Chapter Five

Was it fate that brought us here?

Or my mistakes I made in fear?

Well is it too late to change my mind?

Who have I been?

----Edinger by Waking Ashland

A loud thud echoed through the foyer as Summer's knee collided with the small table just past the front door, "Ouch shit, why did Marissa insist putting that there." Summer limped down the hall and mumbled to herself trying to be quiet as she made her way into the living room. It was nearing two am and she didn't want to wake Trey, but as she passed the sofa Summer quickly noticed it was empty. Her senses immediately went into overdrive as she listened to her if he was possibly in the kitchen, but it was the orange glow of a cigarette coming from the back porch that caught her attention.

The sound of the sliding glass door opening broke the silence of the night and startled Trey. His head snapped in the direction of the door and his eyes were met by an apologetic Summer's.

"Sorry, did I scare you?"

"Just wasn't expecting anyone."

"It's two in the morning, what are you still doing awake?"

Trey shrugged, and then twisted his face in an awkward manner, "I couldn't sleep and Ryan and Marissa were…I mean" he stopped his sentence there.

If you'd have asked her right then at that moment, she could have sworn that Trey was blushing. She gave him a soft smiled, then let a laugh escape her lips; "They do that a lot. And at least you bedroom doesn't share a wall with theirs."

"Yeah you have a point."

Something was off about him. Summer didn't know how she could tell this, she'd only known him for three days, but she could tell just by the way he spoke that something wasn't quite right. "You wanna go for a walk?" She almost clasped her hands to her mouth after the words came out. She didn't know why she had just asked him to take a walk with her. She didn't even know why she had felt the need to come outside and find him when she got home. What she did know was that she really wanted Trey to say yes.

"It's two in the morning."

"So?"

The tone in her voice said something to Trey. It reminded him of the girls he'd dated in Chino, girls who didn't care about what they were and weren't suppose to do. Girls who didn't care about getting into fights or breaking curfew. Summer didn't care about what time it was. "Okay."

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"So how long have you and your boyfriend been together?" Trey asked trying to make small talk as the made their way down the beach.

"Couple of years. How long were you in prison?"

"Seven years. Two years for violating my probation and five for stealing the car. I served my whole sentence not a day less."

"Must have been hard, having all that time to think about how one mistake changed your whole life." Her voice was meek, and soft as she made her statement, meant as a question.

"I didn't just make one mistake, I made a lot of mistakes that led up to one moment." Trey stopped and took a deep breath.

Summer hadn't meant for the question to cause him pain, "Sorry I didn't mean too…"

"No it's okay. I don't regret what I did to myself, truthfully it was jail that's kept me alive so far. But I do regret what happened to Ryan because of me. You know he got caught up in my bad decision. Not that I ever made any good decisions, but… It shouldn't have cost Ryan what it did. I don't want to be that person anymore I wanna be different, I wanna be someone people can respect. You know what I mean, I want to do right by my little brother, make it up to him, be the kind of big brother he can really be proud of."

"Well in spite of it all Chino's done pretty good for himself."

"Yeah he sure has… Why do you call him Chino?"

Summer laughed to herself as she thought about why she actually did call him Chino, "When Marissa first met Ryan, he invited her to his birthday party. And when I found out it was in Chino, I was… well no offense but Chino, ew. So we went to his party and Seth got drunk trying to impress me, somehow because of that this big brawl broke out and Ryan saved our ass and wee all took off running…" By that point in the story, she had started laughing so much he could barely understand what she was saying.

"So what does that have to do with why you call him Chino?"

"Well after that incident, he wasn't exactly my favorite person, and as you've already learned I'm over protective of the people I love, and that can sometimes manifest itself as bitchiness. And calling him Chino at first was my way of making sure he knew that I didn't like him. Now it's a term of endearment. I mean even after that disastrous party, Ryan turned out to be a really good person. He really loves Marissa and he makes her happy, and I love him for that. And he's a really good friend."

"So I guess that taught you that first impressions aren't everything, and sometimes people aren't all that bad once you get to know them?" He reached up and scratched his head as he waited for some kind of response.

"Yeah I guess you're right?" She stopped walking and smiled at him.

God I love that sound," Trey closed his eyes and listened to the waves crashing against the beach. "There was a time I got hopeless and I never thought I'd hear it again. So at night I'd lying in my bunk and try to ignore the wires of cheap mattress springs stabbing into my back. And whenever I really needed to get my mind off of things I'd dream about living by the ocean so I could go to sleep every night and wake up every morning to that sound."

For the first time, Summer saw him smile, not the smirk he'd given her before but a real smile. A smile that read content, a smile that read happy, even if it was only temporary. "I've always lived by the ocean, so I guess I take it for granted."

Trey opened his eyes and looked down at her and this time he noticed her. She wasn't the bitchy girl who'd answered the door; she wasn't Ryan's roommate. Right then she was just a girl standing in front of him and she was beautiful. Her face looked like it was craved from ivory, her features perfectly rounded. The way her black hair glimmered in the moon. For a few split seconds he let his mind wander, he wondered what it would be like to touch her face, if her skin was really as soft as it looked. He wondered what it would be like to bury his face in her hair, if it smelled sweet like honey suckles and ocean air. He knew that there was no way any of it would ever happen, but just for a second he wished. It had only been a few seconds, but by the time he let himself stray away from her it felt like they been on her forever.

"How could anyone ever taken something like this for granted?" He lifted his arms out at the ocean, and started kicking his shoes off.

"Trey what are you doing?"

He didn't answer her, but left his shoes on the beach and started running directly into the Pacific Ocean. "Are you coming?" He called out to her as he stood waist deep in the water. "Smell it, the water, the ocean." He bounced with the crashing waves; "Fell the waves? Come on!" He yelled his voice full of energy and excitement. "Are you coming?"

Summer ran out to the edge of the water, letting to get about ankle deep on her, "Have you lost your mind?" She called out to him, "You're fully clothed and standing in the in the freaking ocean."

"Yeah so?" Trey dove his head into the water, and swam towards Summer until the water got too shallow. Throwing himself up from the water, he shook vigorously throwing water everywhere, including on Summer. "I'm going back out there, are you coming?"

Summer laughed and shook her head at him. "You look like a madman out there," she screamed laughing the entire time.

"Maybe so, but I'm going back out there, and you're coming with me," he lunged forward and picked her up, spinning her around as he made his way out into deeper parts of the ocean. She was still laughing as he spun her around, playful beating on his arms, Trey laughed out loud and gave her a small toss into the ocean, just enough to drunk her under the water.

"Now I know you've lost you mind," Summer came up from the water her wet hair matted to her head, her clothes clinging to her body. "Now we're both soaking wet, in the middle of the ocean, with a mile walk back home. You're crazy," she laughed.

"Maybe I am but how could you not want to be a part of this? Look!" He pointed to the sky, "The sun's coming up, and we're in the ocean. How could you not want to be a part of this? This," he reached his hands down and splashed up water, "This, is what connects everything to everything else. The currents, the water, the waves, if we were to let ourselves float out to sea, eventually we could set foot on every body of land in the world. How could you not want to be a part of something so big every chance you got?"

He spoke with so much enthusiasm and vigor. His voice was wild and happy, Summer was mesmerized by the way he looked at things. Maybe he saw them that way because he'd spent so much time locked away from the world, or maybe it was because he was a man who had just been given a new chance at life. Whatever made him the way he was right then, Summer didn't care the way he spoke, the look on his face, everything about him made her smile. "We should get back to the house."

Trey stopped splashing around and sighed, "Yeah we probably should,' he ran a head of her towards the shore, "Here let me help you out of the water?" He reached out to her.

"Thanks," she took his hand.

When they made intentional, unabashed, expected contact for the first time, it was like someone set a fire in their hands, letting each of them see something about the other. Trey saw the contrast between them. His rough, tan, and blemished skin holding her silken, ivory, hand in his. The reveled in how soft and smooth she felt, he hoped his roughness wasn't innervating to her. He wanted to savior the moment of holding her hand, but all Trey saw were the difference. Summer… she didn't know if she'd ever be able to explain any of it to herself. Why she'd asked him to take the walk, why she'd followed him into the ocean, but most of all why when he touched her did her whole world seem to light on fire.