Page 2 of Under the Waves
I preferred the silence.
3
Poppy Wells
Mondays were my least favorite day of the week because instead of just sneaking cash out of my purse or using our food budget, my mom straight up demanded I handed over the money she thought was hers, even though I busted my ass off working two jobs last week to secure it. Though, it only took both of my managers one week to realize who I was and not so subtly fire me because the position had been filled by amore suitablematch.
I hated this town.
However, my mom surprised me this morning because not only did she take all the cash I got from my last week of work, she also took all the money from my purse too, and now I was standing in the queue to get my coffee and I didn’t have anything on me.
I groaned as I searched my back pockets for any loose coins.
It was pointless though; I didn’t have anything.
She took all of it.
I wasn’t even surprised anymore. That woman took and took from me until I had nothing left to give, and even if I was nothing but a pile of bones on the floor, she’d take those too thinking she could get something for them on the black market.
“Hi, what can I get you?”
My eyes shot up. A few seconds went by, and the barista’s polite smile started straining with impatience. Her eyes rolled as she popped a cherry-red sucker back into her mouth. I glanced down at the white name tag that readIndiein black cursive handwriting from a marker pen.Great. I was sure me and Indie were about to become best of friends.
“I’m sorry, I—” I started but I was cut off.
“She’ll have our usual,” the girl beside me said before turning to me, waiting for me to say something. I nodded, unsure how to respond.How did you even respond to that?Or was that just me being stupidly dumb in social situations once again?
As she turned back to Indie, her chestnut brown hair and cream-colored bow swayed with her, along with the light blue denim mini skirt she wore. A small white, lace tank top was mostly covered by a dark blue cardigan that hugged her frame with multiple sewn on silver stars and the wordsGood Riddance Tourcursively sewn across the sleeves.
“Oh, also could I have the team’s lunch order please?” she smiled before showing the barista what I presumed was a student ID of some kind attached to a light blue flowery lanyard.
“You got it, Lia.” Indie took the ID, scanned the barcode, and handed it back before disappearing out back.
From the lanyard alone, I knew she went to Hawthorne Hills High—also known as the high school fromthe other side of the train tracks. If you weren’t born into generations of old money or weren’t part of the tight inner circles of the rivaling mafia dynasties operating beneath the quiet, sleepy beach town pretense of Hawthorne Hills, you wentthere. Which was also exactly where my lonely ass ended up.
Another reason why this small town sucked.
If the state of the building itself didn’t communicate its lack of funding, the state and attitude of the students who attended it did. Hidden away on what used to be the main street but was now just considered the locals corner of town, Hawthorne HillsHigh’s rustic exterior looked like an extension of Oxford with its intrinsic brick work and large winding towers covered in vines of ivy and moss. A creaky iron gate surrounded the school making it look more like a prison made to keep students inside, and once neat hedgerows now sprouted from the ground in uneven patterns, clawing at the pavement.
Bright neon strikes of pink, and orange decorated the walls with nearly no brickwork left untouched, and there were a handful of windows that were either cracked or fully boarded up with wooden planks from students throwing bricks through the glass.
Before I moved away a few years ago, the principal got arrested for grooming underage students, but as always in this town, he was given a warning whilst the children he abused were never seen again. The police blamed their disappearance on drugs, suicide, depression—the usual teenage shit that labeled us as bad influencers.
All of the cases were shut the day they were opened and were now gathering dust on shelves that would never see daylight again.
It should’ve surprised me, it should’ve shocked me, but it didn’t. I always knew there was a whole other world existing within this town—one of old money and corruption. Of elites, and power, and mafia legacies. It was a world I would never be a part of, and I couldn’t figure out if that was a blessing or a curse.
On the surface, Hawthorne Hills may appear to be a small, sleepy coastal town on the coast of Oregon with natural roaming forests and crystal-clear glacial waters, but between the cracks of perfection lay a world more dangerous than could ever be imagined—one fueled by dynasties of hatred and rivalry stained with blooded hands and the taste of deception.
I had my suspicions, my instincts, but in the end, there was truly no point in playing a guessing game inside my head as it was never going to be something I would ever need to waste a thought about. Two separate worlds. Two sides of the train tracks.
And I would always only belong to one.
“Oh, by the way, E, we’ve ran out of sprinkles, so you’ll need to put those on the next shipment order.”
The sound of Indie grumbling as she walked past another one of the cafes employees startled me from my thoughts. There was an unmistakable British accent tainting her words, and I wondered how I’d missed that small detail before.
“What do you mean we’ve ran out of sprinkles?” One of the blond-haired baristas squealed in horror before following Indie around the back.