Waiting for Us Read Free Page A

meal. As if I’m not aware of him enough already. It’s really distracting and making it hard to concentrate on the conversation taking place around me. Marcus is sitting on my other side and he keeps nudging my foot whenever I miss something important that was said. I must seem out of it, though because my mother finally mentions it.
    "Hailey, are you okay honey? You don't seem like yourself. Are you feeling sick?"
    "Yeah mom, I'm fine, just tired I guess," I say with a shrug. At this point, Cory puts his arm around me, leaning down towards my ear as if he’s going to whisper in it.
    "Hailey you need to tone down the partying." I turn my head to glance at him as I hear everyone laughing at his comment and realize our faces are closer than I thought. There're only about six inches separating our lips and I want more than anything to lean forward and connect them. Instead, I smile up at him and try to come up with a reply.
    "Yeah, I need to stop being such a party animal."  He laughs along with the others and winks at me before picking up his glass of water and taking a sip.
    After dinner, Marcus and I played Boggle with my parents. I play Boggle like a boss so of course I beat them all. Not to brag but I have a rather extensive knowledge of the English language for my age. After a little gloating and celebrating I run up to my room, throwing my toothbrush and some clothes for tomorrow in my pink backpack since I'm sleeping over at Marcus' house. When I say clothes for tomorrow, I mean a bathing suit and board shorts. That’s pretty much the extent of my wardrobe for the next two months. I finish zipping up my bag and I say a quick goodbye to my parents, before heading across the street.
    The O’Connor’s house is like a second home to me. Over the years, I have spent a lot of time here, almost as much as at my own house. Their bungalow style cottage with the large front porch was built by Marcus' grandfather in the 1940's, so his family's roots run deep in Bradburyport. My family has only been coming here since my parents bought our house when Jake was a baby, but my mom grew up on the Cape, in a nearby town. My dad is a city boy, born and bred in Boston. Sometimes I think he misses living in the midst of all the noise and chaos, but my parents didn't want to raise us in that environment. He still works in downtown Boston so he gets his city fix on a daily basis.
    Lexham, where we live, when we're not at the beach, is a medium sized town, but the crime rate is pretty much nonexistent. There is also virtually nothing for teenagers to do for fun...maybe that's why there's never been a crime issue? Everyone tends to stay home and wallow in boredom.  So many times I've wished that my parents had instead settled somewhere in the city. There's always something going on and you can feel the energy of it as if it's a living, breathing entity.
    My dream is to attend Beacon University in Boston. It’s my mom and dad's alma mater and where they met when they were in their junior year. The campus is beautiful, situated along the Charles River. I'm a sucker for the old brick buildings with ivy growing up the sides and there are even some of the original cobblestone sidewalks that have survived for hundreds of years. I'd always been partial to the area it’s located in because there’s always something new to do. Sometimes on weekends during the school year my parents will take us into Boston on a Saturday morning and we will stay overnight, in a hotel, in the heart of the city. When we’ve gone in the past, we spend the weekend acting like visiting tourists and we always come home with some sort of souvenir to remember it by.
     
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    Marcus and I spend the next couple of hours sitting side by side on their brown leather love seat watching Jaws. You'd think with all the time we spend in the ocean that would be the last movie we would want to watch, but it’s actually a favorite of both of ours. We’ve been cramming our