up their second set and saw an even bigger horde of people in the audience. There was no way I was going back up there. So I pulled out my phone and started to write a text to let her know I was along the water, down at the end where the river ran into the ocean.
“What are you doing down here, Brie?”
The way she said my name always made my heart speed up. I looked up and saw her already standing there with a look of concern. I checked my phone screen and confirmed that I hadn’t even sent the message to her yet.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
Luci looked down at her feet. “Um, I was looking for you. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I could smell you.”
I looked down at my clothes to see if I’d spilled food somewhere on me, but I’d changed out of my school uniform after cooking and there was nothing. Should I have showered?
Luci took my hand and I looked up at her. “I didn’t mean that you smell bad,” she said, smiling down at me. “I mean, I can find almost anyone by their scent. You smell really good, by the way.” She leaned closer and brushed my hair out of my face. “Did you have pasta recently?”
“We had a cooking test today and I made a tomato sauce,” I said with a sigh. “Well, I tried. It didn’t go very well.”
“Is that why you’re brooding alone by the water?”
“I guess that’s part of it,” I admitted. “The other part is I had a fight with Pamela, my roommate, and now we’re not talking to each other.”
