Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“I know. I’m trying to learn, but I don’t think I have caught on,” Dani murmurs just as I paddle into a wave.
Pushing myself up on my board, I ride the pipe all the way through until the wave curves into nothing, and I slip off, landing on the sand. I tuck my board beneath my arm as I make my way up onto the shore. Music spills out around the space where I find Cooper sitting opposite the burning flame with a Solo cup in his hand. The party always starts here, goes to The Landing, and then ends here. It’s almost repetitive, but it’s fun. As much as I talk shit about it, I’ll take any chance I can to get in the water.
He notices me and stops laughing with the people who are around him, pushing up from his chair and jogging to meet us halfway. “You okay?”
“Yes.” I stab my board into the sand, snatching the oversized white shirt that’s near my phone and towel and slipping it over my head. The wind is slightly warm as it curls its fingers through my hair. I start drying it off anyway with my towel.
“Ruin playing games again?” Cooper has been my best friend all my life. Our mothers are still best friends, and since both of us no longer have fathers, we’re kind of like a small family, I guess.
“His games bore me.”
One of the (many) oldest tales of Hades Hollow is that of the scorned lover, Jezebel, and the love of her lost pirate, Timothy. It is said that Jezebel haunts the waters of Hades Hollow and despises young people because Timothy went swimming with his dick. She was eighteen when her throat was slit, and she was shoved off the very same cliff I just jumped off. It’s said that on the night of your eighteenth birthday, if you want to continue to swim in our waters, you have to take the jump to stop Jezebel from pulling you under.
I know there is no truth to it, or there’d be a shit ton of people who would be dead after swimming here, especially those who don’t know the rules. For one, I am still seventeen. I’ve yet to be sucked under by Jezebel’s tentacles, if she was an octopus. In my head, she is. There are so many stories that haunt this town… you just have to decide which one you believe the most…
“Well…shots?” Cooper holds up tiny plastic shot cups to his cheeks, flashing a toothy smile that usually gets him whatever the hell he wants.
I snatch one from him, sinking it before he can ask me if I’m okay again. I love Cooper. He is tentative when I want him to be and hard when I need him to be, but he is Cooper. So wrapped up in his need to be the main character of every room he often forgets about the rest of us. Even in a town as small as Hades Hollow. With a population of something around four thousand, everyone knows everyone. There is one small high school, an elementary school, and a beach that stretches from one side of the town to the other. A large cliff face curves the end of the town, right opposite The Landing, which sits in the middle of the ocean like a small island. It’s almost like a rite of passage for new kids to swim into the cove and get stuck there until the next low tide. Nothing serious, since it’s an enclosed little beach, but at certain times of night and with the history of Jezebel’s Cove? No. Hard pass.
Music plays around us, and I look aimlessly around our group. It has thinned out since I swam up to shore. Cooper’s saddled up near Dani, and opposite her is one of her other friends, Jessica, and beside Jessica is her boyfriend, Neil. They seem lost in boring conversations about the latest episode of some CW show when movement catches my eye over Neil’s shoulder. The flickering from the flames only makes the shadows harder to see, so I squint my eyes and tilt my head to see if I can make out what it is.
“You hear me?” Cooper asks, tapping my shoulder with his lightly. “The house sold.”
“Huh.” I bring the rim of my cup to my lips, letting the bubbles sit before swallowing a large gulp. “And they’re moving in now?”
Cooper chuckles, wiping the sand off his pants when he stands. He offers me a hand, and I look between his face and his gesture. “What do you say, Shi? Keen for some fun?”
“What?” I lean to the side, placing my cup down on the sand beside me.
“Oh, come on! Please can we just relax?” Dani whines beside me, but I ignore her.