Aggro - CoraLee June Page 0,102

ask, but we were so distant I didn’t even know how to address it. Were we a couple? Was this it? We had also closed the surf shop. I couldn’t bear to step foot in the shop again, so my mom went and got our personal things and hung a sign on the door that read Closed Indefinitely.

Since I wasn’t physically going to school anymore, I had a lot more free time. Even with reading every word thoroughly, meticulously filling out worksheets and writing papers, I was done every day around lunch. It turns out that there was a lot of wasted time built into the school day: passing periods, listening to the teacher explain the same concept to the one person who just doesn’t understand for the fourth time, and waiting for the class to settle down at the beginning of each period.

I fell into a new routine of doing my schoolwork, eating lunch with my mom, and then spending the rest of the afternoon in the ocean. I usually drove to The Point since it was secluded to begin with, but factoring in that everybody was either at school or work, I rarely saw another person.

I usually surfed until the end of the school day, and then I would go over to Chase’s. But today my muscles were screaming after only an hour in the water. I tried to push through, but I gave in and got out to lie on the warm sand, letting my body rest. I didn’t even care that the sand was sticking to my wet skin and hair. I surrendered to the physical and mental exhaustion and fell asleep right there on the beach.

I woke up hours later to strong hands gently shaking my shoulders. As I slowly came out of the haze of my impromptu afternoon nap, I realized that it was Chase and he was saying something, but I wasn’t awake enough to register what it was.

“Breeze, wake up,” Chase repeated.

I lifted myself up onto my arms and squinted at Chase. The sun was directly behind him, so I was having a hard time seeing his face. “What’s going on?”

“I found something, and I think you need to see it.”

I scrambled to my feet, any trace of grogginess wiped out, and brushed the sand off my body as I followed Chase to where our cars were parked.

“What is it?” I asked, my mind filled with trepidation. I wasn’t sure I could handle much more upheaval in my life.

“It’s probably better if I show you.”

The drive home was difficult. I felt a sense of dread similar to before. I wondered when the relief would come. When would the secrets stop?

Once we got to the house, I found myself still sitting in the Jeep, clutching the steering wheel like my life depended on it. I hated this Jeep. If we could afford something else, I’d trade it in. Every inhale smelled like the surfing wax Dad preferred. I could see the stain on the seat from when he took me to get snow cones and I spilled my cherry slush. There was a scratch in the paint from when I accidentally bumped my surfboard against the door. The hanging air freshener on the rearview mirror was a hula girl dad picked out.

“Breeze? You gonna come inside?” Chase asked. He was standing outside with his hands in his pockets, looking at me as if I were a ticking time bomb.

“Yeah,” I murmured before unbuckling and getting out of the Jeep. I followed Chase inside, once again wishing Kai was here to support me. He hadn’t texted me in a couple of days, but that wasn’t new. Maybe our time had passed. Violet’s death taught me that everything and everyone had an expiration date. Nothing lasted forever, and the more distance between us, the more I realized that Kai and I would never get the happily ever after we deserved.

Once I was sitting at the kitchen table, Chase brought over his iPad. “I figured out Violet’s email password,” he admitted. “One time she told me that she would draft emails to our parents and never send them. Sometimes, it would be about her day. Sometimes, it would be angry letters about their absence. I thought maybe if I sent them, Mom and Dad would come home, you know?”

“Oh, Chase,” I whispered before reaching out to hold his forearm. “Did you find them?”

“Yeah. I’m going to send them to my parents. They need to know everything