Where the Sea Takes Me

Chapter One

Sea? came the whispered voice. Sea?

Light slipped through the drapes in my dorm. Harsh, punishing, Californian morning light.

Ugh.

Someone touched my cheek. My hair. Sea? You awake?

No, I grumbled at the cruel, whispering person. I was utterly exhausted from finals and felt like I’d shoved my head in the sand, eyes open and brain exposed. Everything felt dry and gritty and heavy. Groaning, I rolled over in the narrow, uncomfortable bed—

—and came face-to-face with my best friend, Spider.

He grinned, and his blue eyes sparkled like the sea at sunrise. Morning, sunshine.

I felt myself smiling despite all the sand.

Wait. Spider was already here? He’d planned to drive over the hill to help me move out of my dorm for the summer, but I hadn’t expected him until later. Like, during normal human hours. I squinted at the clock. "You’re really early."

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Used to popping up at dawn to ride the waves, Spider was ready to roll, his lanky body sporting his usual shirt and shorts and hoodie. He had more energy in his pinky finger than I did in my entire body; had ever since we were kids chasing each other around the cove into the wild blue sea. He was always hard to keep up with, but this morning, I knew it’d be impossible.

He tugged on a strand of my hair. Yeah, well. I wanted to see you.

Terima Kasih, Sienna. I have found you. 

Waves of warmth washed over me, quickly replaced by guilt. Blinking, I looked away. That’s…thanks, Spider. It’s good to see you, too.

The last thing I wanted was for Spider to know what—or most importantly, who—I’d been dreaming about. He knew whatever had happened two years ago changed me, changed us, but I didn’t talk about it. Hell, I tried not to even think about it.

Apparently my subconscious had other ideas.

Lately I’d been a little stir crazy. Maybe it was my first year of college wrapping up, maybe it was the dreams, or maybe it was something else. Something more. I couldn’t shake this feeling that something huge lurked on the horizon.

I needed to focus on that horizon. Not on the time I spent in Indonesia helping orphans. Or the fact that I fell in love with one.

Deni…

Nope. Not going there. I cleared my throat. I need coffee, I said. We should grab some.

Spider hopped up. I’m on it. Think I can sneak into that fancy café without a student ID card? If they don’t look very closely—okay, if they don’t look at all—I think I could pass as you?

Hardly. Spider was tall, blond, and gorgeous. Our hair color was about all we had in common. Ha ha. Just take a five and hit the Starbucks. I waved at the rest of my room. There should be some money in my jean pocket…wherever they are.

He found my favorite jeans rumpled in a heap by my desk. I’d climbed out of them early yesterday evening and promptly collapsed on my bed, my brain and body completely fried after what felt like two weeks of no sleep, way too much caffeine, and absorbing information via battering ram. I had no idea when or how Spider had gotten in or what he’d done with himself while I slept, but the dorms hadn’t burned down, so that was something. You never knew with him.

What I did know was that Spider and I were friends. Good friends. He was around all the time. Had been most of our lives.

I also knew he wanted more.

And even though I wanted to be, I wasn’t sure I was ready.

Nonfat latte? he asked.

I nodded, but guilt sat heavy on my shoulders. He’d always been in my life, even when we were kids and I closed myself off after my mom disappeared. Even when I got back from Indonesia and pushed everyone away. His friendship was important to me, same as his sister’s. I didn’t want to lose that. Hey, Spider?

He leaned against the wall near my doorway, just sort of looking at me in the bed. Yeah?

Thank you. For more than you’ll ever know.

He grinned. Anytime.

Spider was handsome and funny and kind, the brother of my other best friend, Bev—basically everything I’d always thought I wanted. Maybe if I got over my obsession with the past there could be more between us?

But when the door shut behind him with an ominous click, I fell back into my pillow and cried. What was I even crying about? I used to pride myself in keeping everything bottled up inside, and yet here I was, unleashing a wrath of tears on my unsuspecting pillow.

I’d come a long way in the last two years. It hadn’t been easy—I fought hard to find the person I’d finally become. I’d been broken when I arrived in Indonesia with Team Hope, my father’s relief organization. It had been five years since my mom’s plane disappeared over the Indian Ocean, and I had yet to accept that she was actually gone. My dad and I had grown apart, each of us dealing with our grief in our own way. Being so close to where she’d vanished, though, helping the tsunami orphans who’d lost far more than I ever would, meeting and falling in love with Deni… I’d finally started to heal.

My heart may have been shattered when I left Deni on the beach, the future we’d imagined for ourselves lying like shards of broken sea glass at our feet, but when I got back home, I felt like maybe I’d taken a step toward being whole again.

Maybe that’s why this thing with Spider was so unnerving. I’d had a reason not to let myself fall for him before. I’d been too damaged. Too focused on fixing myself.

Now that I was almost there, what was stopping me now?

I sighed and looked around the dorm room. Although I loved college—the freedom, my own space—I couldn’t wait to be out of the communal bathroom situation and back home on the coast with my family. Soon Team Hope would leave on our humanitarian mission to Cambodia to work with human trafficking victims.

I was really excited about the trip. After realizing so many Indonesians died in Aceh because they couldn’t swim, I learned that a lot of kids in small villages in Vietnam who attend school next to rivers drown. Something as preventable as learning to swim could save multiple lives. So that’s what I planned to do. Teaching rescued girls how to swim sounded minor compared to what they’d been through, but as a trained lifeguard who’d been giving lessons and watching over the state beaches for the last few years, it was something concrete I could do to help.

The trip was also what I needed to cure my stir-craziness. If the trip to Indonesia had taught me anything, it was that I was my parents’ daughter. I needed to travel. To help. To make a difference in the world. And this time, I wasn’t afraid.

When my phone buzzed, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I’d never get used to that thing.

Dad: Can’t wait to see you, kiddo!

I smiled and dried my wet cheeks on my blanket.

Sienna: Same. See u soon.

I shut the device off and tossed it onto the bed. Technology was so different now. The Apple computer guy, Steve Jobs, had invented something called an iPhone. Dad, new tech geek, had one. It had a built-in mapping system and apps and texting.

If his handy dandy new pocket computer had been around two years ago, Dad could’ve tracked me and Deni from the Jakarta pesantren where we’d been working with the tsunami orphans to Deni’s decimated city of Banda Aceh. Good thing he hadn’t had one. If we hadn’t run away, we never would’ve confirmed that Deni’s father was dead…or found Deni’s fiancée.

The pang of sadness, less intense but still there, always there, hit me square in the chest.

No. I wouldn’t think about it.

But if Deni hadn’t found Rema, my mind whispered, would you have come back to California at all?

Yes, I insisted to myself.

Like he promised.

I groaned in frustration. That was ancient history, and I needed to get over it. Bev had told me as much every time I’d fallen apart just thinking about it. Deni was on the other side of the world, probably happily married to Rema, and I was…here. With Spider.

My love for Deni was an ache. A slow, deep ache that had grown and grown into something I couldn’t shake. I’d fought hard to move past it, but even now, that ache was still there no matter how hard I tried to push it away. I shook my head. The whole thing frustrated me. I’d known him for two weeks two years ago. We’d been kids pretending at being adults.

It was just a dream.

So, I’ve been thinking, Spider said when he returned to my dorm room with two paper cups of life-saving coffee in his hands. Shutting the door with his hip, he flashed me a grin that had melted many of my dorm mates’ hearts. I could tell they didn’t understand why this cute, funny, awesome, surfer boy hung out with studious, artsy, boring me. A lot of them flirted with him in the hallway trying to get him interested. Even though I knew why, I was always surprised when he politely blew them off and turned his attention back to me, asking about my end-of-the-year photo exhibit in my hall.

And he wasn’t a flakey surfer, either. He was majoring in microbiology and spent a lot of time at the coastal lab working with sea lions. The animals were drawn to him the same way everyone was. His easygoing nature—his smile—it was contagious. The girls were right: I was lucky to have his attention. I should appreciate it more.

Don’t let your past affect your present, Sienna. I could hear Professor Dad in my head as if he could read my mind.

Duly noted.

What have you been thinking? I cleared my head, trying my best to shake off the barrage of thoughts twisting through my sleep-deprived brain, and twined my hair into a knot on my head. He deserved my full attention. Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I looked him right in the eye.

That you should come home with me for the summer.

I blinked. Spider wasn’t really a forward guy, so there was no way he was suggesting what it sounded like he was suggesting.

I tried for a cheerful smile, knowing it probably looked shaky. That’s the plan. Isn’t that why you’re here, to drive me home?

He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. Um…that’s not really what I mean.

The energy in the room shifted, and an uncomfortable silence fell.

Shit. He was suggesting what I thought.

I couldn’t read his face entirely, but he looked nervous. Which made me nervous. And I was already an exhausted mess of emotions.

But…I have to go back to San Miguel. I have my trip… I tried lamely. Spider knew this. Knew I itched to get back to work, to help, to make a difference, itched at my skin. An itch I couldn’t scratch in classrooms and listening to lectures. I felt it deeply. And I knew I wouldn’t feel relief until I was back on the road. Or in the air. Or, in this case, on the water—ironic, considering those were the very things I was afraid of when I was last asked to join Team Hope on an overseas mission.

I mean. His cheeks flushed, a rarity in cool and collected Spider. He scratched his cheek. "God. Why is this so hard? What I mean is, maybe you should move in with me, instead of with your dad. You know. Until the trip."

Then he smiled. Cautiously. Optimistically.

There. I said it, so what do you think? You, me, this summer?

I had no idea what I thought. B-but you live with roommates, and they don’t flush the toilet, I blurted.

He blinked, amused. They do too flush the toilet.

"They don’t flush the toilet, Spider. And they never buy toilet paper."

We buy toilet paper, Sea, he protested with a half smile.

Spider. When I visit you, I bring wet wipes in my purse.

Like this is the problem. Toilet paper.

"You always carry wet wipes in your purse. That proves nothing. Only that you’re a weirdo."

I laughed uncomfortably. I wasn’t ready to move in with Spider. We weren’t even together. Is that what he hoped would happen if we moved in together? I swallowed. I’m nothing if not prepared.

But really. Think about it?

"I just don’t get why, I said, twisting my blanket between my fingers. I mean, do you need help with rent or something? I thought it was pretty cheap?"

He took a step toward me, his eyes shifting. No. I just… I want us to be more than this. More than two buddies having platonic sleepovers. It’s time, you know?

I chewed my lip and tried softly. Spider…

What, you don’t like me that way? he asked intently, head cocked, eyes wondering. Because I think you do.

I sucked in a breath, trying to figure out what to say. I’d known this was coming, hadn’t I? We’d been skirting the issue for two years. I’d worked so hard to move on, hoping to get to where I needed to be and, in the process, maybe be able to give Spider what he wanted, too. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t attracted to him—I was. I loved spending time with him. But…

Before I got a chance to try and piece words into how I felt, my phone buzzed.

My phone, I said, hastily grabbing it off the bed.

Saved by my dad. Or, rather, my little brother.

Spider glanced over my shoulder and saw the picture. Ah, the draw of the mighty Maximilian.

He sounded down, but I didn’t know how to fix it. What could I do? Move in with him and hope being that much closer to him would speed along our relationship? He had so much going on already—so many girls who liked him. So many hobbies. Why did he need me to add to all that? Especially when he got to see all the little things from the past that still slipped through, no matter how hard I’d worked to reclaim my life.

My prediction: he’d dump me like a bad wave as soon as he had me. Sigh.

I glanced back at my phone. At the little boy smiling his big cheesy smile from the safety of my dad’s arms.

If I’d had a camera on my phone in Indo, I would’ve taken even more pictures. Captured more memories of the little kids playing soccer and drawing their memories on the asphalt with chalk.

Then I glanced up at Spider’s face, remembered my dream all over again, and bit back the guttural sensation of homesickness for a place that was never my home. For a boy who was never my own.

How was it even possible for a dream to affect me this much? I made a mental note to look it up in my psychology textbook, because it was driving me