She was standing on the beach while the soft wind blew through her hair, vainly trying to dry the tears she shed. A CD player somewhere in the sand slowly brought Sufjan Steven's "For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti" to her ear.
While they were all wafting towards the waves with their surfboards and flowers, Marissa was standing at the beach, feeling every scattered grain of sand as if it was a punch right in her beautiful, soft face. Johnny had died, and it was her fault. That's what she kept telling herself, because every other feeling might have been unbearable. It had to be the only logic explanation for all that had happened. All the things that happened with Oliver, losing Alex, shooting Trey, and now, Johnny was the newest victim of what she felt was the black hole her being had become. Nothing good will ever come out of this, she didn't deserve it. She just knew. Ryan was standing afar, giving her the space she needed, and he needed as well. He didn't want to blame her, but he couldn't keep up with this mess any longer, so he decided to watch her from afar, rather than giving her the closeness that would maybe have given her the comfort to look ahead. Little did they know, that another pair of sparkling eyes was watching the crushed girl. As Summer, Seth, Ryan and the others finally left she told them that she would stay a little longer. Who was she kidding, her plan for the night was to sit in the sand and drown her sorrows in Vodka, like she had done every time her life had been scattered to pieces. But this time, her feet couldn't hold her anymore, so she decided to let herself fall onto the sand which had so painfully hit her earlier. She pulled the flask out of her jacket and gulped the burning liquid down her throat. Being hit by the intensity of the alcohol she didn't realize that someone was stepping behind her, watching her close up this time. The beautiful blonde with the leather jacket sat down behind Marissa, still contemplating what to say to the girl she had left only so many months ago. As Marissa regained some consciousness from the breeze of fresh air the ocean brought to her nostrils she heard someone breathing behind her. Flashbacks of Trey and what had happened on the beach with him made her rise up quickly in shock, so quickly that Alex fell over backwards.
"Riss, it's me, it's me!" Alex said as she was putting herself up on her hands. Marissa had turned around with a mixture of shock and confusion on her face. After taking a bedazzled look at the flask still in her hand, did I really drink that much?! she looked at Alex like she had seen a ghost.
"What the! Alex?! Is that you?! What are you… Why didn't you say something for Christ's sake!"
Alex took the time to rub the sand off of her jacket and regain a firm stand. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to scare you!" she almost pleaded.
"Yeah, look how well that turned out" Marissa said, far more angry than she had intended to say it.
Alex looked at her with a shocked expression.
"Okay I'm sorry, I guess I'll leave you and your 'friend the flask' alone now" she said as she turned away shaking her head in disbelief for the other girl's reaction.
Something clicked inside Marissa's head: She was not ready to let the girl leave again. "No, wait! I'm sorry! This is just… I just didn't expect to see you here. To be honest, I didn't expect to see you – period…" Marissa mumbled the last part still trying to understand what was going on here.
Alex slowly came to a halt, looking at the sand between her feet before she turned around to face Marissa. She might have been a mess, but she looked just as gorgeous as when she last saw her. A smile crept on both girls' faces as they stood only a few feet away from each other. "How about we get some ice cream and I'll explain everything to you?" Alex asked, slowly extending her hand to her ex-girlfriend.
They made their way up to the pier, Alex got a cone of chocolate ice cream and gave Marissa her cone of Cherry Garcia. "You still like it, don't you?" Alex said smiling, knowing the answer when she saw the grin on Marissa's face. "Yup…" Marissa was at a loss of words once again, it was all a little too much to take in for one night. "So, about…"
"Me appearing on the very same beach we broke up on and that on the day of Johnny's funeral?" Alex asked bluntly, trying to lighten the mood. Needless to say, Marissa only got more depressed by these sincere but hurting words.
"Well… yeah" Marissa gulped. Alex was already regretting her words when she added "How about we sit on that bench over there?" Marissa followed her to the bench without a word. Once they were seated, Alex took a deep breath of the salty air. She had missed this. The air. The waves. The tide..
"You remember how I got kicked out of all these schools?" Alex began to talk without any further introduction. "Yeah, sure" Marissa said with half a laugh, "how could I forget"
"Well as you may remember, one of the schools I was kicked out of was Newport Union. I was there for two semester, well, almost. Anyway, when I first started going there, needless to say, I was the new kid. And the first one who befriended me there was – " "Johnny" Marissa completed Alex's sentence. Alex smiled as she recalled her first day of school at Newport Union.
"Actually, no, it was Kevin, Kevin Volchok. He tried to hit on me at first, but we became friends soon after that. But yeah, Johnny and Kevin were still friends back then, and well, since we were all into surfing and not that much into school, we soon spend most of our mornings hitting the waves. Actually, it was Kevin who gave me a call yesterday to let me know that Johnny had an accident."
Marissa was surprised that she had never learned about this connection before, but then again, she didn't know Johnny or Kevin back when Alex and her were an item. "So you were at the funeral this afternoon?" Marissa said, completely forgetting about her slowly melting cone.
"Yeah, but I didn't want to intrude, so I just stood a few feet away…" Alex said, not really knowing why she hadn't gone to Marissa this afternoon when she saw her crying.
"But you saw me? That's why you came back to the beach tonight?" Marissa asked, with a spark of hope in her voice.
Alex didn't know how to explain it, but the anwer was short and simple. "Yes."
Marissa couldn't help but smile before she finally realized that her ice cream was melting onto her hand. "Oh shoot" she said, licking the ice cream off of her hand in a hurry. Alex started laughing but when she saw Marissa licking her hand her breath got caught in her throat. She gazed at Marissa trying not to feel what she was feeling, so she decided to watch the ocean instead.
"Uhh. Um. Should I get a napkin or something?" Alex stuttered, glancing at Marissa sideways before looking away again as quickly as possible. "No I think I got it" Marissa said once she had finally licked all of the ice cream off of her fingers. She looked at Alex who was still fixating a vanishing point far, far away from the brunette. "Uh, what exactly are you looking at..?" Marissa said with a sleek grin, having only the slightest idea of the effect she still had on the other girl.
"The… uh, stars! You never see so many stars when you're in LA. I almost forgot they were there!" she said, feeling the heat slowly leaving her body.
"So he hit on you, huh!" Marissa stated matter-of-factly. "What?"Alex asked, not getting what Marissa was talking about. "Ohhh, you mean Kevin" Alex finally remembered.
"So did you guys ever hook up?" Marissa asked bluntly.
"What? Me and Kevin? Nuh uh!" Alex said trying to stay calm and cool. "Well except for that one time on the beach when we-" "Alright, enough said" Marissa interrupted Alex.
"Hey", Alex said nudging her in the side, "you asked Missy!"
"Well I didn't want you to show me a reenactment of the procedure!" Marissa countered laughing.
Alex finally lightened up into the conversation which they kept going for another few hours, talking about Johnny and how Marissa had ended up in Newport Union in the first place, skipping over the really bad parts at first, and Alex told her how she really went back to school when she was back in LA. "I'm working at this club Thursday to Saturday nights, and there's this café in West Hollywood I planned a couple of events for. If it was only school, I guess I would have left after the first Chem class!" Alex laughed. "But I think I might do it this time, finish school. Might come in handy one day", she added.
"That's what they say, isn't it!" Marissa said, gazing at the dark sea in front of them.
Alex decided to finally ask the question she wanted to ask ever since they started talking about Marissa going to a different school.
"So what exactly happened, I mean, with Ryan's brother?" Alex asked fixating the brunette beside her. Marissa didn't dare to look back, nor did she say anything. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, I was just wondering… I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked, it's" – "no", Marissa interrupted her "it's not that I don't wanna tell you, it's just…" she sighed "sometimes I just wanna get out of here. Away from all this, as far as possible…"
Alex thought for a second, contemplating what Marissa had said, then stood up, extending her hand to a confused looking Marissa. "What..?" Marissa asked.
"Well let's go!" Alex said. Marissa took Alex's hand, giving her a questioning look. Alex shook her head and smiled as she felt the sparks flowing the very instant their hands touched. "Let's get you out of here", she said almost in a whisper, but cogent enough for Marissa to follow her.