The Secret - 1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was an early bright morning as the sun’s light glimmered on the surface of the beach water in the city of Carlsbad. The city sat atop a huge cliff, overlooking the ocean. The people began to fill the streets: an old man walked his dog along the sidewalk, a young runner held her iPod firmly in her hand as she darted through the passersby, and a boy of ten sailed his way across the main street on his skateboard. The trees swayed back and forth as the wind glided through them calmly. This was happening from what I saw in the large windows I looked through.

The sun shined upon the cottage-like house, with pale olive stucco and dark brown wood that framed it. The light broke through the windows of the room on the far right, my bedroom. I laid myself across the bed; the left side of my face was flat on the sheets. My thick bronze hair covered my eyes. I managed to peek through the strings of my hair, squinting because of the strong sun rays. The white sheets barely covered my back. I looked at the alarm clock on my night stand, it read ten-thirty.

I cursed and pushed myself off the bed and slammed my shin against the thick bed frame and yelped. I forgot about that. I walked over to the body-sized mirror on the wall. I stared at the young man who stood before me. He wore a handsome face with red-blotchy cheeks. His nose, ears, and forehead were pink. He had thick wavy hair that hung to his lower neck and his dark green eyes twinkled from the light. The boy was five foot eleven and thin, but had a muscular tone to his arms and pecks. He checked his teeth and flexed his biceps.

The door opened behind me and walked in a young girl with the same face as mine, the only difference between us is that she had breasts and long chestnut hair. She raised an eyebrow.

“James! What are you doing? Modeling?” She screeched.

“What do you want?” I asked firmly.

“Mom says to hurry or you will be late!”

I pulled down my briefs.

“Eww! James!”

She slammed the door shut as I stood there laughing. Quinn was my twin sister that I briefly spoke to, we hadn’t coped much since high school began. So people never knew we were related, unless they asked.

I hit the floor and pulled off the briefs from my ankles and slipped on the red speedo. I grabbed my red jacket and put on flip flops. I ran out of the room into the long hallway and down the stairs where the living room stood. The front door was wide open. I headed out and ran for the black Volvo that waited on the driveway. Opening the door was not hard at all, but getting in was fearful. My mother wore her hair in a tight bun. and wore a vile look on her face. She wore little makeup and bore wrinkles around her eyes. She was upset as I would have assumed.

“James…I’m going to be late, again!” She punctured.

“I’m sorry I forgot to set the alarm,” I complained.

She rolled her eyes and drove out of Clevenger Road and onto the main street. Once we hit the city area, we caught traffic.

“Damn it!” We both cursed.

“Mom, I have to go!”

When she came to the next stoplight I opened the passenger door and jumped out.

“James! What are you doing? You can’t run to the school like-“

I was too far to even hear her voice, but I glanced down at my speedo and flip flops. It took me a few minutes to reach Maverick Way. The school stood in front of me. I quickly ran through the nearest entryway. When I opened the door to the gym I could hear the sound of the guys laughing in the locker rooms. I made my way to the empty swimming pool. The girls were running inside the basketball gym, as I passed by some of them whistled and whooped. I laughed and walked into the large room with the swimming pool.

Nobody was in it yet, but every two seconds I could hear the water slap itself against the walls. I took off my jacket and threw it to the side along with my flip flops.

I dove into the deep end, the water felt so nice and cool. I managed to kick my feet and swam to the bottom and laid myself on the floor, like if I were on my bed. For a minute I stayed that way and pushed myself to the surface where I began my warm-up of fifteen laps. I could hear the team walk into the gym, their laughs and crude jokes filled the room.

“Hey James is already in the pool. I didn’t even see him!” I heard Liam yell.

“He’s always doing that,” said Jimmy.

“Well that’s why he made this year’s Water Polo Captain,” Coach rumbled, “See! This is a perfect example of a great leader, ya’ll should be happy that you chose a good team member! Ain’t that right Frat?”

I stuck out my hand while doing my third lap. The coach laughed. “Well, don’t stand there all day now, eh? Get the hell in there!”

I heard them all dive into the pool and follow me in my laps.

After our warm-up we all put on our gear and passed the ball around doing our daily routine of drills: holding the ball between our feet and knees, holding the ball out of the water with one or two hands. I usually played defense with Jimmy and Nick, sometimes we would mess around and talk while the coach wasn’t walking.

For the past couple years I’ve been serious with water polo, I remember the first time I played the sport, it was in the pool of Jimmy’s backyard, the summer of our seventh grade year, I nearly drowned from trying to catch the ball. I was really small most of my grade school years until freshman year, puberty hit and I grew into my face, I stopped wearing kid’s clothes and wore a shoe size eleven.

“Okay, mavericks you guys can go wash up and head on home.”

The team hurried out of the pool and ran for the showers. I stayed behind to swim more laps.

“You can never get tired can you?”

I stopped and looked to see who said that.

He had a defined face with broad shoulders; he was much more built than I was. His dark brown eyes were fixated on mine. His spiky hair looked too perfect for the way it was cut. He had a smirk on his face. Peter Helix has been my best friend since the second grade. So we were pretty close and when I mean close, we’ve experienced some ups and downs.

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It was almost as if yesterday I was making a sandcastle on the playground at my elementary school ten years ago:

I spoke to no one for the first part of the year and I could never be with Quinn, because she hung out with all of her friends. I would often sit alone on the bench, but one day I decided to do something useful, both a bucket and shovel weren’t being played with so I picked them up and played in the sand. Renaldo Lewis decided to throw a large red tether ball at my face. I was practically knocked over.

“Idiot, pass back the ball!” He yelled, laughing at what he had just done.

My nose started burning and I saw blood on my shirt. I freaked out and began to cry.

“Hey you better say sorry,” cried a voice.

I looked up to find Pete pushing Renaldo to the ground. Renaldo quickly got up and walked away. Pete walked up to me and held out his hand. I looked at it.

“Your s’ppose to take it, dude.”

I grabbed his hand as he pulled me up and that was the beginning of our friendship.

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“Earth to James!” Pete roared.

I drifted back into reality. He shook his head and walked into the locker rooms. I continued to swim back and forth, all the guys were leaving one by one. I jumped out of the pool and followed them outside. Jimmy, Pete, Noah, Nick, and Liam walked in a pack. I called after them. They didn’t hear me, so I ran after them.

“Hey guys—”

I fell into a puddle of rain that had mud in it. I heard the guys laughing hysterically.

“Oh there’s our captain!” Pete joked.

I managed to get up. I was covered with mud. The guys continued to laugh.

“Uh… I think I’m gonna go back and take a shower, I’ll see you guys later,” I mumbled, both embarrassed and humiliated.

I walked back into the gym, it was quiet; the girls were done with practice and Coach left as soon as our swim was over. The locker room was empty when I turned on the lights. Water was running and the room was filled with steam. I walked towards the showers, where the water was coming from. Someone was crying.

As I came forward to the solid object against the wall, I kept my cool.

It was a boy, naked with a buzz cut, he was trembling.

“Hey,” I said softly.

He held his knees up to his face, wrapping his arms around them, so I couldn’t see his face. I reached out my hand to touch his back. He screamed and I jumped back.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, “I’m not here to hurt you.”

I took a closer look at his arms, they were bruised. He was hurt.

“Are you okay?” I asked stupidly.

Of course he’s not, you idiot, he’s crying!

I ran back to my locker and grabbed a towel. He was still shaking when I returned.

“Here,” I showed him the towel.

His face was still buried in his knees.

I opened the towel and knelt forward so I could wrap it around him, as I managed to get it over him, he looked up at me.

His pink lips were pinched and his face was rather pink, probably from the crying, but what made me freeze was his big blue eyes. They twinkled innocently at me. I felt like I was struck by lightning. I felt trapped in this strange meeting. A slight rush ran up my spine and I had a feeling I never experienced before. All I could think about was his face, why was it so appealing? And why did I feel so awkward at this moment? Why did he look at me like that? I felt my heart beating loudly; we stood like that, staring at each other for a minute that felt like an hour. My fingers were getting sweaty as I wiped them against my thigh.

His eyes shifted to my waist, I followed them.

My dick stood straight up, poking out at my speedo. My eyes widened and I shot up, covering it with my hands and turned the other way.

I heard him get up.

“It’s okay,” he said with a stern voice.

“I— I’m sorry.”

I waited a few seconds for it to go down; when it did, I faced him.

He had the towel wrapped around his waist. He was the same height as me and he had a slender build, but a little bigger than me.

“Are you okay?” I asked once more.

He froze for a second and walked towards the locker.

He wouldn’t answer and I was confused and curious as to why he was there in the first place.

“What happened?” I asked harshly.

He mumbled, “Nothing.”

“Nothing? You couldn’t have possibly been lying there for no reason!”

He grabbed his clothes out of his locker and slipped on his briefs underneath the towel.

“C’mon let me help you?” I asked.

“I don’t need help!” He stammered.

He quickly slipped on some board shorts and a blue t-shirt along with a pair of flip-flops. He walked out of the room, but I quickly followed him, pulling my jacket over me.

“Dude, you were sitting there, crying, and from what I saw, scared,” I declared.

“Just leave it James!”

He knew my name!

“Wait! How do you—”

“You’re captain of the water polo team and the school jock. Is that enough?”

He had an aggressive tone.

“Hey what did I do? I helped you back there, now I should receive a thank you!” I commanded.

“Thank you!” He blurted.
We were walking down Maverick Way.

It seemed that I had done something to him or he was just mad that I found him there crying in the first place. But the other problem I faced was that I didn’t know him and he knew me.

“What’s your name?”

“Clark Ryan,” he said, “I sat behind you all of sophomore year in Spanish three and we rode the bus together in elementary school and had first, third, and fifth grade together. “

I felt humiliated, stupid, and ashamed. Here was this boy who knew me for so long and I never noticed or cared to notice him. I’m a jerk!

He caught the flustered expression on my face.

“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled.

“It’s okay.”

I continued walking home, but we ended up walking in the same directions, me, a little behind him, since he walked faster. I began to notice that we were heading towards the same paths and hitting the same streets and when we finally came down to the last street before Clevenger, my heart started racing. He stopped at Clevenger and looked at me. I panicked.

He continued down the street.

Shit! Did he live with me too!

He walked passed my house and walked up the street. I stopped to see which house he lived in. He stopped at the large wooden house that I thought nobody had lived in for years. Nobody ever came out of that house. Clark opened the front door and hurried in, shutting it behind him.

I stood there looking at the house for awhile. Something about Clark made me attracted to him. I don’t know what it was, but I wanted to talk to him. There was part of me that couldn’t wait to see him again, something I dared not release; it was something that has been hidden for a very long time. But that was the first day I let it free.

As the sun cradled into the ocean, the skies turned pink and the water was black. The first star appeared into the sky and the birds raced into the trees. I walked towards my house and yawned loudly. This was the beginning of something new.