It had been a week since Staton, and I had come home from getting married. Everyone was still furious with us that we would have hidden it from them. The silent treatment was getting on my nerves.

It was yet another day that I didn't want to face the music and spend any time with my friends. We needed to though, we couldn't live like this much longer. The silent dinners, everyone rushing off to go be in another part of the house just to avoid talking about anything that could annoy anyone.

"This is going to be rough, isn't it?" I asked Staton. I tied the strings on the top of my swimsuit, making sure not to tie them too tightly. There was going to be enough tension just with the friend group. I didn't need the added pull on my shoulders.

"Yeah, probably. I'm just glad they all agreed to it. This has become such a mess." I nodded. Pulling out my earrings and setting them on the dresser.

"We better get going then." I glanced one last time at my reflection. The muddy green swimsuit hugged my skin tightly, leaving small indents wherever the material would end. I would need to buy a new suit that fit better. My mother had purposely bought this one too small just to say I could wear a smaller size. She'd always hoped that one day it'd be too big.

"Let's do this." Staton mutters, and the lack of excitement was quite apparent in his tone. No one was ready for today.

~*~

It took us a little under two hours to get everyone wrangled and to the beach. Normally this wouldn't be that bad except for the fact that the beach was literally in our backyard.

"I don't want to sit right there. Let's move the blankets further down." Aria pointed at the blankets that Staton and Breygan were trying to line up for us. Both the boys glanced up at her, holding low growls in their throats as they moved the blankets for the fifteenth time.

"This is perfect Aria. Why don't we just sit down?" I grabbed her arm, coaxing her towards the spot. The flat sand dotted the beach from our failed attempts.

"It is, isn't it? I did really good, but now we have to dig out the sand for our butts. We will need to move the blankets for just a minute." She rushed forward, grabbing the blanket out of Stanton's hand. Flipping it forward about two feet. She dropped to her knees and started digging.

"This will be your spot Maple, and this will be mine, and Julia can sit right here," she pointed to each spot. "I don't care where the boys sit. They can run over there and pick their own spot for all I care." She waved in the distance, refusing to make eye contact with either of them.

No one wanted to argue, so we all just took the seat she told us to. The tension was so thick even the ocean waves didn't seem calm and peaceful.

The boys grabbed a football, deciding that tossing it around was better than sitting down to talk about our feelings.

"Finally, I can get that asshole out of my hair." Aria shook out her blonde bun, letting the wavy curls cascade down her back. She put on some overly dark sunglasses, even though the sun hadn't quite popped through the clouds yet.

"Careful, she's married to one of them now." Julia bumped Aria in the ribs, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah yeah, sorry, poor me guys." I mumbled. Feeling slightly annoyed already. I couldn't understand why they were so hurt by the situation. Staton and I got married. That was it. We've been dating for years now. It shouldn't have been that big of a shock to them.

"Oh shut up, no poor me for you. Breygan and I have been together for just as long, and your debacle set us back further than ever. I want to get married one day. I want to have the big wedding, and he doesn't want anything to do with that."

"With a wedding in general, or did he specifically say you?" Julia questioned.

"With me, because I asked him if he ever wanted to get married and he said one day he would like to. So then I asked him if he had any plans on how he would propose and he flat out told me it would depend on the girl when he finally met her, because he'd want to make sure it was something she would like. Ugh!" Aria groaned, collapsing onto the blanket, freeing her hands from supporting her so she could cover her face.

"I don't know why you still hang around that boy?" I mumbled, fiddling with the end of the blanket. Every time she spoke about how Breygan treated her, it drove me insane. He was awful to her.

"Well, not all of us find that fairytale dream that you are just living Maple, now do we?" she scoffed.

"She's not wrong Aria. Breygan has been a piece of shit the entire time you've dated him. Can you even tell us how long you two have actually been dating? No, because it's been off more than it's been on, you just sleep with him whenever he wants you to." If I had a drink near me, I'd take a sip and spit it back out.

"Thanks Jules, so glad you've got my back." Aria groaned. I wasn't sure what she wanted us to say. If I had been in a horrible relationship, I'd love it if my friends told me. All we were trying to do was to be good friends for her.

"Always, and you need to shut up, too. At least you've got a guy that seems somewhat interested in you. I haven't even gotten that yet." Julia pops off, always feeling like the fifth wheel in the group.

"Or even better, we can stop comparing our guy stories and just be friends?" I looked around the beach. There was no one around. us, why were we still bickering? Staton and Breygan had moved further down the beach with the football, and everyone else was closer to the water, walking mindlessly with either their partner or their own friends.

"This is why we need more girl time. It's been killing me not having someone I can talk to about all of this stuff with. I need to leave Breygan, but I don't know how to when he lives in the same house." Aria finally sat up and decided it was time to face the world, and no longer cover her eyes in annoyance.

"I don't know what to tell you, but he's been pissing enough people off that maybe we can just push him out of the house. He can either get on board with us, or he can get the hell out." I said.

"Yeah, good luck with that, plus him staying and us just not being together doesn't work. I have no clue what I need to do, but something needs to be figured out here."

"Let's talk about something else guys. I'm so sick of hearing about boy problems and everything else. You guys seem to forget about me all the time." Aria and I both turn to look at Julia.

"We've never forgotten you!" We both shout at the same time. Julia jumps. The sound of our voices lining up startled all three of us.

"It feels like it all the time, plus I feel like you have little to really complain about how things have been going for you. Other than your shitty relationship, you've got to just sit at home and do nothing the whole time we've been here. Maple, you have the perfect relationship and you quite enjoy your job. I enjoy my job too, so that's a net positive, but I have no one to share anything with, and I was drugged and almost date raped within minutes of being here. You guys had to take me to the hospital, and I've been terrified since, of something bad happening to me." Julia rambles on.

"Maybe this isn't a comparative thing, Julia. We all went through the tragic event at the grocery store in Oregon. You can't say your trauma is worse than mine because you don't have a boyfriend." Aria snaps back.

"Both of you are wrong." I paused for a moment, looking at the ocean to gather my thoughts. "We've all had a really rough time, and we shouldn't be comparing anything from our experience to the others. We need to just be happy that we still have each other and realize that it's been hard all around."

"There you go again, being the mother of the group." Aria's snide comment throws me off.

"Sorry, I'm always just trying to help."

"It's okay. We all literally love you for it." Julia grabs the two of us and pulls us into the best hug she can manage in a seated position.

"I wonder how the boys are doing?" Aria questions.

~*~

Staton's POV

"Man, what the hell is wrong with you?" I led Breygan further down the beach to get away from the girls. We needed to sit down and really figure out what was going on between him and Aria. The group wasn't going to be able to handle any more of his outbursts just because he was mad at her, or she was mad at him. We needed to come together.

"What? What do you want from me?" Breygan asks, throwing the football back in my direction. I placed my hands up to protect my face, catching the ball and bringing it into my body.

"Let's get serious here. What is going on with you and Aria? You can't keep treating her like shit and taking it out on the group when she gets mad at you." Breygan's shoulders dropped. He immediately grew tense.

"Stay out of it." He snarled, placing his hands up for me to throw the ball to him again. I shook my head.

"I'm serious, and I'm not staying out of it. What the hell is going on?"

"I love her, but can't stand to be around her. There you understand, now throw the damn ball."

"No, I don't understand. You can't just treat your emotions like that." Breygan rolled his eyes, closing the distance between us. He took a defeated seat in the sand. I followed suit, sitting next to him to look at the ocean while we spoke.

"I love her so much, but I don't know how to handle it. I say these things that are rude, and she gets mad, and I can't seem to ever fix the issue once it's there. I've hurt her too much I need to just move on and find a different girl, but there's no one like Aria. She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I just can't be without her, but damn, do I hate the guy I am with her." Breygan shook his head, and it was shocking to me that he was actually opening up.

"Have you talked to her about any of that?"

"Did you not hear me? All I do is piss her off." Apparently, I had struck a nerve by asking my question.

"Oh, I heard you, every single word of it. But you can't fix a problem between two people by yourself. You will always need her to help you fix the problem. Unless you are willing to admit that she is perfect and you've just been an asshole, so the only problem here is you?"

"Yeah, that's the answer right there. I'm the asshole." Breygan shakes his head, looking down at the sand in front of us. "I just need to figure out how to fix things."