Fine Apple | ✓

m a r k e t

❝The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever.❞ -E. Lockhart

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THE BEACH was darker than she'd expected, even for an early April day.

A raw wind whipped at her shoulders, whistling weakly like a dying cry along the blank expanse of sand before her. To her right lay a deserted boardwalk, a few faded signs perched colorlessly just above the row of low, flat roofs, proclaiming once-bright images of smiling families eating ice cream. The vacant shacks below exuded the subdued aura of tourist attractions outside of their proper element.

Lyndsey shivered, ducking back inside her white Toyota to pull out a University of Miami sweatshirt, tugging it over her head. At first glance, the beach appeared so lonely and deserted that the pessimistic side of her viewed it warily--it was just too uneasily empty not to be housing some low-life characters underneath its shabby exterior.

She walked across the gravel lot, the wind still nipping icily at her bare legs as her flip-flops slapped lamely against the ground. Already the smell of the ocean--strong as ever and bearing a less appealing undercurrent of salt and fish--was drifting into her nose in that subtle manner that sent a rush of summer nostalgia through her chest despite the initial coldness of the day.

Again, she found herself weighing the possibilities of whether or not this may have been a dumb errand. If Nicholas were here--and if she were subsequently able to find him--who knew whether her words would even have any effect? Her conversation with Kale just earlier that day still glowed fresh in her mind--his unbelievable obliviousness to Nicholas and Aria's mildly romantic connection, the way he had brashly announced his relationship with Aria, and the fact that Nicholas had only heard the story through Kale's narrow perspective. 

She could see the situation clearly now--Kale, unaware of the deeper empathy between the two, had apparently interpreted Nicholas's words to him as more of a wake-up call for him to respect and subsequently break up with Aria, while Nicholas must have viewed the conversation as a last fatal stab at whatever hope he had left for Aria ever talking to him again.

She shook her head. How could they both be so stupid? Each blamed themselves completely for the rift that had occurred; each thought themselves unworthy of initiating a reconciliation. Nothing would ever be accomplished if this continued, and Aria still wouldn't listen to her, even after all they'd been through over this issue. Where would that girl be without me, Lyndsey thought in disgust.

It didn't occur to her until the next moment that she'd been walking just underneath the edge of the boardwalk for a good thirty minutes, starting where it began and winding her way along the remainder of what appeared to be a path, although windblown sand had heaped into drifts along it since last summer. 

The path began to widen out, curving to the left into a road which wound just beyond the boardwalk and down a gravel road toward an array of pastel-colored apartment buildings which bore an appearance imitative of beach houses, yet nevertheless lost a portion of their luxury beneath their shabby shutters and run-down yards. 

The beach town was far from empty, she thought, noticing the cars parked at intervals and the few figures moving about. The truth was not that the beach town was unpopulated; the population simply was made up of the folks who had no choice but to stay there even when the summer was over and the vacationing families evacuated, draining the town of its exotic flair and leaving the poorer families who remained to scrape out a living out of a wintered tourist stop.