idk if it's needed but i'm going to put one anyways

~trigger warning~

stella was sitting on the beach near conrad who was digging a big hole for whatever food he was making. she couldn't remember the name of it even though they made it every year. she picked up lumps of sand and let it seep through her fingers while she sipped more of another cup of the pomegranate margarita.

at the moment, she and conrad were quiet. whenever something happened with the dads, they were quiet after. they weren't really talkers when it came to this kind of stuff. at least, stella wasn't. conrad let himself go sometimes and ranted. stella had really only talked to conrad seriously about her issues with her dad twice.

it wasn't something she loved to look back on. she liked to forget about it after anything happened.

"hey!" jeremiah shouted in the distance. he had a ball of mud in his hand. stella looked between her two best friends. jeremiah's eyes relaxed at the sight of the girl. "hey, stel, i think we left the speaker back at the house. can you go grab it?"

they usually listened to music while they were at the beach, making the food. stella nodded, but she knew what was about to go down. i mean, with the mud in his hand and the tension between the boys, it was obvious that they had to argue it out and jeremiah didn't want her to be there for that.

at least, that's how stella saw it. if there was tension, then they have to argue it out.

i could be wrong, she thought, but she doubted it. she was raised where whenever there was something wrong, there had to be a fight. an argument.

*flashbacks*

𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐠𝐨

it was the fourth of july. the dads were, of course, there for their annual visit. conrad and stella had decided to go for a walk on the beach to get away. stella had been acting weird ever since the dads had gotten there. 

i mean, her relationship with her dad looked pretty normal from an outsider's view. they shared a laugh here and there but it was mostly because they couldn't start a fight in front of other people.

"hey, you good?" conrad asked her. 

stella shrugged and rolled her eyes. it wasn't out of annoyance. it was because she was trying to prevent herself from crying, especially in front of conrad. she had only done that once before.

"yeah, i'm fine," stella said, crossing her arms over her chest. she tried not to recall the month before when it was her dad's week. she hadn't left for vacation yet.

𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐠𝐨

this wasn't their first fight. these kinds of fights happened often.

stella had just gotten home. it was the evening so it was pretty dark outside. her dad was on the phone with her mom. she remembered how earlier that day, she had told her mom how she thought it was annoying that her dad always left cabinets open and left things out. it was the little things that pissed stella off, but she also didn't like when the place she lived looked like a mess.

she didn't like how she always had to make excuses during the rare times that her friends would come over. she didn't like that when she did have people over, she would make them hang out in her room all day because she hated how messy the rest of the house was.

and she didn't mean to tell her mom that, but she accidentally let it slip earlier that day. and she was sure that her mom was having a conversation with her dad about it. 

stella heard her dad set his phone down, meaning that the call was over. she hid in her room and paced around. she knew what was coming.

"stella!"

she heard her name being shouted through the house. she knew her brother was probably sitting in his room with his headphones on, playing video games to drown out the sound, or catching up on summer school work because he had failed one of his classes and their parents were pissed. 

stella's mom had always said that she didn't raise them to be dropouts. stuff like that.

but at least, stella liked her mom. at least, stella's mom was trying. stella knew that her mom meant well. her mom had grown up with a confusing childhood. it was hard for stella to understand her mom's stories sometimes.

"stella! what the fuck did you tell your mom?!"

the corners of stella's mouth shakily turned down. she didn't know what to expect from him sometimes, but she knew that a lot of the hurt that she felt was mental. she just didn't know if she could take much more of it.

"you don't like it here?!" stella's dad stomped into her room, throwing the door open. "and i don't want to hear anything about your friends and the mess because you never have friends over anyways-"

stella didn't like crying in front of her dad, or anyone. she turned around to face him with her arms crossed. "i would have friends over more often if this place wasn't a mess all the time!"

"fine! you're never having friends over here!"

stella's voice started to waver. she hated when it did that. "fine!" she shouted, even though she knew her friends would wonder why she rarely had them over. "i don't even care-"

"what the fuck is your problem?" her dad stepped further into her room. stella swallowed nervously. "you're so fucking sick in the head, stella! i never see anyone else's kids acting like this!"

stella looked down, feverishly blinking away her tears. she had always been told stuff like this as a kid. that other kids weren't as fucked up as she was.

"stop crying or i'll give you something to cry about!" her dad yelled, making stella press her lips together tighter to stop herself from making any noise.

ever since she was little, she had always had the mindset that crying wasn't okay. emotion wasn't okay. she had been raised like that.

she hurriedly tried to wipe the mixture of sweat and a couple tears off her face. she had learned how to stop crying quick when she was young. "i'm not crying! look, i'm not even crying!"

"fuck! your mom is pissed at me now!" he shouted, pacing around near the entrance of her room. "look what you did!"

"i'm sorry!" stella apologized. she didn't want her voice to crack or waver. "i didn't even mean to say that-"

"just go to bed!" her dad yelled, leaving her by herself in her room. her face felt warm and tingly. her hands felt tingly too, like a bunch of things were poking her. her breathing was fast. her hair was sticking to her face.

despite all of that, she knew that she was going to have a good night's sleep. she always slept well after she cried. or kind of cried.

it was hard for her to fall asleep a lot. but as soon as she was out on days like this, she had great night's sleeps. on usual nights, she would keep waking up and falling asleep multiple times.

so maybe nights like these had their pros and cons.

she fell asleep to a few episodes of "friends". that was her comfort show back then.

𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐠𝐨

stella told conrad about some of the arguments that she had with her dad. she kept it kind of vague, but conrad always assumed the worst. she clarified that some of his predictions were definitely wrong but he knew the basic story now.

they knew each other.

conrad knew her like nobody else did. stella knew him like nobody else did.

while telling her stories, stella didn't cry that much. a tear or two escaped her eyes but not many. and it was only because of frustration, like, when she felt like she wasn't explaining it well enough or if she felt like conrad was misunderstanding parts of the stories.

stella really only cried out of frustration.

*flashback ends*

while stella was walking away from the beach, she took one glance back at her best friend. he was standing idly, watching her walk away. she knew that if he could, he'd walk her back. especially since she was sort of drunk.

the last thing she heard before turning back around was from jeremiah to conrad. "can you be nice to dad for one day?"

stella rolled her eyes, again, not out of annoyance, but more out of frustration that some people didn't understand conrad like she did.

the walk to the summer house wasn't far. their house was literally on the beach.

but apparently, the house wasn't close enough because stella had run into someone on the way home. two boys were playing catch with a football, even though one of them looked like they've never really learned how to play ever.

the first one had brown, curly hair. he was wearing an unbuttoned button-down shirt and shorts. he was the one that had looked like he had played any kind of sports before.

the other one looked like he'd worked out before. definitely. but he didn't look like a sports kind of guy. he had brown hair that was straighter than the other boy's hair. this boy was wearing more of a flannel kind of shirt and he had two buttons buttoned up. he was also wearing black jeans, which was kind of odd for the beach.

"oh, shit! corbyn, watch out!" the first boy warned the other boy. stella was too late to move because the other boy had ran backwards into her.

stella stumbled back a few steps but didn't fall. that boy had grabbed her arm so she didn't fall too far. it wasn't that helpful though.

"aw, my bad," the boy said sincerely. he threw the ball back at the first boy. "aye, jonah!"

"you're good. don't worry 'bout it," stella smiled and brushed herself off. the boy took his hand off the girl.

the first boy caught the attention of the other boy. "hey, corbyn, i'm gonna take a break for a minute!"

the boy nodded at his friend and turned back to stella, but she wasn't really listening to him anymore. she was staring at the sand, thinking about what that boy's friend had just said.

corbyn, she thought. that's damn familiar.

*flashbacks*

stella and daniel were laying on their backs now, stargazing. "that's gotta be the little dipper right?" stella pointed out.

daniel shrugged. "i don't know. usually corbyn knows this kind of stuff."

"corbyn?" she raised an eyebrow.

"he's a friend of mine. you'll have to meet him one day," he chuckled softly.

stella shook her head, hiding the smile that was taking over her face. "i guess i do."

*flashback ends*

stella gasped quietly once she realized. "corbyn," she mumbled. "your name's corbyn?"

"oh yeah! sorry, i didn't even introduce myself," he chuckled, brushing his hands off to offer her a hand. "i'm corbyn!"

she shook it awkwardly. "hi..."

corbyn's smiled dropped quickly, along with her hand. "oh my god, that was- i'm sorry. i don't know why i went in so proper with the handshake-"

stella couldn't keep her questions to herself anymore. "are you... friends with daniel?"

"daniel? oh yeah! love that guy," corbyn replied, gesturing to his friend group sitting sort of far away. stella shifted awkwardly, remembering everything that had happened between her and daniel.

"oh, okay..." she said, glancing past the new boy. maybe it was because she was sort of drunk, but all of the sudden, she had a lot of confidence to say what she was about to say. she hesitated before adding, "you know, you seem really nice, but tell your friend, daniel, that he's a dick."

"wait, what?" corbyn asked loudly as she walked away.

stella caught the sight of daniel from the corner of her eye. she waved at his much nicer friend. "i'm stella, by the way!" she called to him.

his smile dropped. that's where he had recognized the girl. he wasn't exactly supportive of what his friend had done.

he sent her an apologetic look that she caught at the last minute before turning away. she sighed and made her way back to the summer house.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

author's note

guys, i'm literally SOOO sorry that this took so long to make but i've just been busy. or i'm lazy. idk. anyways... tell me if this was boring or not. i feel like this chapter is kind of all over the place, so i'm sorry about that if it is. anyways... MORE FOURTH OF JULY TEA IS COMING!! :)

pls vote, comment, etc. if you want <3 THANK YOUUU

if you guys have any ideas, please drop them in the comments down below :)) especially some fourth of july content ideas !!! :)

[ unedited ]