Because Of Him

When you cared

When we arrived at the beach, of course it was empty. It was in the middle of night. Who the hell would be at the beach at this time? Yeah. Us.

My sister pulled over in the parking lot, beside the spot Nash had parked in as well where we all exited our assigned rides. The wind was heavy and I had a feeling I was practically close to having my limbs frozen off. The sea shore was dark and looked like dirty muck as it clashed into the sand. Nash pulled out some blankets from his car. "Let's go." He said.

"What're we gonna do here?" I asked.

"Well what the hell do you think?" Dylan hissed

"I don't f*****g know! Okay!?" I said. All I've been doing this whole time was ask questions in the kindest way possible, and all I've been getting is sassy looks and remarks when I didn't even want to be here.

"Dylan, just shut the f**k up," Hayes said as he hit him in the stomach and Dylan backed off. "We're just here to spend the night."

"In the middle of the beach?"

"Yeah."

"Does that sound like a good idea?"

"It's not suppose to be good. It's suppose to be different." Hayes said as Nash threw him a blanket. In the distance of the beach I could see several bodies, their backs were faced to me and I couldn't see anything much except their shadows that were reflecting off from the sand. Nash took my sister's hand and they ran off to the farther side of the beach. Leaving most of us standing there awkwardly facing one another.

"Do you think it would be a bad idea to go swimming right now?" Riley stupidly asked.

"Oh I don't know, depends. If you're planning on freezing your d**k off then hey, go ahead." I said sarcastically which caused Hayes, Dylan and Logan to chuckle as Riley glared at me. Riley took off into the water, ignoring my sassy remark. Logan and Dylan followed him as well, to make sure he didn't get into any s**t. Which left Hayes and I. "I'm sorry about them." Hayes said, as we both started trudging through the sand to make ourselves over to the bodies in the distance that I had seen earlier. As we got closer I saw the faces more and saw that it was carter and Taylor, along with 2 other guys that I did not know of, just yet.

"Honey, you know Taylor and carter right?" Hayes asked

"Of course" I said as I flashed Taylor and carter a smile. Taylor gave me a wave and a wide smile as carter gave me a shying glance.

"Honey, this is jack and jack. Also known as gilinsky and Johnson!" Hayes gestures towards 2 boys. One with brown hair and with eye brow game more on point than mine was, and one that had blonde hair and probably the cutest smile that I've ever seen. "Nice to meet ya" gilinsky and Johnson said in unison. I stood there awkwardly as they all made small talk.

"So are you guys coming along with the 10 destinations thing?" Hayes asked towards the guys.

"Maybe. Probably for a few of them" Taylor said.

Hayes's POV:

"Hayes, what the f**k is Riley doing?," Gilinsky asked me as he pointed out to the empty cold sea shore which only had Riley swimming in it. "Is that bastard wanting to freeze his balls off?"

"I don't know what the hell he was thinking. He just wanted to get in the water I guess" I replied.

"Let's just go after him. Who knows, maybe he'll drown." Taylor said sarcastically as they took off closer to the water. I stopped and glanced over my shoulder where I saw carter with his hands in his pockets, going up to honey. She had a small smile that crept onto her cheeks and if I saw correctly, that she was blushing.

I felt my jaw clench and my teeth start to grit. "Hayes?" Taylor said

"Yeah?"

"You coming?" I stared back at the water where most of the guys were watching Riley swim in the cold water where you could barely see anything. "Yeah...I'm coming" I muttered

Honey's POV:

"Alright. So tell me why you went along with the 10 destinations s**t?" Carter said as he giggled towards me with his hands shoved into his pockets which made his shoulders arch a bit. I laughed. "I didn't choose to"

"Then-?"

"My sister. She sort of, uh, made me come along." I didn't feel like telling carter about the bucket list my sister had made. It was either he would tell Hayes and ruin whatever it is that we had, or, carter would see me differently now.

"I see," Carter said quietly said. "Wanna sit?" He gestured towards the blankets that were laid out onto the sand. "Sure." Carter and I sat down on the blankets. I stared out at Hayes who kept glancing over his shoulders towards us and his fists curled up. And his body looked tensed from a distance.

"So how are you recovering after the party?" Carter asked.

"I'm doing fine."

"Have you written anything?"

"How did you know I started writing again?"

"The journal."

"Huh?"

"The journal," carter pointed out "the journal that you're holding right now" he said as a smile and small laugh escaped his lips.

"Oh," I laughed shyly "I've been writing a little bit. Not a lot. Just a fair amount."

"Mind if I take a peek?"

"Go ahead" I said and I handed carter the journal. His eyes started flipping through pages and I could hear his fingertips scrawling through page by page by its corners. I stared back at Hayes who was now staring at me. Or, carter and I. With a dead on serious look. Like something was bothering him. My phone buzzed and it was a text from harmony.

From: harmony

Shopping tomorrow?

My fingers did a little dance before replying back.

To: harmony

Gone on a little..."vacation" I'll be back soon.

I slid my phone back into my pocket and didn't bother waiting for a reply. "Wow...these are great." Carter said as he flipped through several more pages.

"You think so?" I asked

"Of course I do...are these ones about Hayes?" He said with a soft expression on his face. Which I couldn't decide if it was anger or sadness that was tied in. He chewed on his bottom lip like he was trying to hold back on what he was about to say.

"I...don't know." And, I was telling the truth. When I wrote those things. I actually don't fully know if they were about Hayes...after what my sister had said earlier about how he actually won't ever really love me, maybe I was just in love with the fake feelings that Hayes showed me. His caring affections and his kisses. They were strong enough to bring out something inside of me that was curled up for so long. It was so strong that I...ended up writing again. All because of him.

"Actually," I said to carter. "They're not."

"Really?" It looked like a sigh of relief escaped his mouth and disappeared into thin air from the cold.

"Yeah. I guess it's just that...'feeling in love phase'"

"Oh really now?" Carter said as he playfully rolled his eyes at me and I gently nudged him. I glanced back at Hayes.

He was still watching us.

"Yeah, I bet I could write an Amazing poem. Right here. Right now." He said.

"Is that a challenge Reynolds?"

"Hell yeah it is"

"Bring it on then." He stared at me directly in my eyes and we both scrambled around the blanket to rip a piece of paper out and to get the only pen I had. We both ended up spread across the blanket both laughing until our sides felt like they were being strangled with rope.

"Honey, can I ask you something?" Carter said

"Sure. What is it?"

"Since we're spending the night here at the beach maybe you would-like to-"

"Okay. That's enough" Hayes said in a strong tone as he stormed towards us.

"What are you-?"

"Come on." He said as he started grabbing me by my wrist, pulling me away from carter. Carter's face fell into shock as we got farther away from him. "Hayes, where are we going for christ's sake!?"

"To Nash's car."

"Why? where are we going?"

"We're not f*****g going anywhere." He said still in a strong tone. He opened the car door and I got inside as he went to the other side of the car and sat in the drivers seat. The whole beach looked so quiet and peaceful. I liked sitting with carter and talking. I liked laughing with him.

I liked being with him.

Hayes pulled out some extra blankets from the back seats.

"You wanna tell me why you pulled me away from carter?"

Hayes glared at me. "He's no good."

"What are you talking abou-?"

"He does this. He does this to every girl. And I'm not letting you be one of those girls"

"You're wrong."

"I'm not."

"Yes you are!"

"f**k, I'm not!"

"Carter's such a sweet-"

"He's a lying bastard to girls!"

"Shut up! Then why are you friends with him!?"

"I-I'm friends with him but I'm not letting him hurt others, especially ones that I care for."

"Who the hell is he suppose to hurt Hayes?!"

"You!"

"He's not gonna hurt me. And if he did, why would you care? You said you don't give a flying f**k about me."

"That's not true" Hayes said, his voice started lowering down and getting softer and softer. Like his words were Melting out of his lips.

"Yes it is. You told me"

"I didn't mean any of that. Remember?"

"Of course" I said sarcastically

"I do care."

"You do not."

"Can you stop? I'm trying to tell you how much I care for you! Damn it...I care about you more than I care about myself." Hayes said. He hit his hands on the steering wheel and rested his head on it. I laid back into my seat and closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep. To ignore the ringing silence in the car, to ignore Hayes, to imagine I was just with carter. Hayes is Hayes. A bad boy is a bad boy. So why should I believe him?

I closed my eyes, and pretended to fall asleep for a long period of time.

Just when I felt my body swirling away into a deep sleep I felt a blanket cover my body and fill me with warmth.

"I care about you..." Hayes's raspy voice said.