"So, Belle tells me you're a musician," Isaac comments as we walk down the long, sloping street towards the beach. "What kinda music do you play?"

"Classical, mostly," I answer. "Some jazz now and then."

"Oh, cool," he says. "I play guitar. Well, I know a few chords, anyway." He laughs. "What's that?" He points to the case in my hand. "A violin?"

"No, it's a ukulele."

"You mean the tiny gay guitar thing?"

He laughs. I don't.

"It's for my dad," I say.

He looks over at me and something catches his eye. "Hey—you got a thing there, like a smudge or something."

He reaches towards my cheek, the spot where the fading mark of Dylan's anger still shows faintly on my skin, and I jerk away from him reflexively. He withdraws his hand with a slight frown.

"Oh yeah, I forgot. Isabelle told me you don't like to be touched."

"Sorry," I say, dragging my fingers through my hair. "It's not that I can't be touched. I just have to be ready for it."

"That's what she said," he quips, laughing.

I can't help making a face. Either he's as awkward as I am, or his sense of humor needs some help.

"Seriously though," he goes on, "that must make it hard to date these days. No fast girls for you, huh?"

"No girls at all, actually," I say, the words leaving me before my brain catches up with my mouth.

He halts in his tracks and I shut my eyes, waiting for something awful. Dylan met Isabelle through Isaac after all, and if they get along, they must have similar opinions on some fronts. I keep walking, pretending I don't realize he's stopped, but a second later he catches up with me again.

"Shit. You're gay?" he asks, sounding nervous. "God, I'm so sorry for what I said earlier."

I cast my mind over our brief conversation. "About what?"

"The tiny guitar thing. I shouldn't have said it was gay."

I can't help laughing. It feels like we're running a three-legged race, and neither of us can get the rhythm right. "Don't worry about it. I've heard worse," I shrug.

"Really? Who from?" he asks, indignant.

I blink at him. "Uh...society? Homophobes? Dylan," I add.

"What? Dylan's a 'phobe? Naw," Isaac scoffs. "Isabelle wouldn't marry him if he was. He probably just teases you 'cause you're his brother."

"Yeah, probably," I mumble.

"Oh, there are the guys! Come on." He throws his arm around my shoulders, apparently having already forgotten the no-touching rule, and I cringe.

On the other hand, I'm glad he does. At least in one regard, it seems that Isaac and Dylan aren't cut from the same cloth.

'The guys' turn out to be a pair of somewhat generic frat-boy types named Spencer and Mike. They both attend the nearby state college where they're in their final year. Mike is working on a double major in Asian  Studies and Political Science, while Spencer studies Engineering. Isaac, I learn, is almost done with his EMT certification, having dropped out of college after his second year.

What brings them together, though, is surfing. Spencer and Mike are both dressed in black wet-suits, boards in hand when we join them on the edge of the sand. After introducing me, Isaac jogs over to an old Ford Explorer parked nearby, opens the back, and starts to strip out of his own clothes.

"Hey, Felix! Come and help me!" he yells, tossing me a towel. "Hold that up so I don't get fined for public indecency."

"Again," Spencer jokes.

"Uh, okay." I take the towel and hold it up like a screen. Isaac promptly sheds his shorts and I do my best to look at anything except his naked ass. Once he's got the  bottom half of his wetsuit on, I relax.

"Zip me up, will you?" he asks. I set the towel aside and come to help him, zipping up the back of his suit. As I do, I take a closer look at the tattoo on his left shoulder. He has several—all very tasteful, abstract geometric designs—and this one reminds me of the engravings on the ukulele. Without thinking, I trace it with my fingers, lightly brushing his skin.

"Whoo," he shivers, "cold hands!"

"Sorry! I—I like your tattoo," I stammer.

Instantly embarrassed, I zip the suit the rest of the way and step back. Here I am, complaining about being touched, and I go and initiate unwanted touching. Smooth.

He turns and grins up at me, sea-green eyes shining with laughter. "You're kind of adorable, for a dude, you know?" he says.

I don't know what to say to that, so I stare at him like a speechless idiot.

"Here, help me get this down."

Together, we get his surfboard off the roof-rack, and then I follow him down to the shore where Spencer and Mike are already playing in the breakers.

"You surf?" Isaac asks.

I shake my head.

"Next time you can borrow Spence's stuff—you're about the same size—and I'll teach you."

The fact that he's assuming there will be a 'next time' makes me a little happy, even if he is just being nice for Isabelle's sake.

"Today you'll just have to watch while I show off." He winks.

Then he joins the others and the three of them paddle out to where the larger swells roll in.

I sit on the sand and watch them, shielding my eyes against the late afternoon glare. It's a nice day, hardly any wind, and just the right temperature for sitting in the sun to feel pleasantly warm.

For a while, my attention is absorbed by the three figures on the water. They're skilled and graceful, once they get to their feet, racing back and forth across the low waves and then tumbling into the surf before padding back out to try again.

Eventually, though, I get sleepy and lie back in the soft sand. Above me, the dome of sky stretches, sketched with fine feathers of cloud, a few stray brushstrokes of white on blue. I close my eyes, lulled by the rhythmic swish and rumble of the waves, and between one thought and the next, I fall asleep.

A rush of freezing water wakes me with a rude, sudden shock, and I sit up gasping. I can't have slept more than twenty minutes or so, but it's been long enough for the tide to creep up the beach to where I lay and take me by surprise. My first thought is for my messenger bag, which holds my music books, and then for the ukulele.

I scramble to my feet in the shallow water and see the black case floating about twenty feet away, an incoming wave closing on it fast. Sprinting towards it, I snatch it up and hold it above my head just as the wave crashes over me, knocking me to my knees and drenching me in a wash of freezing salty water.

I struggle back to my feet, still holding the little case high, but the sand is soft and shifting beneath me, and I can't keep my balance.

Then strong hands grab me and haul me to shore—Mike on one side and Isaac on the other. Further down the beach, Spencer lopes from the waves, my messenger bag in hand. All three of them are laughing hysterically.

"Dude! You live in a beach town! Have you, like, never been to the beach before?" Mike gasps, doubled over with mirth as he and Isaac dump me in the sand.

"Hey, are you okay?" Isaac asks, kneeling next to me and sounding concerned even though it's clear he's been laughing too. "We saw it happening, but we couldn't get to you in time."

"I'm fine," I say, though I'm shaking with adrenaline, shame, and cold. I get to my feet, brushing off Isaac's help, and stumble up the sandy slope to the edge of the beach and the nearest picnic bench. Setting the ukulele case on the table, I open it with trembling hands and breathe a sigh of relief.

The canvas kept out the water, and the instrument is fine.

My bag didn't fare so well. Spencer sets it next to me, along with a pile of soaking wet music books.

"Sorry," he says. "I guess the top was open, and they fell out."

I stare at them for a moment. They were expensive, filled with my personal notes and markings, and deeply important to me.

They're ruined.

I scoop them up, walk over to the nearby trash bin, and drop them in. I toss my bag in, too, for some reason, and then I keep walking, headed for the bus-stop, uke case in hand, dripping as I go.

Isaac runs to catch up with me. "Felix! Hey—hey, wait! You can't go like this—you're soaked. At least dry off. Come on, we've got plenty of towels."

He grabs for my arm but I pull away from him.

"Don't touch me," I snap. "Look, I'm sorry. I have to go. Please don't tell Dylan about this, okay? Or Isabelle. Please."

"Why? It was just an accident—something to laugh about someday," he says, perplexed.

"For you, maybe," I return.

For me, it's just more proof that I'm a freak who can't visit the damned beach without turning into a walking disaster.

"I'm sorry. I'll see you later."

I turn away again, and this time he doesn't follow.

Maybe he finally gets it.

His sister and my brother might be getting married, but that doesn't mean that he and I can be friends.