Fragile

We arrived at the beach, after about five more minutes. People were crowded everywhere, making finding a spot to lay down at hard. Finally, we spotted a place that wasn’t too occupied, but it wasn’t vacant either. We spread our towels out and removed our clothes to be left in our bikinis, then we laid down on our towels.

As I started to put on some tanning oil, Mary asked, “So what is so important that you couldn’t tell me in the car? Is something wrong with you and Jay? Did he hurt you? I swear to God, if he did something, I will-“

“No, no, no,” I said, putting my hand over her mouth to seize her babbling. “It’s about Mr. Haner.”

She perked up, removing my hand from her mouth. Here we go again with her being obsessed over him. I swear I’ll never get a break with it.

“Really? What is it?” she questioned, rubbing some tanning oil over her arms.

“I think I might like him,” I mumbled, hoping that she didn’t hear me. Even if she hadn’t heard me, it felt good to tell someone about my feelings. I felt like I was going to explode, if I didn’t tell someone soon.

Her mouth hung open, squealing, “You have the hots for Haner?!”

“Don’t yell!” I shushed her, even though she was bouncing up and down like a jack-in-a-box.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just, I always thought that you may have liked him, but you’d never admit it.”

I mumbled, “I just didn’t want to be like you and all the other girls who were obsessing over him. It’s hard enough liking him while I still have a boyfriend.”

“Well, it’s not like you’re going to date Mr. Haner or anything. Isn’t that like illegal or something?” she asked, lying down on her towel, as did I.

“I think it’s only illegal if we have sex or something, but I could be wrong. I just don’t know what to do. I really like Mr. Haner, but I have Jay, who is the love of my life.”

“You’re only seventeen years old, Leah. You have years before you should start thinking about getting married and all of that shit. Just enjoy your time as a kid,” Mary told me, glancing at me.

I sighed and said, “You’re right. I love how every time I have a problem, you always help me through it.”

“Well, that’s me, the next Dr.Phil.”

Mary and I lay in the sun for quite a while together. We would talk about everything and anything. She even tried to steal a little girl’s ice cream while she wasn’t looking. It was kind of funny because the little girl saw her and started screaming. The little girl’s parents just glared at Mary, taking their daughter’s hand and dragging her back to their car.

“Why don’t we get some ice cream sine that little bitch didn’t know how to share,” Mary suggested, standing up and fixing her bikini top.

I stood up as well, saying, “You tried stealing her ice cream, and when you got caught, you blamed her for not sharing with you.”

As we started to walk, Mary just glared in the direction the little girl and her parents had taken to go to their car, saying, “She was so mean to me! I was just dying from heat, about to collapse, and she just doesn’t want to share. That was very rude of her.”

I chuckled and patted her shoulder, telling her, “We need to go after them, show them that their daughter is a bitch.”

“That’s all I’m asking,” she said, raising her hands in the air a little bit.

Once we arrived at the ice cream truck that was always sitting by the beach, I looked over what they had. They had pretty much every single type of ice cream known to man here. It was amazing!

“Um, I’ll get a fudge bar and,” I said, looking over at Mary.

She glanced at the guy in the truck, telling him, “And a vanilla ice cream cone.”

The guy, who just so happened to be about Mary and I’s age, handed us our ice cream, said that it was on the house. Mary just giggled, batting her eyelashes in a flirty way. She ended up getting the guy’s number.

We sat back down on our towels, licking and biting our ice cream. The fudge bar had always been my favorite ice cream, ever since I was a little kid. Eating ice cream somehow made me feel like a kid again. The sun’s rays streamed down to my now tanning skin, causing me to sweat a little. My eyes closed for a second, before I opened them back up.

“Well, well, well. Look who it is, Leah,” Mary teased, pointing in someone’s direction.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw who she had been pointing at: Mr. Haner. He had on pair of black swim trucks that hung low on his hips. I could see more tattoos on his body now that not many pieces of clothes were on his body. I couldn't help but stare at his perfectly sculpted body. He was laughing with four guys that stood around him, a beer in hand. One guy, who was extremely tall with black hair, was rocking a guy, who was much shorter than the other with a Mohawk to make him seem taller. There was another guy, who had black hair and was slightly chubby, sitting beside Mr. Haner, falling over onto Mr. Haner while laughing. The last guy was a muscular guy, who I would probably hate to piss off, just laughed and took a sip of his beer.

“Don’t bring attention to us,” I murmured to Mary, lying back down again.

“Don’t you what to say hi or something? It’s not like we stalked him here,” Mary said.

“Just keep tanning,” I told her in a stern voice. “I came here to have some girl time with my best friend, not to drool over my English teacher.”