I fell in love at the seaside

We dropped Miley home; she said she didn't feel like going to the seaside. It amazes me how anybody can not want to go to the seaside. The beach is this amazing environment, where I go just to chill out. The beach is probably my favourite place in the world. And I'm not fussy about which beach. As long as it has sand, sea and surf, I'm good.

As she walked into her house, and we transferred from the limo into Oliver's car, I turned to my best friend since kindergarten, and smiled. "Just you and me again then Oken."

"Looks like it," Oliver nodded.

And so we went. Just the two of us. It had been a while since me and Oliver had hung out alone, yet today it had happened twice. I wonder if this entire summer is going to be just me and Oliver, like it was before Miley came.

We chatted the whole drive there. Mindless conversation, that neither of us would remember the next morning because it was insignificant.

The beach wasn't that far away; in fact, you could access part of it from Miley's house. But when me and Oliver said that we were going to the beach, we both meant that we were going to our beach. A particularly hard-to-get-to stretch of sand, that we found one day when we were about eight and playing Explorers. I have no idea if anyone else goes to that beach - probably - but it's nice to think of it as our own. That nobody else knows about. It's nicer that way.

Oliver stopped the car, and even though we're both hitting the big 17 later this year, he smiled childishly. "Race you to the water."

But, before I could even accept or deny the deal, he'd unfastened his seatbelt and was out of the car.

"Hey! That's not fair! You didn't say go!" I cried, and undid my seatbelt and opened my door at lightning speed. Seconds later, I was following him, though the beaded sandals that I'd been wearing to the party weren't exactly the best footwear to be running over pebbles in.

"Fine!" Oliver laughed from slightly ahead of me. "Go! You happy now?"

I was too busy trying to catch up with him to reply. The shoes, which looked cute, were shredding my feet apart, and Oliver was still in front, with only sand left between him and the water.

"You got a huge head-start, Oken!" I cried, kicking up grains of sand with my stupid shoes.

"Never said it was a fair game," Oliver shrugged, and reached the edge of the water, punching the air with his fist. "Smokin' Oken wins by a landslide!"

I reached him, and frowned. "A landslide that will hopefully fall on your head."

"Now Lilly. No jealously. Please," Oliver grinned.

I rolled my eyes. "Oliver, you have something on your head. Let me get at it. Just..." I flicked his head deftly with my finger. Hard. "There."

"Lilly, Lilly, Lilly," Oliver shook his head, his tongue making a lump in his cheek. "You didn't want to do that."

I smirked at him. "Oh really? And why didn't I - "

I didn't get to finish my sentence, mainly because my mouth was suddenly full of salt water. I opened my eyes, which I'd scrunched close when I felt the water first hit my face, and stared at Oliver for a few seconds, through the water that was dripping from my eyes.

"Oh... now it is on, Oken," I said, leaned down into the water and pushed, sending a splash in his direction.

It didn't take long for both of us to get soaking wet and tired. I collapsed down on the sand, and pulled off the stupid sandals. They looked awesome, but they should have warned me that they'd hurt. Oliver sat down beside me, and pushed his wet hair from his face.

"Wow, I can see your face," I laughed, looking at him. "The long hair has been covering it for so long, I'd forgotten what you looked like."

He pushed me lightly, but I totally exaggerated it, and fell sideways. "Oliver!"

"I didn't mean to push that hard, Lilly!" He knelt over me, and looked anxious. "Are you okay?"

I got up slowly, and tried to look hurt. "I don't know. You hurt my arm pretty bad..." My acting skills obviously aren't the best, and so he rolled his eyes.

"Very funny Lilly."

I quit acting, and lay back on the sand. "Oliver, do you really think this summer will be boring?"

He didn't say anything for a few minutes, and then lay back next to me. "I don't know. I thought so, but I've been wrong a few times before."

"A few?" I smirked, and earned myself a glare from him. "Sorry. Continue."

"I guess we don't know until we live it, right?" he said.

I wrinkled my nose. "Was that a rhetorical question, or did you want me to answer?"

"What's a rhetorical question?" Oliver asked.

I raised my eyebrows, but chose to say nothing. Schooling wasn't Oliver's best subject, but it wasn't his worst either. He knew how to rack up a decent insult - using proper English too.

"Why? Do you think that this summer will be boring?" Oliver asked me.

I had to think a while before I could think of an answer. "I hope not. I don't know what to think. I just hope that it'll be awesome. Or as awesome as I want it to be."

"Right. Well then, name two things that you absolutely want to do this summer, and we'll make sure that we do it," Oliver said, and I turned my head to look at him.

"That's actually pretty smart," I smiled. "Okay. But you have to do the same thing. So that we can make this summer... non-boring for you."

Oliver nodded, and gestured for me to go first.

"Um... two things I want to do this summer? Well, I want to do something I've never done. No limits on that one - just something that I haven't ever done before. Try something new. And, I want to..." I paused. What else did I really want to do? There seemed like nothing. Because, as weird as it sounded - especially to me - right now, I felt like I didn't want to move from this spot. And it wasn't because it was a beach, or because it was beautiful here. It was the company.

I know that since Miley came to Malibu, I've not hung out with Oliver as much, but I haven't done it on purpose. It just felt awesome to be able to talk to a girl about stuff that I needed to talk about. And Oliver was never the greatest at advice and stuff. But I just feel like I've missed something now. I mean, Oliver seems funnier, and better at helping than I'd anticipated and given him credit for.

"You want to...?" Oliver started, and snapped me out of my reverie.

"Oh. I have no idea. I mean... there's probably a million things that I want to do, but I can't think of them right now," I blustered, and looked back up at the sky.

I felt Oliver staring at me for a while, and then his gaze drifted to the sky too. "Me neither. I was preparing for my turn, but I can't come up with anything. At least you came up with one."

"A bad one," I admitted.

"But one, nonetheless," Oliver finished.

We lay there, staring up at the sky for a while. He didn't say anything, and so I didn't either. The silence gave me a chance to think. Not that I got much thinking done, because I couldn't determine why I was feeling so strange.

Then he got up, and held out his hand. I looked at it, wondering why he was making me get up.

"You take it," he said slowly, and shook his hand in front of me. "It's to help you up."

I took it, and tried to ignore the sparks that apparently shot up my arm.

Sparks? Why the heck were there sparks running up my arm? Why were sparks running up my arms when Oliver pulled me up?

"We're going to write our names," Oliver stated, and I wrinkled my nose.

"Why?"

He looked up at me. "You don't remember?"

"Lilly! I found a beach!" Eight-year-old Oliver ran up to his best friend, and pulled her away from her sandcastle.

"Oliver! It took me ages to get that sand right," Lilly complained, but, intrigued about what Oliver had found, let him pull her along.

It wasn't long, until Oliver let her go and they stumbled across a layer of pebbles. When they reached the sand, Oliver smiled, and held out his hands. "It's awesome, isn't it? And it's our beach. I don't think anyone else comes here."

"Wow!" Lilly gasped, and watched the waves lap onto the beach.

"So only we can know about it, right Lilly?" Oliver nodded, and Lilly nodded back.

"Of course. I won't tell if you won't," Lilly agreed.

Oliver smiled at her, and held out his pinky for Lilly to attach her pinky to. She did, and then picked up a stick.

"What are you doing?" Oliver asked, as he watched his friend write an 'L' in the sand.

Lilly looked up at him. "Writing our names. This is our summer beach, and my brother says that if something belongs to you, it has to have your name on it."

Oliver smiled, and leant down to help.

When they were finished, they stood back to admire their work. LILLY AND OLIVER'S BEACH.

Lilly and Oliver's beach...

"Yeah..." I said, remembering the writing in the sand. Oliver's 'E' was backwards, and it was all scrunched up, but I just remember being all proud of it.

"It was the start of the summer, on our beach." Oliver nodded. "And you brother says, that if something belongs to you, you have to have your name on it."

I smiled at him. "He certainly does. Hey, you're writing my name!"

Oliver shrugged, and carried on writing my name in the sand, so I knelt next to him, and wrote his. My fingernails got full of wet sand grains as I engraved the letters into the beach, and when we'd both finished, I saw that Oliver's hands were covered in sand too.

"Your car's gonna get all sandy," I laughed, as we walked back up the beach.

He shrugged. "It probably is already."

"I thought you were neurotic about that car," I joked. "Don't touch my radio!"

"That was just because you were turning off a perfectly good song," he commented.

I rolled my eyes. "Sure."

"Lilly. One thing you need to learn: Aerosmith rule," he said, deadly seriously.

I nodded. "Of course they are Ollie. Of course."

And, as we were driving away, I looked back at the names we'd written, and smiled. Lilly and Oliver's beach...