CHAPTER ONE
WASTED LIKE ALL MY POTENTIAL .
❪ cousins beach : june, 2022 ❫

CAROLINA ALWAYS HAD THIS SMALL MOMENT OF CLARITY IN THE MORNINGS, between the first amber of sunlight against the skyline and her stumble up to the beach house so she could sleep off the looming hangover. It happened as the water lapped against her feet, stings from unknown injuries ignited by the salt of the sea. She always lasted longer than everyone else— the bonfire would be reduced to embers, beer bottles scattered across the sand and teenagers long disbanded to other locations. Carolina would always stay. Always wait for the one, small, moment where she'd allow herself to feel something.

The buzz of the vodka would fizzle out, giving way to tiredness and the begging of a headache, but not yet enough sobriety to allow everything else she was trying to ignore to creep in. Still, when it was quite like this, the sky no longer a dark veil to hide under, she could imagine what it would be like if she didn't have to rely on her vices to simply breathe. Life used to look like this; beautiful and optimistic and limitless. She'd never be that girl again. But for a moment, she could pretend.

She'd sit in the sand until her feet went numb from the water, not yet warmed by the sun. Then she'd commit her small act of repentance for the night before.

Glass clinked together in the garbage bag she dragged behind her, and as she reached to pick up the final few long discarded beer bottles, a voice startled her out of her head. For a moment, panic flared within her chest. She wasn't used to having to talk to people during what she considered her most vulnerable time of day.

"Are you cleaning up after the party? That's like... really cool."

The boy was a mess of curls, striped t-shirt, khakis and the most genuine smile she'd ever seen. It kind of caught her off guard, something so inexplicably real in his display of happiness. No one had smiled at her like that in a long, long, time and if he knew who he was talking to, he wouldn't be either. Yet, this was her hour of pretending. She could pretend that he would, pretend that if he really knew her he'd still smile that way.

She shrugged, "It's Turtle season, wouldn't want any disruptions on their way to the sea. I noticed they're starting to hatch last night."

He grinned at her, "No, yeah, you're right. I actually came down for the same reason," He hastily pulled a black bag from his pocket as if to prove his point. Then he reached his hand out to shake— she hadn't shook anyone's hand in, like, ever. It made her lips tip up slightly. "I'm Cam."

Taking his hand, she responded, "Carolina, or whatever abbreviation of that you want to go with. People tend to make up their own."

"Well... which do you prefer?"

She blinked, not used to a stranger asking for her preferences. "Oh, well, Lina, I guess. My dad use to call me that—"

The words had fallen out of her naturally, but when she realised she'd spoken them her throat immediately tightened. She wasn't supposed to think about him, and if it was any other time, a shot of vodka would have burned her throat as if a punishment for speaking such things.

He seemed to understand that there was something wrong, so he changed the subject, "Have you ever seen them hatch? The turtles, I mean."

"Oh, yeah. I... I usually come down to watch, like, every summer. Only ever managed to see about four hatchings, but..." She grinned slightly, "They're pretty great."

"Aren't they?" He was grinning back, "I've only gotten lucky to see it a few times too, I was hoping I'd manage another one this year though."

"Me too."

Lina had roped Belly and Jeremiah into a few turtle watching sessions over the years— even Conrad and Steven had tagged along for one or two, but they'd grown bored of the late nights pretty quickly when nothing was happening so she'd only ever sighted them on her own. She'd always wished they'd just stuck around for that little bit longer so she could share it with someone. When she looked at him again, something akin to recognition sparked in her mind. She'd seen him before, but she couldn't place where.

"I really do think it'll happen in the next few days, I'd say you have a good chance if you stick around here on the nights." She said absently, attempting to place his face among her memories.

The more she looked at him, the more familiar he became. God, did she make out with him last night? He certainly looked more wholesome than her usual type, and she cursed herself for picking someone so... incorrupt. But then it struck her, "You were with Belly at the bonfire."

He flushed slightly, his smile turning more bashful, "Yeah, yeah. I, um, I met her at this Latin convention years ago."

That made more sense. He was the kind of boy girls should save their first kisses for, and she wasn't the kind of girl that deserved that boy. She deserved meaningless hookups, a memory only embellished by random letters that she couldn't put together as an actual name. Ma... Matthew? Marcus? Masie? Madeline? Who knew.

She hated that she never knew.

He was perfect for Belly, and she hated how that made her heart squeeze unpleasantly, too. Not her. Never for her. Yet, this was good— whatever fondness she was starting to feel had to be cut off, because he would be Belly's and she wouldn't have the opportunity to ruin his summer.

"Oh. Cool." She forced a smile, "My aunt and Belly's mom are best friends, we always spend summer together."

He ducked his head sheepishly, "Yeah, she... she told me. At the party, I mean."

A sickly feeling settled within her. Honestly, after last summer, she dreaded to think what it was that Belly had said about her. Not that the girl would slander her by any means, but there just wasn't necessarily anything good to describe about her character in an introduction summary. Furthermore, if Belly had pointed her out amongst the crowd, it couldn't have been a sight that reflected brightly on her

She suddenly wanted to leave, suffocated by what he possibly did and didn't know about her. "I should get back," She said, forcing a smile again, "My aunt freaks out when I don't show up to breakfast."

"Oh, yeah, me too. I actually have this boat thing in like an hour I need to get to." He inclined his head slightly, and the smile that was still on his face made her think that maybe she'd been over analysing the whole idea that he'd already had a negative preconception of her from last night. "See you later, Lina."

"Bye, Cam. Enjoy your boat thing."

She made her way back to the summer house, discarding the bottles in the recycling before finding the others in the kitchen. The sound of the blender made her want to, irrationally, strangle Jeremiah. He grinned innocently at her, like she wasn't shooting him daggers as went about making his green juice.

"Morning, sunshine." He said musically, watching as she collapsed into a stool at the breakfast bar. The cereal bowl he pushed towards her— Frosties readily poured out and dashed with just enough milk to avoid sogginess, was the only thing preventing her from flipping him off. He waited until she had a mouthful before he turned on the blender again.

"Turn it off!" Conrad groaned from the living room.

Ah, her kindred spirit for the summer. She was surprised at her cousin's change of attitude when she'd arrived a few days ago, a far cry from the boy he'd been the year before. At Least some of the disapproval would be distributed away from her now. Beers on the porch at 3am was a rather fun cousin bonding activity, they'd discovered on their first night here.

Jeremiah flicked the blender up a setting, and she was certain the smoothie was well blended a good half a minute before he finally did turn it off. He poured out two glasses, handed her one and left momentarily to give Conrad the other.

It should be embarrassing to the pair of them that they were being babied— more so for Conrad, of course. She was younger than Jeremiah. Conrad had a whole year on him. Embarrassing. She'd make sure to remind him of that later.

Steven made his presence heard before it was seen, some song he'd been singing the night prior belting from his lungs. He took to annoying Jeremiah first, criticising his method of cooking eggs despite the fact that he could barely get bread out the other side of the toaster in a state that wasn't cremated. Belly followed soon after him, flip flops clicking against the floor.

Jeremiah pushed a bowl of cereal towards her, and as she sat next to Carolina, the older girl narrowed her eyes at her. "Who the fuck did that?" She reached for Belly's chin, angling her head so that the discolouration on her cheek was in plain sight. "Did someone hit you?"

She turned her head away, using her hair to obstruct the view of it. "I fell."

"I wasn't born yesterday, Belly, unless someone took an axe to your legs and yelled timber, I'm pretty sure your cheek wouldn't take the impact of a fall like that—"

"Please," She whispered desperately, sneaking a glance at Laurel who was watching Steven with a raised brow as he did some weird hip thrust, "Just drop it."

"This conversation isn't over, Isabel."

"Noted, mom."

Carolina, like the five year old she was, stuck her tongue out in response. Susannah's arrival was sunny— her eyes always seemed to have a light of excitement within them. When she was younger, it used to make her feel like every moment of everyday was special. Now it just made her ache. Her dad once admitted to her that he had no idea what uncle Adam had done to win her over— his twin brother was selfish, the kind of man who captured sunshine and bottled it away for himself, but somehow Susannah had managed to keep hers.

"Belly is going to be a debutant!" She was grinning so brightly, arms engulfing the youngest of the summer crew. Lina raised a brow, though truthfully she wasn't entirely surprised by the agreement.

Belly had been pushed to the shadows for years, and it wasn't hard to see how much she'd always wanted to feel like she was a part of something. There was only a year between them, but Steven and Jeremiah didn't have much room to treat her like she was too young when they were all in the same grade. They had with Belly though— over the summers when a year age difference felt like a millennium, they'd always cited it as an excuse to leave her behind when there was gatherings with friends. Carolina only got a taste of that isolation when the boys would go on "boys only outings," and she'd try to take advantage of the free time like it was just for the girls, painting nails and watching those movies the older three would never tolerate. Sometimes, when she was back home and thinking about everything late at night, she would regret not making Belly feel more included.

She had been scared the boys would simply tell her to stay home too. It felt silly though— Carolina had her own friends at those bonfires, so she didn't need them to attend such things. Yet, still, there was a bond she felt during those car journeys to and from the parties that she never wanted to risk losing.

"I'm sorry, like Belly? Like my sister? That thing right there?" Steven feigned incredulity.

Belly glared at him, "Shut up, cretin."

Carolina smiled to herself, repeating cretin under her breath. She needed to use that insult more often than she did.

"Okay, this is going to be so much fun. Just you wait. There is the tea, the auction, the rehearsal, the ball— of course. I got to write this down." She turned to get a notebook, then gasped, "We need to go shopping!"

She silently put her spoon down, suddenly feeling the need to disappear before she could be roped into the nuptials. The conversation was getting too loud for her pounding head, and the thought of her bed was the most appealing thing in the world. So, she deposited her bowl into the dishwasher and slipped away to her room to sleep off the hangover.

Lina was dragged out of bed a few hours later for Laurel's book signing, and she spent the first half an hour hiding the bottles of Chardonnay from Conrad because his annoyed expression was too just too fun to miss out on. Apparently, he wasn't enjoying the adult version of hide the spoon as much as she was. After afew hours had dragged by, she excused herself back to the house, stating she wanted to get down to the beach for the turtle hatches. It wasn't entirely a lie, she had planned on going out later on, but she also could have stayed a few more hours before then.

She was nursing a cup of coffee at the breakfast bar when the boys came back, arguing amongst themselves. "It was your idea, Conrad. Why are acting so moody about—"

"Shut up, man, I'm not moody." He snapped, brows furrowed as the three of them entered the kitchen.

"What's going on?" She questioned, letting her cup connect with the counter and resting her chin on her palm.

"Well, we got bored at the book signing so we thought we'd have a little fun and go to the drive in—"

"The drive in? As in the place Belly was having her date?" She raised a brow, purposely ensuring they could see the judgement in her expression.

Jeremiah shrugged, "Well, yeah. We thought we'd just show up and maybe have a little fun, but she got kind of mad so we left."

She scoffed, "Yeah, no shit, assholes. You exclude her from all the big kid things then the minute she gets to do something for herself you have to go and impose yourselves on it? Make fun of her? Seriously? You owe her an apology." She sent them her "Laurel look" which she happened to be a master at, and they ducked their heads sheepishly.

"Yeah, okay," Steven sighed out, and he and Jeremiah slumped up the stairs. Conrad stayed in the kitchen, retrieving a bottle of beer from the fridge and wordlessly handing her one. His brows were still furrowed, like there was some storm going on inside of him. He took a swing of the beer.

"What's up with you?" She emptied the remainders of her coffee into the sink, quickly washing the cup before taking a swing of her own beer.

"Nothing." He muttered, then shrugged at her like it was a stupid question.

She tilted her head at him, "Are you finally going through your rebellious teen stage? Cause I gotta say, Con, eighteen is a little late for that."

"Ha. ha." He said blankly.

Lina smirked slightly before her expression sombered, "Seriously, what's going on?"

"Nothing, I said I'm fine."

"It's just that with the whole football thing, and you don't normally drink this much—"

"What, because you're the picture of healthy coping mechanisms? You're not exactly in the position to be judging me when you haven't been sober for a whole day since—" He cut himself off before he could finish, but it wasn't hard to fill in the blanks.

She stared at him, swallowed, "Right. Message received."

Her fingers curled around the neck of her beer bottle, and she slipped off of the bar stool and out of the door. He might've said her name once, might've tried to call her back, but she didn't have it within her to have this conversation. She was sober, after all. No barrier to blur that mental anguish.

The beach was desolate, which she was grateful for considering there were normally a few stragglers left around midnight during peak summer— it was only half past eleven. She wasn't mad at Conrad, not really. It had been harsh of him to say it so tactlessly, but she'd also been prying at him when she wasn't willing to give a sliver of vulnerability away herself.

Sometimes she wanted to— be vulnerable, that is. The loneliness of it all made her feel this unbearable void inside of her, an ache. She wanted to be understood, wanted someone to know just how boundless her hurts were. But, at the same time, she didn't know how. Didn't have the words to explain, or the capacity to let herself feel anything long enough to even share it with someone else. It was like being sent into orbit without a tether to the real world, and trying to get back merely by hoping you'd float close enough to the atmosphere to fall back to earth again. She wasn't getting closer— she was getting further and further away.

There was nothing she could do about it. Carolina put the beer bottle back to her lips— one wasn't nearly enough to send her into any sort of tipsy state, but she wasn't ready to go back to the house and get more. She didn't like the taste of beer. She didn't like the taste of vodka or whiskey or rum. When she was sixteen she would drink fruity flavoured ciders and those cocktails you could buy in the cans, which Jeremiah and Steven always teased her about. Back then she didn't need to be wasted during parties, happy with the drink Susannah would let her take from the fridge and not need to touch the beer at the keggers.

Now, she took whatever she could get.

"Hey!" She startled, twisting her body to the looming figure. It was Cam, smiling at her sheepishly, "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."

"Oh," She said, blinking at him. It was jarring to be ripped out of her head sometimes, and she hadn't been expecting anyone, "No, that's okay."

He took that as an invitation to sit down, which it wasn't really— but she didn't entirely mind. "So," she said, "How was the date? Belly was really glad you asked her."

His lips pushed upwards further, "Yeah, um, really good. For a minute she seemed a little.... quite, but, I think it ended well."

"Ah," She nodded, "That will have been my cousins and her brother, they like to tease. I told them off though."

He nodded, like it was genuinely enlightening, "Oh, that makes sense. I thought I recognised the car— red jeep, right?"

"Jeremiah's pride and joy." She confirmed, "They just got a little bored at this book signing we were at for Belly's mom, I don't think they meant any real harm."

Cam shrugged, "S'cool. I didn't really notice."

She doubted that— for the little she'd observed about him, he also seemed to be the observational type. She didn't pull him up on it though. "You here for the turtles, too?" He asked, nodding towards a few nests a couple dozen feet away.

Oh. Well, technically no, but that had been her intention before the conversation with Conrad. "Yeah, but I don't have a good feeling about tonight. I actually think it might be another day or two before a hatch."

He nodded, then a funny kind of smile that she couldn't figure out the meaning of replaced his casual one, "But you still came out anyway?"

She gave him a small smile in return, "Well... you know, just in case."

He grinned, and she hated how she felt satisfaction in bringing it out of him. "Just incase," He repeated, then let himself fall quite for a few moments to watch the nests, "They actually, um, take two to seven days to dig their way to the surface after hatching, so maybe they have already."

Carolina nodded— she already knew that, but it was nice talking to someone else who did. Someone else who actually cared about the information. "It kinda sounds... terrifying. Like, imagine being born, it's all dark and you just have to dig. We have it easy, we're born and have all those doctors doing the hard work for us."

"No, you're right," He let out a laugh, shoulders shaking and everything, "I never thought of that comparison before."

"It's amazing, though, how they just know how to do that. Like—" She sat up straighter, pointing towards the sea animatedly, "—When they finally do get to water, they go into a frenzied swim for 24-48 hours until they get to depths where they're less vulnerable. That's...incredible. The inbuilt survival instincts. Nature is just... incredible."

He looked at her with something like appreciation, "So you're not just a casual turtle nest watcher, then?"

She gave a surprised laugh, "No, no... I... I'm pretty much the opposite of casual, actually."

He leant slightly towards her like he was giving away a secret, "Me too."

She narrowed her eyes slightly, "Prove it. Best turtle fact: go."

His answer was instant, "They have their own internal magnetic compasses for orientation."

"Man." Carolina muttered, nodding in approval, "Turtles are so much cooler than humans."

"That was so nerdy," Cam snorted, "Definitely something I would say, but still, nerdy."

They talked for a little longer, watched the nests until she grew tired and he was yawning at more frequent intervals. "We should probably call it a night," She suggested, "It'll start to get light soon anyways, so it'll be less likely they'll surface for a while."

He nodded, "Let me walk you back."

"Oh, no, that's okay. My house is only, like, a three minute walk away."

"I know," Cam shrugged, hands digging into his pockets, "But it's dark, and it would make me feel better knowing I made sure you didn't get murdered between here and your house."

Her lips twitched up slightly, and she could see he wasn't ready to relent. So she let him, listening intently as he told her about his boat trip that morning— it was part of an internship for marine biology, and she was genuinely interested in the details of it. It was only when she woke up the next morning, hangover free, that she realised she'd made it to bed without any more drinks.

HEY! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this little introduction to Cari & Cam. Obviously, things aren't going to be too heavily romanticised between them while he's with Belly because it's not in either of their morals to betray that. I will be wrapping up Belly and Cam pretty quickly though, so don't worry about having to wait too long! As always, feel free to share any thoughts you had they are greatly appreciated!— mads 💛