I'm Not An Angel

“Gwyn, your date is here.”

“Alright,” Gwyn yelled back at her cousin, Matt. She slid into her sandals before checking herself in the mirror one last time. Her wavy brown hair spilled down to her shoulder blades, held out of her face by a simple peachy head band. She hadn’t worked too hard on her appearance today having just applied a touch of blush and a bit of mascara. It was their fourth date since the bonfire two weeks ago, and all they were doing was going to the boardwalk.

Satisfied, she went downstairs to greet her date who was standing in a slightly awkward silence with her cousin in the entryway, who was glaring slightly at the boy. Gwyn didn’t understand what her cousin had against her date; she had met him at the bonfire party she had gone to with Matt and his friends.

She had just reached into the cooler to grab another beer when he approached her.

“Hey,” he said. Her green eyes raked over his shirtless chest, already that perfect California tan. He grinned at her as he shook his shaggy, surfer boy blonde hair out of his eyes. “I’m Connor.”

Connor grinned at her now as she came down the stairs. “You ready to go?”

“Yup,” she replied and turned to her cousin. “See you later Matty.”

“Okay,” he grumbled, “I’ll probably be over at Brian’s.”

Gwyn felt a small tug at her heart at the mention of Brian as she followed Connor out to his car. He had been acting strange for the last few weeks, though really if she thought about it, Brian had been behaving strange for two years, ever since the last time she’d been in Huntington.

She used to come to Huntington every summer when she was supposed to be staying with her mother, Regina, but her mom could usually only handle staying in one place for about a week before she got stir crazy, then she would be off again, backpacking through Brazil or something. That’s when Gwyn would be dropped off at her aunt and uncle’s house. She spent her summers there, growing up with her cousin Matt and his friends, until two years ago when her father found out. He was furious that her mom would just dump her a few days into their vacation together, so he hadn’t let her go back since. Since her dad had died six months ago, though, there was no one to argue with Regina when she dropped her back here a month ago. Gwyn was just surprised her mother had managed to stick around long enough for her to finish her junior year of high school.

“Hey, are you alright?” Connor said, shaking Gwyn out of her thoughts enough to notice that they had been driving for a while and had almost reached their destination.

She blushed. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Look in the glove box for me, there’s a little plastic baggy.” Gwyn obliged, her eyes widening when she saw that the bag he had asked for had a dozen or so little white pills in it.

“Thanks,” Connor said as he took it from her before popping two of them in his mouth. Then he offered the bag back to her. “You want one?”

Gwyn looked from him, to the bag, and then out the window at the beautiful beach scenery they were driving by. What could one pill hurt?



“Hey bro.”

Brian looked up from his guitar as one of his best friends walked in. He watched the door Matt had just come through hopefully, waiting to see if she followed him.

“How come Gwyn doesn’t come with you anymore?” Jimmy pouted.

Matt scowled. “She’s been hanging out with Connor Masters ever since the bonfire.”

“Him?” Zack snorted. “What’s she see in that asshole?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like him.”

Brian silently agreed with his friend, but continued to act as though he were completely engrossed in tuning his guitar. No, he did not like Connor Masters one bit, and he didn’t like himself much either. At least Connor had had the guts to act, while Brian didn’t know what move to make. His crush on Gwyn had been going on for years, but he had always managed to squash his feelings since she was Matt’s cousin and he turned into a grizzly bear around her. He had thought that after two years he would be over her by now; he wasn’t expecting to be hit by a freight train upon seeing her again. He wasn’t sure that he could stamp his feelings out again this time, not that there was much he could do about them now, even if he wasn’t afraid of Matt. There was still thee problem of Connor Masters.

Fuck.