Over Thinking

Tegan sat clicking her pen to the melody of her scattered thoughts. For the past hour she had been drawing a light house covered in flowers and vines that had emerged from the depths of her imagination. The wind was gently playing with her hair as she took light sips from her soda can and watched the last of the sun rise on the water. A summer ritual. There was more sporadic clicking before she closed her sketch book, letting it rest in her lap. Then the strangers started to come. All carrying much more than needed; beach toys, blankets, a dozen chairs, over-sized coolers and their own weight in sun block. Tegan turned her wrist to look at her red, plastic watch. The digital numbers blinked 8:00AM. Had she really been sitting there for three hours? Surely the sun didn’t come up at 7 during the summer…

“Teag!!” She was pushed out of her trance.

“Mitch!!” Tegan looked down to see her friend standing in the sand, his backpack hanging from his shoulders and his long board in hand.

“Me. You. Long boarding. Now.” He made expressive movements with his hands.

“Me. Being lazy. In this chair. All day.” She mimicked him.

“Come on, Tegan!” He pounded up the deck stairs, his eyes becoming solemn. “You can’t keep doing this to me, girl! Summer’s almost over we’ve got places to see things to discover!”

“We’ve lived here for how long now? I don’t think there’s that much to discover.”She pulled the soda can to her lips and cocked an eyebrow at him before taking a sip. He sighed,

“Well I guess Rose would hang out with me…because, yah know, she’s my favorite friend.”

“Fine.” She gave in, “Let me go change.” Mitch grinned knowing he didn't have to do much to make his friend feel guilty.

She reemerged from the house wearing a gray v-neck, navy blue high tops and white shorts, her long board close at hand.

“You know what? Just meet me at the beach.”

“But you live on the beach.”

“I know, meaning we should hang out later.” Mitch cocked his head to one side and Tegan sighed, “So I don’t have to deal with your annoying skate park buddies.”

“Oh! Yeah, they hate you.”

“And I loathe them.”

-----

People over populated the beach. Tegan weaved through the throng, searching for a good place to sit. Her bare feet sunk into the sun-warmed sand as she bolted to an open spot. She rolled out her towel among a flock of other teenagers. They had set up a volleyball net and were blasting pop music, while packs of orange girls swarmed packs of guys with perfectly gelled hair.
She walked to the shore letting the clear water lap around her ankles.

“Heads!” someone shouted over the noise. A tattered volleyball landed at her feet. Picking it up she hit it back over to where the game was going on. As the ball landed amongst the players, two girls squealed and ducked, fearing a tragedy if anything should happen to their hair. The others just looked at each other and then back at Tegan, whose focus had returned to the locks of seaweed wrapping around her feet.

“Hey!” They shouted to her. There was no response; she only pulled a piece of her blond hair behind her ear. The most outgoing of the group ducked under the net and ran up to the shoreline.

“Hey,” he placed his hand on her thin arm.

“Holy shit!” Tegan jumped back, only to trip over her feet and fall into the sand.

“Oh, I’m sorry! Really, I didn’t mean to freak you out like that.” She disregarded the hand that the boy had offered and pushed herself to her feet.

“I didn’t mean to freak out like that.”

“Yeah well, we were just wondering if you wanted to play some volleyball.”

Tegan looked over at the group standing around the net, “I suppose I could go for that.”

“Alright!” He grabbed her wrist dragging her to the court, “you’ll be on my team.”