The Ugly Truth

I don’t know why I didn’t hang with those girls. They seemed so nice, but I’m too stupid and shy and I let the opportunity go, since they left shortly after we talked.

Once again I had to face Ethan. It was such a torture I found myself wondering why the heck I had gone in the first place. How could I have been so stupid as to accept?

I found the answer to my prayers. Instead of heading back to the group, I decided to talk a walk along the shore. That way, I would waste some time and it would be time I didn’t spend with them.

There was a chill in the air, but I did not want to get my towel for fear of having Ethan come along.

So I wrapped my arms around myself and walked on the edge of the ocean, wondering what I was becoming. What in the world was I doing at the beach with Ethan and Caroline? Since when did I become such a pushover?

“Lindsay!”

I turned my head to find a group of guys waving. They all looked very familiar, because we had gone to high school together, but I couldn’t exactly remember some names very clearly.

“How’s it going?” a tall guy asked, smiling down at me.

“It’s so nice to see you, Kirk!”

“You too. You look better than ever.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re not here alone are you?”

“No…”

I didn’t really want to say who I was with, considering people would look at me strangely.

“Why don’t you come hang out with us for a bit?”

It was tempting. The perfect getaway, except they were all boys, which could also turn out awkward.

Kirk saw my doubting face and replied:
“We’re all dying to know how you’ve been,” he said, grinning.

“Oh, alright.”

I sat down in their circle, trying to cover my body as discreetly as I could.

“So, where do you study nowadays?” the guy to my left asked me.

“Harvard. You?”

“Nowhere near as good as that,” he replied, impressed.

I chatted with a few of the guys nearest to me, mostly about school because we didn’t really know each other. And, for some reason, every time they tried to say something flirty or insinuate something, I just ignored them and continued describing how absolutely wonderful Harvard was.

“You guys finally got here!” Kirk said, all of a sudden to someone behind me.

I turned and found Riley approaching the group, accompanied by a few other guys. Riley! He couldn’t see me in my bikini. He wouldn’t like me anymore, if he did in the first place.

I tried pretending I hadn’t seen him and, hoping he wouldn’t see me either, I engaged in a conversation with the guy beside me.

Except, I was the only girl in the group and I stuck out like a sore thumb.

“Lindsay?”

Damn.

I turned, pretending I was surprised.

“Hey, Riley.”

“The guys didn’t tell me you were coming along,” he said, sitting down on the patch of sand free on my right side.

“I didn’t come with them, but they invited me to hang out for a little, so I did.”

“Oh, cool.”

I just smiled, not knowing what else to say.

A chilly breeze provoked an instant array of goose bumps on my arms. I rubbed them with my hands, but to no avail.

“Here,” Riley said, handing me a big blue towel.

“Thanks,” I responded, wrapping it around myself tightly.

It had a fresh, soapy smell that pleasantly enveloped me. It seemed such an intimate thing: to have his towel, his perfume covering me entirely that when I fully realized it I wanted to both remove it and keep it on for as long as I could.

“So, who are you here with?” Riley asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Um, well…”

What was I going to tell him? Oh, you know, a group of people I have been humiliated by my whole life.

He looked at me attentively.

“I’m actually here with Caroline and Ethan.”

“Oh… Ethan as in Ethan Kimball?”

“Yeah…”

He looked at me with an indescribable expression.

“Are you having a good time? With them, I mean,” he asked me.

“Well-”

“Lindsay, I was starting to get worried about you,” said a voice a lot like Ethan’s from behind us.

And, to my despair, it was actually Ethan.

“I’m just hanging out here.”

In other words, leave.

“Well, I miss you. Why don’t you come back to our towels?”

“I’ll be there soon.”

“Oh, come on, you’ve been with these guys enough. You’ve barely spent any time with me.”

“I-”

“Maybe you should go,” Riley put in.

Ethan looked at me with an I-told-you-so expression, but all I was paying attention to was Riley. He wanted me to leave. He didn’t like me like I thought he did.

I got up, called out a soft goodbye and approached Ethan. When I was near him, he put one strong arm around my shoulders and steered me back to our towels. I was too heartbroken to even mind his gesture.

Riley didn’t like me at all. I knew it had been a stupid idea from the start, but I had just though for once I was lucky. For once I thought a guy liked me as much as I liked him.

I thought things had changed. I thought I had changed. But, unfortunately, everything seemed to remain the same as always.