The Beach

Sawyer woke up to the feeling of arms pulling her closer to a warm body, and she almost groaned, until she remembered that the body she was being pulled to was Alex’s, not Jake’s. She smiled, because she felt so at ease, which was the first time in days that she had felt this way. She hadn’t been able to relax since she found out that Jake was going to be coming to Virginia, and now he was gone.

She had driven him to the airport yesterday, which she had to admit was one of the most awkward car rides of her life. The car had been silent, save for the low volume of music that was coming from the radio that Sawyer had turned on in a desperate attempt to not have to listen to the heavy silence.

In all the years of dating Jake, she could easy mark that as the worst day they had ever shared together. Sawyer never had to try with Jake, mainly because everything was just so half-hearted, even though Jake thought she was giving everything her all. Jake had no idea that Sawyer really wasn’t in love with him, but being with Jake was so effortless given that he did everything a good boyfriend should do, that she never had to try to be good in return. He set her up perfectly to be a good girlfriend without trying. All she had to do was go along with everything he did, and ta-da, she was a perfect girlfriend. But because of her lack of effort in the relationship, she could say that Jake had never really seen the true her. He had never seen how passionate she was, how she really always stood up for what she believed in. He could never see this, because she never showed up. She felt no need. It was so much easier to just go with the flow of everything and pretend that everything was all right.

She could only imagine the shock that Jake had felt when she yelled at him the other night, threatened him in a way that she could only assume he had never imagined her capable of. Being around Alex and Jake, pretending to be life time friends with everyone, for Jake to come so close to actually knowing about her affair, it had Sawyer on edge in the worst way, and she had done fairly good at bottling it up until he made those snarky accusations at dinner. Really, she was only mad that he almost found out, but she knew that he would never expect Alex. He suspected Jack because Sawyer had been around him the most, mainly in an attempt to avoid tackling Alex to the ground and taking him right there in front of everyone. But still, Jake had come to close, and it had set Sawyer off.

And all because of this, they were now on a break, and he was going back home to California to continue working at the hospital day in and day out, waiting for her to return with a decision about their future.

She had to admit, that even as she said goodbye to him at the airport, she couldn’t decide what she was going to do about the whole debacle. She knew that eventually she was going to have to go home and give Jake an answer, and that he would be hoping that they could continue on like things were normal, but she knew that after this weekend with him here at the beach, they were so far past normal. She really didn’t know if she could keep pretending with Jake after the last few days.

But she also knew that even if she did break things off with Jake that it didn’t necessarily mean things with Alex would progress at all either Alex was a whole other set of rules and issues. She didn’t know if she could actually handle a relationship with Alex. To be honest, it was hard enough being with Alex for just a couple weeks every summer and having to say goodbye for another 10 or 11 months. She couldn’t imagine having to say goodbye to him several times a year, wondering what he was doing, or even worse, wondering who he was doing. A relationship with Alex brought on a whole new world of problems and insecurities that Sawyer wasn’t sure she could handle.

She sighed, trying to focus on the arms around her rather than her own thoughts. This trip to the beach had been so much more than she expected, and really not in a good way. Now she actually had a decision to make, and she honestly had no idea which choice she would be making, because all her options seemed so depressing and unreal.

Sawyer decided that she would put off making that decision until she absolutely had to, and until then, she was going to bask in the comfort of having Alex’s arms holding her close to his body.

She snuggled closer to his body, curling her body slightly as to try and feel as surrounded by Alex as possible. But what she couldn’t have planned on was the feeling of lips on her neck, pressing lightly over and over again.

“Morning” She mumbled before turning over so that she could face the boy lying next to her and holding her close.

“Have long have you been up?” Alex asked as she snuggled into his chest, shrugging and giving a mumbled response.

“That was totally understandable.” He chuckled, his voice rough with sleep still.

“Only a few minutes, give or take. I woke up to you pulling me closer.” She said as she unburied her face from his chest, allowing him to understand her.

“You were too far away.” He said, leaning down to kiss her forehead, and all she could do was chuckle.

“I missed this so much.” Sawyer said, cuddling as close as she could to Alex.

“Even though you were in my bed two nights anyways.” Alex said with a chuckle, and all Sawyer could do was laugh. It was true, but not being able to actually touch Alex during the day, hold his hand, or even hug him, had been extremely hard. Sawyer just gravitated towards him, and it took everything she had to pull from that gravitational force. It was amazing that she had even managed to just stay with him in the evenings, and not run to him during the day.

“I can’t help that I just love sleeping next to you.” Sawyer said, and Alex smirked.

“I don’t think you just like sleeping next to me.” Alex said, his hands moving slightly so they went up under the bottom of Sawyer’s sleep shirt, one of Alex’s that she had stolen, and his fingers traced her skin at the hem of her shorts.

Sawyer blushed, her hands moving to run over Alex’s chest, feeling the warmth radiating off of him. Only Alex could take such a sweet, calming moment and change it into a sexual one without so much of a hesitation.

Before anything else could happen, the door burst open, and in came a very energetic, and far too wide awake Jack, bouncing in with a large smile. Sawyer and Alex groaned simultaneously, annoyed by the interruption.

“DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD. WHICH OLD WITCH? THE WICKED WITCH!” Jack said, screaming at the top of his lungs as he pranced around the room.

“Jack. There is no wicked witch.” Alex groaned. “Now get the hell out of here.”

“Jake’s gone. It was the best song I could think of that related to this moment.” Jack said with a shrug, and neither Sawyer nor Alex could refrain from laughing at Jack. Because really, Jack was the only person either of them knew that would do something like this.

“Jack, Jake was gone last night. Couldn’t you have done this last night?” Sawyer asked, and Jack shook his head.

“No.” He said, his tone screaming that it should be obvious that he couldn’t. “Today’s the first full day that he’s gone. I couldn’t do it the day that he left. Where’s the excitement in that?”

“Ok. Ok. We get it.” Alex said with a laugh. “Now get the hell out you asshole.” Alex said with a laugh as Jack just flipped him off and bounced right back out of the room, not even bothering to shut the door all the way.

“He is really something else.” Sawyer said with a laugh, and Alex laughed, pulling the blond closer to him.

“Somedays I forget why he’s my best friend.” Alex said.

“I guess we should be getting up soon, since obviously he’s not going to let us sleep. I’m afraid if we even try to stay in bed, he’s going to come in with another poor rendition of some other musical.” Sawyer stated, and Alex nodded, reaching his arms up above his head and stretching.

It took a while for the two of them to actually get out of bed and get ready for the day, because really, all either of them wanted to do was stay in bed with each other all day, regardless of who was in the house. It had been three long days since they had really gotten to be together without worry, and they wanted to take advantage of it. However, Jack seemed to think that everyone should be awake and celebrating Jake’s departure.

By the time that Sawyer and Alex made it downstairs, clothed and ready for the day, they realized that they were the last ones to come downstairs, seeing everyone else half dead, except for Jack of course, around the dining table, coffee cups in front of them.

“About time. Everyone else managed to be up and ready to go 20 minutes ago.” Jack said with a huff, waving his hang around the room to signal that everyone else was indeed sitting around the room, looking barely more than alive, all their hands or mouths somehow touching their respective cups of coffee.

“You only woke us up 45 minutes ago jerk.” Alex said, reaching over to smack Jack upside the head, earning a yelp and a pout from the lanky man.

“Well you should have been up before I woke you up.” Jack responded stubbornly to the couple. It was Sawyer’s turn to roll her eyes.

“Jake went home last night. Do you honestly think that either one of us got a lot of sleep last night Jack? I know you’re not that slow.” She remarked, earning snickers from everyone around the table and a chuckle from Alex as he pulled Sawyer close to him, holding on tight to her and planting a kiss on the top of her head.

“It’s not my fault you traded in getting a decent night’s sleep for sex all night.” Jack said. “Besides, the rest of us only have today and tomorrow before we leave to go back to Baltimore.”

The last statement caught both Alex and Sawyer off guard.

“You guys are leaving that soon?” Alex asked, and everyone nodded.

“It’s been a nice vacation, despite the Jake drama. And lord knows its beyond beautiful here, but we all have to get back to stuff back in Baltimore.” Jayce said with a shrug. “Like me and Austin have to go back to work. So we’re all gonna leave tomorrow night and drive back to Baltimore so that we can be back in time to go to work the following day.

“Well this sucks.” Sawyer said with a pout, crossing her arms across her chest.

“I know.” Austin said, with the boys nodding in agreement. “We like you. We now understand why Alex keeps disappearing here every summer. Kinda wish he had brought the rest of us every summer though. This place is gorgeous, and the private beach is definitely a plus.”

“Thanks. You all are welcome back any time. Like, you know, next week for instance.” Sawyer said with a slight smirk, and everyone chuckled.

“So what are we doing today?” Zack asked, and everyone turned to look at Jack, because honestly, they had no idea and he was the one that woke up everyone.

“Stop looking at me. I don’t know. I just wanted to have fun!” Jack proclaimed, and the room sighed, all knowing that they each should have known better than to assume Jack actually had a well thought out plan.

“Well let’s figure something out and spend the last 36 hours we have together doing something fun.” Alex said, and everyone started talking, trying to think what they all could do together, but Sawyer honestly didn’t even care what they all did. She just knew that she wanted to spend some time being herself, no secrets, no lies, around these people she had come to call friends in the last week. She wanted nothing more than to spend every second they had left with them, because she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so comfortable with anyone other than Alex. And she didn’t want to let this feeling go anytime soon.