Chapter 10

The three of us comb over the hot sand, not in any order at all, just looking. May it be looking very carefully, boy were we searching. Why couldn't we find it? It was big enough to be seen from the moon and it's not like Avi had taken his eyes off the spot I had thrown it. But we couldn't find it.
We were soon all on our hands and knees, completely ignoring the burning against our skin, I don't think it got to Kevin though like it did me and Avi.
I looked up at Avi when he sprung up, hoping he'd found it, but he just brushed of his knees and hands, wincing. I guess my tolerance was even higher than his, that or I was just panicking way too much to care about singeing my flesh.
"It's hot isn't it," Avi sighs, pulling at the collar of his shirt, which just so happened to be a blue, grey and black plaid shirt, he had black shorts on too. So in a way we matched and I couldn't help but smile at that. Something in me knew Avi wasn't that bothered about finding the ring, he was just kicking at the sand now. He'd acted all concerned a few minutes ago when I threw it, but that may have been just it, an act.
"It's a freaking Jupiter ring! Why can't we find it?" Avi stresses pointing all around.
"Jupiter… as opposed to what?" Kevin frowns, sitting back on his feet.
Avi looks at him blankly, "Pluto, I don't know," he shrugs and starts kicking at the sand again.
Kevin doesn't let up, "But a ring the size of Pluto would have been big enough."
"It's a metaphor Kevin."
"I'm surprised you know what a metaphor is."
"Well am I right? Is it a metaphor?" he looks between Kevin and I. I nod and Kevin answers.
"Pretty much, you have the basics there, a metaphor is saying something is something else. So you were saying her ring is Jupiter, or well the size of it. So I'd say you're on the right track."
The three of us just sort or stare at each other for a moment before we all just laugh, I'd missed Kevin's little over-explanations like that, especially after a mini-Avi-blonde-moment: it proves he was in fact that when he was little like the pictures show.
"Seriously though guys, what if we accidentally buried the ring in our search?" Kevin asks as he stops laughing and looks over the ground around us again. "I mean Avi's just been kicking sand for most of the time so it doesn't seem likely we're going to find it. I'm really sorry Kirstie."
I look up at Kevin, he didn't know the whole story, so I couldn't be mad at him. But it was really hard not to be. I shrug and am about to answer when Mitch comes running towards us.
"We wondered where you got to!" he calls through his hands as he pauses for a couple of seconds then continues running, "We… OW!" he stops and grabs his foot, falling into the sand. The three of us run over to him.
"Are you alright?" I ask falling to my knees next to him.
"Yeah, just something sharp, I should have kept my shoes on," he chuckles a little as he feels around in the sand and picks up the offender. "Oh I stood on a ring!"
"Oh praise the lord," Kevin looks up with his hands clasped together.
I try not to glare at the ring like Avi is. I whack his arm to remind him that they don't know about any of this, actually Avi doesn't even know the whole story right at this moment… only Scott does and he's all the way back with the stuff.
Mitch looks between us and studying the ring, "Hold on," he goes wide eyed, "Kirst… is this yours?"
Kevin, Avi and I all nod.
"We were looking for it," Kevin tells him. "After Kirstie…"
I step over and shove him, "Shut up, no one needs to know I did that. Just give me," I turn back to Mitch and hold my hand out for the ring. When he gives it to me I put it back on like I had just lost it, not thrown it down the beach.
"Oh right, well it hurt," Mitch chuckles, moving to stand up, wincing as he put his foot down again. "Well the sand is hot and this hurts."
Kevin and Avi move to his sides to help him and I trail along behind on our way back to Scott.

I sat in the sand across from Avi, we had a large mountain between us that Avi was working on. His tongue was sticking out a little and I am smiling as I watch him.
"Winterfell?" I raise an eyebrow.
He looks up at me with the biggest grin, "How'd you know?"
"Because you're Avi!" I laugh, starting to scoop up some sand on my side of the pile. "And since I know what it looks like I'm gonna help."
He nods and we start trying to make the base squarer, it was really difficult. Right when we'd get close it'd crumble. Eventually Avi got up on his knees and flopped down into the pile, practically landing in my lap. With a smile he flips himself over and kicks at the sand to get himself closer to me. After the struggle, he lays his head down in my lap and looks up at me again.
"Did you know just how beautiful you look from this angle?"
I snort with laughter and lightly whack his shoulder, "So beautiful, you can probably see up my nose."
"Well now that you mention it. I was just talking about the line of your face," he reaches up to trace his finger across my jaw and down my neck.
My eyes widen a little as I cautiously look around for the other three, I should have known better, Avi wouldn't have done anything like this in front of them. Mitch was still asleep in the sand and Scott and Kevin had disappeared off to the rock pools about a minute or so ago, everyone was set so I smile down at Avi again and start playing with his hair. It was getting to the length where he'd occasionally tie it up, but not today.
"You'd make a pretty bearded lady," I joke, stroking at his beard as he smiled back at me.
"I'm not so sure about that one Kirst."
"No, me neither. I was just trying to find something to say."
"You know you can talk to me about anything so I don't know why you can't find anything."
"That's exactly why, because I can talk to you about everything. It makes it that much harder because you know all I have to say… oh and Scott knows about us."
He sits up so quickly, almost head-butting me in the chin, "What?"
"I had to tell someone."
"But Scott can't keep secrets. He'll tell Mitch and then I'll have to tell Kevin because I'll feel bad that he doesn't know."
"Then is it so bad? I mean they're our best friends."
"Kevin has an incredibly guilty conscious Kirst. He'd end up telling Jeremy."
"We don't want to go on like this though Avi."
"What do you mean?" he frowns, "We do have to go on like this."
I shake my head, "No, we…" I stop, he hadn't realised that I picked him, I didn't think I'd need to tell him. He was smart enough to figure this out wasn't he?
"It's just best if no one knows. I really wish you hadn't told Scott."
"Well I did. He's my best friend."
"So is Mitch, and it should have been him, we know he can keep things to himself."
"He may be able to keep a secret but he wouldn't have told me to pick you like Scott did," I stand up in a huff, I couldn't believe Avi. Why wouldn't he want people to know about us? I would happily shout it off a rooftop or something cliché like that.
Avi stands up too, "What are you talking about."
"It doesn't matter because clearly you want us to stay a secret. So guess what? We will keep it a secret, so secret that it never happened and it ends here." I point down at the ground holding back tears. "I am engaged to Jeremy, I love Jeremy and you just need to butt out now and leave me alone."
He watches me for a moment then nods slowly, looking down at the ground, "If that's what you want." He sniffs, pulling at his nose before shoving his hands in his pockets. He looks up at me for only a moment with tears in his eyes before walking off down the beach.
As a last thought I yank the necklace off from around my neck and throw it at him, the dragon pendant hits him square in the back. But I don't know what he did about it because I ran off up the beach and back to my car.