** A slight re-edited version. I'm going to start slowly going through these chapters and enhancing them a bit for a better read :) I do not work with an editor or anyone, so I am always rereading and editing. I apologize if that inconveniences anyone. I just want to make this the best read I can within my current limitations! Thank you! **

I stretch out; my toes digging deep into the sand where it's damp and cool and my hands stuck out as supports behind me.

It looks agitated today, the ocean. The ominous clouds from last night's storm still mounted as a backdrop against the incessant rolling mixture of drab blue and green. The infinite rolling waves that could not settle on a particular path to travel. It conveys to my frame of mind; a physical representation of what I am feeling within me.

The ocean possesses a way of veiling its deadly threat with the curious power it carries in appealing to your soul. It is something to admire just as much as to fear, and thanks to that fear I keep firm in where I rest.

This is it, the final summer I spend on a beach overlooking my fears from a safe distance. Dad and I made a deal after graduation that if I moved with him this last time, he would pay for me to go to any college I desired. I've spent my whole life moving from one coastal town to the next. Staying in one place longer than a few months would be a dream come true. No more moving, no more living out of my suit case and no more losing friends.

My eyes drop to my phone at the thought. "Checking for messages..." announced the tiny words at the bottom of my email I had been monitoring for two complete weeks now. It should shock me when I read I have no new messages, but it doesn't.

I thumb to my sent messages file and continue to the one that read: Gretchen Hanes. None of the emails I composed to her, she acknowledged. I bit the inside of my lip. A breathy sigh escapes me as I let my hand fall and set the phone back onto the towel.

I keep assuring myself that it will become easier, but the savage truth is: it never does. This time will be different. I promised myself that I will stay friendless until school begins. I don't need another relationship with someone that may prove disconcerting. My heart is over it.

I had to wonder though... Why come back here? We haven't moved to the same place twice. What was special about Manteo, North Carolina?

My head jerks back and forth as I rattle the question off my mind. Maybe I'm thinking too much into it. He may have a special attachment to this place. This is, after all, the last place full of joyful memories of our complete family.

A few kids dancing at the shoreline caught my attention. I observe them chasing the retreating wave back to the ocean, waver and shriek as the wave drove them back up the beach. A faint smile tugs at the edges of my mouth. Their carefree attitudes triggers one memory of those days I could recall the best.

I can still see the boy as easily as if he were one of those kids playing. I can recall his long, black hair that contrasted against his fair skin. To this day, I swear I had noticed a blue tinge hidden within it. But the thing I recall the clearest is the set of deep blue eyes that echoed the depths of the ocean on a moonlit night.

Our meeting took place on this very beach. I am not sure why it stayed with me, but I figure because it was the last truly happy moment before the accident. Or his eyes had such an impact I refused to forget them. They often whisked me away during the bleakest days after I lost my mom, who died when I was six.

No one speaks of Mom anymore. She's grown into a distant memory in our family, but I can see that her death weighs heavy on Dad. Every time something reminds him of her, he shuts himself away and won't show his face for hours. I imagine him mourning her alone in silence. They ruled her death a suicide, but both Grammy and I suspected otherwise. 

Grammy had odd views of the world and often imposed those view onto me. Her favorite tales? Sea dwellers...or their common term: mermaids. She told me a multitude of fairytales about mermaids luring people to their deaths, which she believes happened to Mom. I suppose they'd be more nightmares than fairytales to a child like myself, but I loved them. 

Dad hated them and he despised her filling my head with them. The greatest thing about her passing - for him - was the now nonexistent tales. I forgot most, anyway. Why it disturbed him so much was a mystery. I know they aren't real; he thinks.

On the night the ocean claimed my mother; the night I lost my voice, and the sea became my deepest fear, I swear there was someone else in the waves. Grammy told me it was a mermaid come to take her. I believed her. I keep it to myself now though. Everyone figured my "hallucination" as the result of a concussion sustained during my brush with death.

That's right, I almost died with my mother. I don't remember it and I sure as hell don't remember how I made it out. Doctors said it's a miracle I survived. Grammy believed it to be the mermaids. Dad said I may have recalled something from water safety class. I will never know.

Now it's just me and Dad. Living the great life as he shifts from temp job to temp job. He never talks about why he chose temporary work over a full-time gig. He's become somewhat of a temporary job celebrity nowadays. I've lost count the volume of calls he takes a month from people requesting he come work for them. He either shows lots of devotion or he's excellent at what he does.

The phone in my hand vibrated. I don't expect I could have brought the phone up any faster, hoping it was Gret emailing me back. When I see it's from Dad, my heart dies a little.

Dad: Bring me lunch.

I purse my lips and squeeze air out as I exhale. He neglected his lunch again. I move my other hand up to respond, but he is quick to reply before I have the time to write even two words.

Dad: Please love you

I snicker inside, snatching the towel I had been sitting on. After delivering a healthy shake, I roll it up without putting considerable thought to design and insert my phone into it.

Having company for lunch can be nice. Giving the ocean one final glance, I start the trek back to my bike. Dad is my only true companion, the only person closer than anyone could ever be. He is there when everyone else leaves. It makes me guilty that I will leave him behind, but I am resolved in making these few months as memorable as possible. No matter what.