Page 43 of Lost
“Never,” Lysander confessed. “Hell, I’d never even been to the beach before I came to this one. Columbus isn’t exactly known for its coastlines.”
“Now that,” Brendan said with a grimace, “is unacceptable. What kind of kid has never been to the beach?”
Now that he’d had the opportunity, he had to agree that it had been a crime.
“Well, let’s see it, then,” he said instead, nodding out towards the waves. “Are you any good?”
“Oh, sure. I’m the best. I’ll give you a real show.”
Brendan winked and took off for the water. Lysander sat in the sand and watched his uncle run. He was getting more than a few stares from the bikini-clad girls on the beach. It was hard to tell whether they were fans or simply admirers of his tanned abs and tattooed biceps.
Brendan turned out to be a pretty good surfer by Lysander’s standards, which were low given that he knew nothing about the sport. All he knew was that Brendan didn’t once fall off his board, and that was good enough for him. He watched the man navigate the waves with ease, weaving this way and that and taking turns that Lysander was certain would make him lose his balance. But Brendan never did.
The sun had fully risen by the time Brendan made his way back onto the sand. He was drenched from head to toe and looked utterly pleased by it.
“And that’s why you need the beach,” the man said, as if he had been giving the boy a lesson the entire time. “The ladies love a wet man.”
“You look like a drowned dog.”
“Real cute,” Brendan said, pushing his dark hair out of his face even as Lysander grinned. “You’re just like him, you know that?”
He stuck his board into the ground and dropped down into the sand beside Lysander, waving at a couple of teenage girls who had spotted him and were frantically waving at him themselves.
“Never a dull moment,” he mused, more to himself than to the boy beside him.
“Do you ever get tired of it?”
“Sometimes,” Brendan admitted. “There are times when you just want to be left alone, y’know? Like when Tommy died. We just wanted to be with our friends and family, but there were some people who insisted on being in our faces about it. A couple of fans, a journalist or two. They wouldn’t leave us alone.”
“Tommy.” Lysander frowned. “I know that name.”
“He was our drummer,” Brendan said with a sad smile. “Practically our brother. He passed away five years ago.”
Lysander knew this. He remembered now when Dakota had told him, struggling to get the words out through her own tears. He had comforted her while she had mourned for the man that she had never gotten to know, mourned for the drummer of her favourite band, mourned for one of her father’s closest friends. He remembered her babbling on about how much it must have hurt them all. It was a pain that he hadn’t been able to understand.
Until he’d lost his mother. Until Dakota had vanished.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said in earnest. “I shouldn’t have asked. I would have remembered eventually.”
“It’s fine. It’s easier for us to talk about him these days.”
But there was still a sadness in his eyes that Lysander didn’t like seeing, so he made a mental note never to mention the fallen drummer again. He wondered if that was the reason that people so scarcely brought up his mother — because they knew how it felt to have the death of a loved one shoved in their faces.
“Skipping school today?”
“I don’t skip school,” Lysander replied. He briefly checked his watch before adding, “I have fifteen minutes before I officially have to head back to the house. Might as well make the most of it.”
“...or you could skip school and hang out here all day,” Brendan suggested with a wink. “Zack used to do it all the time.”
“Maybe some other time.”
Brendan chuckled.
“Come here often?”
“Lately, yeah,” Lysander admitted. “This is the third day in a row now. I don’t even know why. I never really cared for the beach before, but now...”
He struggled to find the words. He enjoyed the feel of the sand around him; he liked the scent of the salt on the breeze. He liked listening to the waves and seeing the early risers arrive. He liked watching the people on the street rush back and forth, many of them not even taking a moment to admire the beautiful beach right there on their doorstep. And all while he was able to sit back and drink it all in.
