~Sabrina~

Day Three:

I opened my eyes slowly, but quickly shut them when I was blinded by the sunlight. I groaned and rolled over. Granny's strange aloe gel had worked, making my sunburn disappear within a day, so I was back to tanning. I heard Daphne and Red splashing in the water. Pinnchio and Puck were back at the house, doing Lord knows what. We'd only been on the beach for twenty minutes, but knowing Puck, Pinnochio was already dead. Or at least tied up in a closet.

"Sabrina," Daphne yelled. "Get in the water!"

"It's warm!" Red chimed in.

"I need, like, ten minutes!" I said, flipping over, so my stomach and back would evenly tan.

I took a long sip of my water. It was hot, but the weather was perfect today. There wasn't a cloud in sight, and the sun was overhead, shining down on the beach. I looked back at the water and saw Red standing alone.

"Red?" I asked, getting up. "Where's Daphne?"

Red squinted at three boys standing next to a small girl wearing a bathing suit, about twenty-five feet away. She pointed and I looked closer. Sure enough, there was my sister. The boys she was talking to looked like they were at least my age. I rolled my eyes.

"Daph! Come here." I yelled, hoping she would obey.

She turned around, looked me up and down and then went back to talking to her little group. All of a sudden I felt hands on my shoulders. I whipped around, to see who it was.

"Oh, hey Puck." I said, going back to staring at Daphne.

"Who are they?" The boy asked.

"I was wondering the same thing." I crossed my arms.

"Daph," He yelled. "Come here."

I hoped she would listen to him. She spun around.

"Come here." He yelled again.

Daphne smiled and waved to the boys, before walking back to our group.

"Daphne…" I said, when she arrived. "Who was that?"

"Just some friends." She shrugged.

Puck shot me a look.

"How old are your 'friends'?" Pinocchio asked.

Daphne rolled her eyes.

"Does it matter?"

Puck, Pinocchio, Red and I all looked at one another.

"Yes!"

"Well, if you must know, they're going into tenth grade." She rolled her eyes for the hundredth time. "And they said I'm very mature."

"Mature?" I asked. "Daphne, you still sleep with stuffed animals."

"Hey," Puck said, pretending to be mad. "You can never be too old for stuffed animals."

I laughed, remembering the unicorn, that he called Kraken the Deceiver.

"Well, how'd you meet these boys?" Pinocchio continued, wasting no time.

"Why do you guys wanna know so bad?" Daphne shook her head.

"Did no one teach you about stranger danger?" Puck interjected.

"Yeah, Daph, strangers can be dangerous." Red agreed.

"Puck, didn't you try to push us into a pool the first time you met me and Sabrina?" Daphne asked, hand on her hip.

"Shut up, Daphne. He's our family now." I interrupted.

" And there have been multiple occasions you let the monkeys attack us. You can't be talking about who's dangerous."

Daphne gave me a dirty look. Puck looked at me, sympathetically.

"Don't make me bring up the water-tower." She went on. "Do you remember that, Puck, Mr. Safety?"

"Daphne Delilah Grimm. Stop it now." I shot at her, she knew how much the water-tower incident upset Puck, and it had been an accident.

"It's fine, Brina. I can handle a little trash-talk from someone who still uses a stepping-stool to reach the top shelf in the pantry." Puck said, jabbing my sister in the ribs.

She scowled. I looked up at the sky and watched the dark clouds roll in, as I felt water hit my shoulders.

"It's raining again." I groaned.

The five of us trudged back to the beach house in silence.

I stepped out of the shower shivering. The air conditioner worked a little too well, and the house was freezing. I wrapped my blue towel around my body and started walking down the hall, praying I didn't run into anyone. As I opened my bedroom door, I heard giggling in Red's room. I walked back and put my ear to the door.

"Yeah, they said they're having a party in a couple of days." Daphne bragged.

"A party?" Red gasped.

"Maybe I'll see if I can bring you!"

"Would you really do that?"
"Of course! I can't go to my first party without my pretend sister." Daphne giggled.

"I can't wait!" Red squealed.

I wanted to burst into the room and tell my sister that the last thing she was going to do was go to a party, with boys that were three years older than her, that she had met once, twenty minutes before, but my phone rang. The screen flashed an old photo at Central Park of me and my mom. I had forgotten to call her this morning. I picked up.

"Hi, sweetheart!" My mom said.

"Hi, Mom," I responded, not taking my ear away from Daphne's door, hoping to catch another detail.

"I miss you!"

"I miss you too, Mom. How is everyone?"

"We're good, besides missing our two favorite daughters!"

I laughed, knowing we were her only daughters.

"So, what have you guys been doing?" She asked.

Besides talking to boys too old for us, getting into sisterly fistfights, and staying up too late?

"You know, just regular old beach stuff."

She laughed, but I wasn't trying to be funny.

"Well, Basil sure misses you two."

"Aw," I said. "Tell him that I miss him too."

"You can tell him!" I listened to her call Basil's name and heard footsteps."

"Hi, Sa-beena!" Basil shrieked, wildly giggling.

My brother was almost five but still couldn't say his R's. I laughed.

"I miss you, buddy," I told him.

I heard him chewing into the phone and cringed. But, I was hungry too, so I walked towards the kitchen, giving up on listening to Daphne and Red. It could wait.

"What are you eating?" I asked him.

"Chips," The boy mumbled, still crunching. "Sow-ah c-weam and onion."

"Mmm… sounds good."

"Beena, when you get back, can we go get boogers?" Basil asked.

I tried to contain my laughter but failed.

"What's so funny?" He asked, clearly confused.

"Nothing, nothing, but yes, we can go get burgers," I assured him.

"That's what I said, boogers." He said, still confused.

I giggled again, I missed his sweet little face and his silly voice.

"Basil, hand the phone back to Mom okay? Can you hand the phone to Mom?"

"Yes, Sa-beena! Love you!" He yelled.

And then he hung up. I didn't bother calling back. I opened the fridge door. Yogurt? No. Almonds? No. Cheese and crackers? No. I spotted a bag of chocolate-flavored granola and ripped it open. I'm pretty sure it was Red's but I didn't care. I plopped down on the counter. I knew that Charming would have had a fit if he saw me sitting up there but I didn't care.

"Hey, Grimm." Puck said as he walked into the kitchen.

I groaned. He ignored me, and pulled out a chair, sitting on it backward. He had clearly just gotten out of the shower, and his cheeks were perfectly sunburnt. His blond hair was messy and still wet. I hated to admit it, but he looked hot.

"So… what's up?" He asked.

"Just, uh, eating granola, I guess."

I couldn't believe I was getting awkward in front of Puck. Puck. the boy who didn't brush his teeth and had never heard of deodorant.

"You guess?"

"Yeah…" I said, trying to recover. "Want some?"

You basically told him you didn't love him, so now you're offering him granola. I tried to block out the little voice in my head. He leaned forward and dug his hand into the bag.

"Soooo, Marshmallow talks to boys now?" He said, looking at me, probably hoping for an answer.

I shrugged, the idea still made me uncomfortable.

"She did a lot of growing up while I was gone." He said, with his mouth full.

"Yeah, she did." I stared a hole in my granola. "I kinda missed it too. It all happened so fast."

It was silent.

"I guess it's easy to miss." Puck laughed. "I mean, I didn't know what was happening to me."

We were silent. I'm sure we were both thinking of the same thing. The reason Puck grew up. It stayed like that for a minute, neither of us saying anything.

"I wasn't ignoring you, by the way." He said, breaking the silence. "I just didn't want to make you mad."

"Oh," I said, caught off guard. "Why would I be mad?"

His face twisted with confusion.

"The text?" The boy asked

"What text?"

"Sorry, I don't know if you guys broke up or what, but if it's a sensitive subject we can stop talking about it if you want." He pushed out his chair and stood up.

"Puck," I grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down. "Broke up with who? What text? What are you talking about?"

I searched my mind, I hadn't sent him a single text since I left, I had been waiting for him to text me first. I searched his face, to see if he was playing another stupid prank.

"I'm just gonna be honest, Puck. I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

I was getting mad. He was just trying to make up excuses for not caring enough to call me. I watched as he unlocked his phone and clicked on his messages. He clicked on a conversation. The top read 'Grimm 3', I looked from the screen to his face. He was blushing.

"I guess I never really got around to changing your name." He said, scratching his neck.

"Guess not…" I tried to act like I didn't care, but deep down I thought it was sweet.

He scrolled up, past our conversations from the past few days, the date read 'Monday, November 26, 2018'. Almost exactly six months ago. I peered closer at the message below it.

hello puck. i have a boyfriend now. if i don't text you first, don't text me. not that i will be texting someone like you first. i don't want to talk to you and i don't want to see you. leave me alone. do not respond to this text.

I sucked my breath in.

"Puck," I said, slowly. "I never sent that."

"Sure, Sabrina." He started to stand up again. "It's whatever, it's been a few months and I'm over it."

I whipped out my own phone and scrolled through our texts. I needed to show him that I didn't have the same text on mine. The only texts I had, before this trip, were from the car ride from NYC to Granny's.

almost there! I remembered texting, squished in the backseat with Daphne and Basil asleep on either side of me.

Cant wait to see you

i cant wait either

And that was it. Until a few nights ago, Saturday, May 25, 2019.

puck. lets not leave the bathroom a mess. we're all sharing

"Why isn't it there?" Puck looked up at me.

"Because I'm telling you, I didn't send it," I repeated.

My mind drifted back to November twenty-sixth, it was our first day back at school, after Thanksgiving break.

I had been shoving my geography textbook into my backpack when a boy named Owen Morales approached me. I didn't like him. He made me uncomfortable and constantly stared at me in class. And he had followed me home twice.

"I saw your Instagram post, Sabrina," Owen said, standing uncomfortably close to me. "From Thanksgiving. It was outside that yellow house."

"Okay…" I said, confused.

"Who was that boy you were with?" He asked, stepping closer. "Is he a cousin? Or your brother? Or a family friend?"

"Um," I said, not sure how to answer, without revealing anything. "He's our family friend."

"Why do you seem unsure? Is he your boyfriend?" Owen went on.

I could smell his awful breath. It smelled like he ate rotten eggs for every meal, and washed it down with dumpster juice.

"I'm not unsure. He's just a family friend."
"Does he have a name?"

"Puck." I looked away, and went back to putting things into the backpack, to get ready to go home.

"Puck…" Owen repeated.

I ignored him.

"Sabrina, my phone died." He said, not taking the hint that I didn't want to talk to him.

"Okay, sorry?"

"Can I see yours?" He shifted his weight onto his other foot. "To text my mom to come to get me."

"Don't you have a car?" I asked, suspiciously.

"No," Owen said, quickly. "That was my brother's car. I just had it for a few months while he was at sea. He's in the navy. Pretty cool, I know. Isn't that cool? I actually want to join the military myself...maybe. But fighting in a war could be hard…"

"You don't even know…" I mumbled, under my breath.

"What? It's also hard to be a military wife, but I know someone like the amazing Sabrina Grimm would be able to do it.

I ignored his little 'wife' comment and handed him my phone. Anything to get him to shut up. But what I realized was after that day, I never heard from Puck.

"Holy shit," I said.

"What?" Puck said, staring at the wall.

"Owen Morales sent that text," I told him. "It wasn't me!"

After explaining what happened, and how Owen had continued to harass me after that, Puck was furious.

"So, you're telling me that there's another boy that's obsessed with you?" He asked.

"Well, he moved away back in March, but basically."

"Where'd he move to?" Puck demanded, fists clenched.

"Idaho?" I guessed. "Wait, maybe it was Illinois. Or Indiana."

Puck was silent for a few seconds.

"Brina, are we good now?" He asked.

"Yeah, I think so. If we have that whole thing figured out." I smiled.

"So… will you admit you love me?" Puck grinned.

But the smile quickly faded from my face.

"I mean, it's been months since I've actually talked to you, Puck." I watched his face fall. "But I'm sure we can work up to that!"

But, it was too late, he was already walking away.