i'll shake the ground and take you
to a beautiful i n f i n i t y . . .

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I'm convinced that shopping can cure anything. A bad mood, indecisiveness, a broken heart – whatever it may be. Being a teenager, I like to spend money on pointless things, mainly clothes and food. So when Jodie and Sadie asked me if I wanted to spend the day shopping with them after my shift at The Sand Dollar a week later, I couldn't say no.

Living at the beach means we usually get tired of the shops on the boardwalk and downtown, so we piled into my car and ventured over the bridge to Verbank; a county much bigger than ours that's home to some of the best shopping centers and boutiques. We had been in and out of different stores all day, finding a few things here and there but not running our wallets dry. When it started to get closer to 6 o'clock, we were all pretty tired of walking around and figured we'd stop in one last place before getting some dinner.

My reflection stared back at me in the mirror of the dressing room I was in, unsatisfied with the dress I tried on. It didn't sit right on my small chest, and the length was too long for my short legs. Sighing, I tugged it off and put it to the side, trying on a soft strapless top instead. It's an off white color, made out of crochet lace and pretty daring for me. The bandeau going across my chest is the only part that's really covered because other than that, you can see my skin through the rest of the lace.

I shrugged and took it off, placing it in the small pile I was planning on purchasing. Why the hell not?

The last thing I put on was a light blue babydoll dress, which I had on for about a minute before I decided on getting it. With a sale price tag and the perfect fit, there's no way I could leave the shop without it.

A door opened and I figured Jodie was done in her dressing room next to mine, so I redressed myself and gathered my things, meeting her in the center of the store. I shook my head when I saw her standing by the rack of sun hats, a laugh escaping my mouth.

She twirled around to find me, the gaudy orange hat moving with her jerky motions. "What do you think?" She asked, a faux contemplative look on her face.

"I think you're strange," I couldn't help but smile at her. "But if you like it, get it."

Scoffing at my comment, she took the hat off and put it back. "Orange is not my color," she admitted. Both of us each picked out a different hat, giggling at ourselves while we waited for Sadie to finish up trying her things on.

After we paid for our things and headed to where my car was parked, we threw out ideas on where to go for dinner. All of our stomachs were rumbling with hunger, and without any specific tastes in mind, we chose to go back home to our favorite place on the boardwalk, Mack's. The most basic boardwalk restaurant in the world, serving pizza, burgers and the like, but we've been going there for years. We spent our entire pre-teen lives in the booths of that place, driving the staff crazy with our ridiculous orders and obnoxious conversations.

Seated and ready to wait for our food, the waiter walked away from our table to put them in. Jodie had a smirk on her face, one that meant she was thinking about something.

"They must have hired some new guys 'cause the waiter is cute," she spoke her thoughts, making Sadie and I both roll our eyes.

"Girl, what about Ryan?" Sadie asked. Jodie's cheeks reddened at the name of her crush, and she quietly sipped from her soda while we waited for her answer.

"I didn't forget about him, I just... like to notice my surroundings," she said shamelessly. Sadie and I exchanged looks and Jodie scoffed, sputtering to make up a response. "What? I tried talking to him at Heather's last weekend, and that didn't work. The guy is clueless."

I leaned back and crossed my arms, frowning a bit. "He's an idiot if he doesn't realize that you like him," I mused, more so to myself than to them.

Jodie let out a disheartening laugh and ran her fingers through her hair, a sign that she's clearly upset over this. Part of me wanted to kick Ryan in the balls for putting my friend through this much trouble, because she doesn't deserve to be jerked around by a guy who she's been pining over for the past few months now.

"How hard is it to find a guy who will just, like, be honest and not play games? I'm not asking for marriage – I just want to kiss you and hang out, you know? I'm really low maintenance, it shouldn't be this hard!" Jodie slammed her fist down on the table, earning a look of detest from the couple sitting behind her.

If I knew how guys worked, then maybe it'd be easier for me to help Jodie in this situation. But seeing as I can't even figure out how to tell Noah the truth on how I don't like him, it looks like I'm the wrong person to go to. I'm her best friend though, and no matter what, I have to spit out some kind of wise words.

"To me, it doesn't seem like he's worth it," I confessed with a shrug. My two best friends both looked at me, a little astonished, but they didn't fight it. "You don't need a guy who's going to 'play games'. I mean, I know we're still kids, but come on."

Sadie cut in then, agreeing with me in a wholehearted nod. "And besides, there's tons of other guys out there, just in our town. We're lucky we have a big school, because that makes it easy for you to find someone else."

A heavy sigh was Jodie's first reaction as her gaze was hooked on her crumpled straw wrapper she was playing with. Then she cast her eyes up at us sitting across from her, and a small smile broke through.

"You guys are right," she nodded along.

"We know," Sadie and I chorused together, which made her grin. Our waiter came then and dropped off our food, dispersing everything to each of us and making sure the orders were right. I didn't neglect to notice the way his eyes hung onto Jodie for a little while longer before he left our table.

After we downed our food in record timing, we didn't waste too much more time. A friend of ours invited us to her house later on, due to the fact that her parents were gone for the weekend, so we planned on going back to my place in the meantime. We left Mack's with full stomachs and a healthy tip on the table for our adorable waiter.

As the three of us walked down the boardwalk together, towards the parking lot I parked in, Sadie came to a halt.

"Do you guys mind if we run to the bathroom real quick? I don't think I can wait any longer," she pleaded, her eyes going over to the public restroom building on the other side. Jodie and I both nodded and she took off, leading the way while we waited by the sinks for her.

Standing in silence with the hum of the air conditioning the only noise, my mind started to wander. Back to the same thing it's been hooked on for the past week – Surfer Boy.

Who is he?

I could not stop thinking about him since I saw him on the beach last Friday. He sparked my curiosity, which developed into a raging fire, blazing inside me. Something like this has never happened to me before and I don't know how to deal with it. But my overbearing eagerness got the best of me, so I found myself asking Jodie a pretty ambiguous question.

"Jod, who surfs at our school?" I kept my eyes down at first, not wanting to see her immediate reaction, but I had to look up when she didn't say anything right away.

Her eyebrows furrowed, a puzzled look pulling at her features. "Um... well, everyone does. A lot of the seniors that just graduated do, and I think there's a handful of kids in our grade that surf too. I'm not really sure about the underclassmen though," she answered, but her expression quickly changed to a skeptic one. "Why do you ask?"

"Just curious," I shrugged simply, putting an end to it. That wasn't much help.

I still felt Jodie's eyes boring a hole into me, so I glanced up to see her eyes narrowed. "That's a pretty random question to be 'just curious' about," she grilled me.

Damnit.

"Fine. I was sitting on the beach last week, watching this guy surf and he looked familiar. I couldn't think of his name, so I thought maybe you'd know," I explained. Sadie walked up to the sinks and washed her hands, trying to figure out what we were talking about.

Jodie hummed in return, nodding her head with suspicion still in her eyes. "Hm... you can always look in the yearbook to see if you can find him," she shrugged one shoulder.

I almost palmed my forehead. Why didn't I think of that?

"Who?" Sadie chirped, glancing between the both of us.

"Lena's mysterious surfer boy," Jodie cooed with a smirk.

Sadie emitted a high pitched shriek, and when Jodie and I looked at her in surprise, she covered her grinning mouth with her hands. "Surfers are hot," she whispered like if someone were to hear her, she'd get in trouble.

We all laughed, making sure we had everything before we left the bathroom as we continued gossiping about surfers while we made the walk back to my car.

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Acacia, the host of the party, didn't anticipate just how many people were going to show up to her house tonight. When we got their a little after ten o'clock, she seemed almost too calm and collected. People were crawling all over her property – jamming up her spacious backyard and her entire downstairs. Nonetheless, she was happy to see us.

My friends and I walked out back after we each made a mixed drink and stared in awe at the crowd.

"Wow," Jodie voiced all our thoughts in a single word. "There's a lot of people here. I don't even see anyone we know."

I took a long sip from my drink, already knowing I'd have to have a few before I socialized with anyone new. My eyes scanned over the many heads in Acacia's yard, attempting to pick out a familiar face. "Well... I see Whitney Cox and her crew," I said, spotting a few friends of ours over by a picnic table.

"I guess we can go talk to them for a little bit," Sadie shrugged with a sigh.

"I see my friends so I'll catch you guys later," Noah told us. He managed to send me a long glance after he slid around from behind me and took his hand off my waist. I sighed, relieved to be out of his grip while I watched him and Caleb leave us.

Turning back to Jodie and Sadie, their eyes were on me and they looked highly unamused.

"What?" I spat in annoyance.

"You know what," Jodie fired back, grabbing onto Sadie and I as we walked over to Whitney. "When are you gonna talk to him?"

"Seriously," Sadie pitched in.

"Can we do this later? I don't want to think about him right now," I whined, which just made them both glare at me even more. "You can't expect me to do it here, in front of all these people. That'd be humiliating!"

Jodie rolled her eyes and let go of my arm once we were out of the thick crowd. "Yeah, it might be. But I swear, Lena, if you guys hook up again tonight I will-"

Her threat was cut off when Whitney saw us, squealing like her favorite celebrity just walked by. Her lanky, tan legs wobbled with the conclusion that she's already had too much to drink. Jodie snapped her mouth shut, but still sent me daggers with her eyes.

"Hey! I didn't know you all were coming tonight!" Whitney shouted, toppling into us as her arms wrapped us into a group hug. She didn't even give us a chance to answer because she kept babbling on about her excitement and dragged us over to her friends.

So of course, we got stuck talking to them for awhile. And by that, I mean enough time passed by for a few rounds of uncoordinated beer pong and a complete report on the dirt of the summer. Rumors, shocking truths, and ridiculous confessions – you ask, and Whitney probably has the answer. The girl is chock full of information, it's a wonder how she's such a dimwit. She might not be good in school, but she's nice and to me, that's all that matters.

I stepped aside from the picnic table at the end of my round in beer pong, and someone else hopped in to start a new game. My second drink was down to the bottom of my cup and I definitely felt it. Not as bad as last weekend at Heather's, but a decent buzz. That decent buzz still caused my thoughts to drift over to the boy whose been causing so much torment in my life.

Noah. I haven't seen him that much tonight, thankfully. The last thing I need is him all over me, extracting whatever little willpower I still had left. Which isn't very much.

Jodie and Sadie were off playing their round in beer pong, as I stood off to the side of them. I turned around and observed everyone splayed across Acacia's patio, mind racing with thoughts of Noah. My fingers played with the gold starfish pendant on the chain of my necklace out of habit. As my eyes swept across various faces and backs of heads, they stopped when they came in contact with a familiar gaze.

My breath hitched as my hands dropped down to my sides. I nervously tore my eyes away and looked somewhere else.

That did not just happen.

I had no control over my eyes going back to his and latching on. Blue eyes met green, waves rippling in his and a hurricane erupting in mine, building a beautiful, tropical storm.

Noah? Noah who?

Something was drawing me in. The smirk that spread across his face had my heart go into overdrive. I found myself quickly knocking back the rest of my drink, absentmindedly licking my lips. Gotta go get another one.

Our stare broke when he turned to his friend and told him something, then he started walking back over to the door to go inside the house. Don't lose him.

I didn't even tell my friends where I was going. I just started following him, maneuvering through the crowd to get another drink, and to find those ocean eyes.

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A/N - surfer boy 👀 the noah problem 👀 who is this guy making gr8 eye contact with lena at the end of the chapter 👀 so many quESTIONS!!! heh let me know what y'all are thinking so far of this story, you know i love comments.

i don't have much to say other than i bought tickets today to go see the maine (aka my faVORITE band!!! [besides 5sos]) and i am SO STOKED. Y'ALL HAVE NO IDEA. i last saw them in 2013 and that's a long time ago for me. they're opening bands for the tour are also 2 bands that i really really like and GOSH i'm just so excited!!!!! i love live music. wow. anyway i'm v thankful for you guys. love ya lots!

song: new skin by beach weather

photo: sadie (hailee steinfeld)

xoxo, sabbbycat