I love the beach, let me start by saying that. But sometimes my parents frustrate me. We came here to the resort we always used to to spend time together. They promised me we’d spend time together. So far we had one awkward dinner where dad fumbled to talk about my sexuality again after mom asked if I was seeing anyone, one ice cream trip that they’d insisted I get way more than I wanted and then watched me waste it, and one minute where we were all in the hotel room at once. It’s my first winter break from college, I’m in Southern California instead of cold and snowy Chicago, and I basically should have an entire fancy hotel suite to myself. And yet, I’m tired and I’m sad and I’m crabby and I can’t stop lashing out.
I could have hookups with every guy in Florida, and no one would ever know. But that’s the problem. I want them to find me. Not because I’m some kind of creepy dude who gets off on people watching, although I’ve never actually tried it (my parents would obviously not be ideal, but still), but because I just want them to be here. They promised me that we’d have a week, and they’d have no business to attend to, they’d just be here.
Today’s New Year’s Eve. I wake up and stay in bed for about three hours, waiting for my parents to barge in and tell me off for staying in bed so late. I wait for someone to hit me up for a booty call on Grindr. I wait for the ocean to come swallow me up.
Surely my parents will be here this evening, right? It’s New Year’s Eve. They have to make it. It’s a celebration of a new year. Another year of me being in college and getting to be my own person. But not even I believe that’ll happen, if I’m really honest here. Truth be told, I bet I’ll spend it alone watching Pitbull on TV and trying not to cry.
I fire Syd a video of the beach view from my room and take off my underwear, then throw on a swimsuit. They say you’re never supposed to swim alone, but frankly, I don’t much care for what they say right about now. Let them disapprove of me swimming. Maybe then my parents will start paying some fucking attention to me. I send Syd a double-text about my impending doom, then message Maggie a stilted goodbye, then I’m off, barrelling to the beach gate with every last drop of enthusiasm left in my chest, pretending like I’m a kid and I’m here with Mark and my parents and all the other kids at the resort and I are running after Mark like fools.
The second I touch the water, it’s cold, and it offers an uncomfortable reminder that I’m alone here. Mark is with his wife and daughter in Utah, probably freezing their asses off, and none of those kids that we used to talk to still come around. Most of them grew up and decided being attached to a place from a few years in their childhood didn’t do them any good.
Still, swimming is nice. I love the rock and ebb of the ocean, and I let it shove me around for a little while. I find myself grinning once I start leaping up to meet the waves and punching through them. At least Miss Gulf is still here. Actually, I feel like the Gulf of Mexico is a boy. Probably because I associate it with Texas. The Atlantic is also a boy. But the Pacific? She’s a lovely lady.
I ride a wave in with just me, then taste salt when the wave crashes back on me. The air’s kinda cold, but the movement feels so relaxing and exciting at the same time. Something steady. Like, the ocean won’t ditch me on New Year’s, right? It’ll always be here. He, Mr. Gulf of Mexico, the only man in my life right now. Other than, like, Noah and Jax. But Noah is still happy with Sofia, even after a few more months, and Jax started seeing someone. He still texts me all the time, though. I’ve kinda started warming up to the asshole. Uh, I mean asshole as in a mean person, not like I specifically associate him with sex. Because I don’t. He’s just a friend that I want to strangle half the time but whenever I say that out loud he juts out his neck and says, “do it, daddy,” then starts cackling. I hate him, but can’t seem to get rid of him, even though he has his boyfriend and insists on telling me every gory detail about their sex life.
Who am I kidding? Jax is like, one of my favorite people.
An ocean wave tackles me and I nearly lose my balance, but I’m tall enough that I can keep some kind of footing. Stupid thoughts about friends. I wish they were here to swim with me. I can picture it: Noah and his sturdy body looking sheepish when Syd says something funny and blunt about it, then she rushes into the ocean. Jax rolls his eyes and follows, then Maggie goes in after Jax, reminding him he sucks at swimming. Then, just Noah and I are left, and our toes are almost touching under the sand. He looks kinda shy, despite the fact that he’s just magnificent to look at. I, despite my lack of abs, still look hot without a shirt, and he tells me so. I blush, then flounder for a minute to find something to say to him. Then, I tell him I’ll race him to tackle Syd, and he tells me I’m on before bolting before I get the chance. He manages to get Syd down, but then a wave comes and throws them both off-balance and I use the turbulence to tackle him, but he grabs me and pulls us both under the water. We come up, giggling, while Maggie helps Jax to not die. Presumably, Jayde, Mel, and Ali watch from the beach, sunbathing or something.
I wish at least Noah was here.
The waves sweep me up, then push me down, and I keep my head above water just barely the whole time. I can breathe, to be sure, but I certainly come close to dunking a few times. When I was little, I used to pretend that I could talk to the ocean, and it would respond by pushing me around when I asked questions. I would just be able to interpret the answers. Part of me is tempted to ask right now, if only to pretend my loneliness isn’t totally justified. Some happy couple splashes past me on my right, and I think they’re Noah and Sofia for the shortest period of time, but they end up being some other cute couple, smiling and laughing together, reminding me how bitterly alone I am. Nice how that works.
I read once that people in societies with high mobility of class and stuff, like America, but also high social restrictions, apparently also like America, turn to superstition and religion for answers to why they can’t personally change things. Maybe that’s why right now, as I dive into another wave, I feel like it’s trying to tell me it’s doing something for me today. Like Mr. Gulf, my current (haha, get it?) boyfriend, is letting me know that it’s going to be alright. I’ll probably sunburn, because my Irish ass always burns, but the ocean has my back on everything else. To tell me so, Mr. Gulf pushes me back onto the sand. I get a bunch on me while I’m getting out, and a gust of wind is so cold against my wet skin that it sends me dashing back in for a moment until I see no breeze tickling the tips of the palm trees.
Fuuuuuucccck. I forgot a towel.
The dash back to my suite is chilly, but not unbearable, and I even make a stop at the little outdoor shower to get my feet clean from sand. Of course, it doesn’t matter, because I don’t have shoes, and my feet are now covered in spiky grass and little flecks of mud, but I still enjoy using it. I’ve always found those little things cute.
Once I’m back in my room, I wash my feet off again, check the time, 4:17, then my phone, which has a message from Dad saying they should get here around 9:30, several frantic messages from Maggie, wondering why I’m going to die today and insisting I find a hot lifeguard to watch me swim so I stay safe, a message from Syd wishing me a painless drowning, and an essay from Jax about why his boyfriend’s “peen” is better than mine.
I reply to everyone but Dad, because I’m too tempted to tell him “yeah, right.”
Except I’m kind of not tempted to say that anymore. I kind of feel like the ocean was telling me that they’re gonna make it in time for once. Maybe it’s an omen of the new year coming in. That they’ll actually make it to more and more things. If I start performing again, they’ll be in the audience. If I get a real, actual boyfriend instead of a dick with legs, they’ll want to come to dinner to meet him. That if I drive all the way to Wisconsin to try some shitty cheese place I read about on Instagram, they’ll actually fly to meet me there.
I hop in the shower, prevent myself from sending a naked selfie to Noah on Snap, and put on some Lady Gaga to soothe the soul a bit. Any gay that says Gaga isn’t their queen is lying to themselves. Listen to Dope and tell me she didn’t make you want to bawl. I want someone to need ME more than Dope, the fuck?
I do send half-naked streaks, though, with a towel wrapped around my waist. Noah replies really fast, like always, with a smiley face on his nose and a glittery filter that gives him extremely effeminate eyelashes. He always does shit like this, and I love it. His caption reads: “Ooh, baby, drop that towel for me ; p.”
I snap back a cheeky thing with my dick full out but covered by the eggplant emoji. Syd snaps back a grossed out face. I can see her girlfriend sitting in the back of the frame. I finish putting my clothes on and step out to the rest of my room to check myself out in the full body mirror. Khaki shorts, a simple button down. No doubt Dad will show up in a three-piece suit and Mom with a million-dollar Versace dress, and everyone at this little resort will stare, and they’ll remind me that I don’t have to stay here, because we can afford something private now, but I sort of don’t care. I look good in my dinky little outfit. I leave the front unbuttoned so that all the boys can see my tight white t-shirt underneath, and I step out onto my balcony. Not even that is private. People laugh and giggle back and forth behind me, beneath me, and in the pool in front of me. It makes me feel less alone, at least.
Jax snaps me an ugly, blurry eye roll that’s captioned, “damn, you’re that horny? I can text the bf if you’re trying for a threesome, but you’re sooooo not penetrating me.” I leave him on read. Maggie sends me a little radiant smile of hers, showing off some fancy new hat that she bought back in the suburbs. Mel sends me a pic with her little brother. Jayde sends me a shaky “S” on a black screen. Most of Dylan’s frat boys don’t send me streaks back until later.
I watch people and watch some more. More time passes, and I break out a book and try to read, but get distracted by how hungry I am, so I order some food, and realize that it’s already 6:00. My Dad said they’d be here by 9:30. I suck in a breath and open my book again, just before the realization sets in that I’m more excited about the countdown to 9:30 than I am the count down to the new year.
My food arrives, and I munch it down. Some nice girl walks by and asks me what I’m reading. I make small talk with her, but it doesn’t interest me much. I hope she’s not hitting on me. Eventually, she goes back to her room and I have a sinking feeling she’ll try to meet me on the makeshift dance floor tonight by the pool. I was really hoping to get it on with some random boy that I meet there next to Mom and Dad’s room to bug them, but I guess I could settle for grinding with some girl and confusing the hell out of them. Though the more I think about it, a conversion about my sexuality being a spectrum with my very sturdy and avoidant parents doesn’t sound half as fun as getting yelled at for moaning too loudly.
I check my phone for the time again. I have a snap from Dyl, one from Jay, and another from Noah. I smile and check Noah’s and leave the other two unopened, but my smile melts when I see that it’s just him kissing Sofia on the cheek, captioned about how much they miss me and how excited they are to spend New Year’s together.
I don’t want to leave him on read, so I send back a picture of the ocean, captioned about how I wish I was with them, too, instead of alone here. He doesn’t respond right away, so I set my phone back down, then pick up my book to read again, before realizing I never checked the time in the first place, so I pick my phone back up to find that only about a half an hour has passed since I last checked it. T-minus three hours before the parents are supposed to arrive. They have the room next to mine rented for the night, though they were complaining about how little space they’d have.
I try to read a bit more through my book, something about a gay love triangle in a fantasy setting, but I can’t really focus on it right now. I can’t stop thinking about my parents arriving. Maybe they’ll draw a crowd at the little party. Maybe they’ll tell me I’m underdressed and then fly us to New York to buy me something fancy in time to get back for the countdown. Maybe they won’t even show.
But they have to, right? I mean, the ocean said so, and all. It made me feel like everything would be a-okay. So it has to be. There’s no reason to be worried.
I pick up my book and walk down towards the pool. There are a couple of kids laughing and splashing in there, and they get my bare toes on occasion, but it doesn’t really bother me. They’re cuties. Their parents start to make friendly small-talk, too and tell me about their daughter out on the beach. Apparently, I look about her age. I ask them how old they think I look. They say sixteen, then jokingly ask where my parents are. I tell them I’m eighteen. And that my boyfriend interests me more than their daughter. They shut up and don’t say anything to me after that, and they grab their kids out of the pool for showers only moments later. They don’t say goodbye.
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