Chapter Text
“Why can’t we do this in the evening?” Andrea complained while passing the giant log over her head to rest on the other shoulder. “Because if we do it in the evening you’re going to want to do it even less,” her twin brother Levi replied. He leaned his body to account for the height difference between him and his sister, moving the log to his left to align with Andrea. Even at nearly six in the morning with the sun just beginning to rise, the Galveston humidity mixed with Texas heat was unbearable. Both siblings were drenched in sweat from their vigorous morning workout that began at five sharp every morning.
The breeze blowing in from the gulf helped cool them, but it was only a periodic respite from the brutal summer. Andrea considered asking how much longer they were going to go on, but kept the question to herself. After all, every time she asked it only made the ordeal feel like time ticked by in microwave seconds. The watch on Levi’s wrist struck 6:01, heralding the end of the exercise.
He grunted and allowed the log to drop off his shoulder, lowering it to the sand gently. Andrea just dropped it outright to get it over with faster. If there was one thing she envied about her brother, it was his ridiculous upper body. The rising sun made the sweat coating his broad shoulders glimmer. He was by no means some muscular giant, but he still looked like one of the marble statues of Greek heroes at the museum he worked for.
However strong one assumed him to be at first glance was always an underestimation. The first exhibit to come to mind was when Andrea watched Levi knock down half of a building in a fit of rage. When his fist struck the brick, it felt like the entire ground trembled. Whether it was convenient timing and the shaking earth did most of the work, or the punch caused it, mattered little to Andrea. It was still the only time she was ever truly terrified of him.
That’s not to say Andrea didn’t have her flashes. It felt like every day at school she couldn’t escape the gossip of the girls swooning over his sandy, blonde hair; ocean blue eyes that seemed to brighten and darken with his mood like ever-changing, rolling waves; 6’2 frame laden with muscles constructed through meticulous exercise; and sharp but stoic facial features. More often than not it ended in Andrea viciously ensuring they would stay the hell away from her brother. She didn’t know it, but the converse was true as well.
Levi cracked plenty of skulls for boys speaking about his sister and the things they fantasized about, often involving her wavy hair that seemed to change color from orange, to honey, to sunlit gold depending on how the light hit it, matching iridescent eyes, and a lean, athletic frame forged by swimming for miles no matter how rough the sea was.
Between their aptitude in a fight, notorious vengeful nature, holding grudges for even the tiniest micro-aggression, and generally being abnormal, the twins found themselves on a social island with only each other for company, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I need to get to work. Try to stay out of trouble, ok?” Levi grabbed his backpack. The bag itself was simple and black with a Marine Corps key chain dangling from one of the zippers that made a metallic clinking sound when the bag shifted.
“I need to change into my lifeguard uniform anyway. No promises on the trouble part.” Andrea retrieved a plastic water bottle from her pack and downed its contents in one continuous gulp. Once it was empty, she crushed the plastic in her hand and chucked it in the nearest trash can. Her backpack was neon pink and, as their mother described it, “A fucking atrocious eyesore that I better not see in my household ever again.”
The sea of pink was broken by an assortment of stickers ranging from cheesy surfer jokes to a patch-like one that said, “Gangster Lean — USS Texas,” with a hand-drawn image of the battleship itself in the middle. Andrea plucked a bright red one piece bathing suit out of it and slipped away into a public bathroom to change.
Levi slung the straps of his pack over his shoulders and began his morning run. Three miles separated Seawolf Park from the floating museum of the USS Texas and Levi’s shift started at seven. It took him roughly twenty minutes to make the run each day to provide enough time for him to take a dip in the ocean to wash the sweat off then go change into more proper clothes.
Andrea got her morning cardio by diving into the ocean and swimming all the way to East Beach. The total distance was about 4-5 miles depending on how far she veered to avoid ships, but she crossed it faster than even an Olympic swimmer could. For the average human, it would have taken at least an hour and forty minutes. Andrea made the swim in maybe thirty five minutes on a bad day. It certainly helped when every movement felt like the sea moved with her, driving her forward with more force than any human should be capable of producing. Of course, the whole being able to breathe underwater thing certainly helped.
Levi was the first of the two to arrive at their summer job. His hair was still damp and stuck to his forehead and neck. His workout attire was replaced by a red, white, and blue commemorative USS Texas shirt and comfortable blue shorts to survive the inevitable midday heat. He fished his phone out of his pocket to check the forecast for the day:
Current temperature 85 degrees
Relative humidity 73%
Heat index 94 degrees
Expect highs of 92 degrees with a heat index of 115 degrees
Levi took a deep breath and resisted the urge to scream. “It’s fine, Levi; it’s just like mom always says, the heat makes you stronger.” He mumbled to himself. At least in the open air he could breathe even if it meant having the sun beat down on him rather than being buried below deck giving tours of the USS Texas in the suffocatingly tight spaces. On the bright side, it had just finished a massive restoration project, so it was no longer infested with rust and tetanus.
Just as he finished his thought, Levi was called to duty by the first group of tourists who survived Armageddon, better known as Houston traffic. He took a deep breath, made a quick signum crucis, and forced a friendly smile. Being polite was so utterly exhausting, but it’s what he was paid to do. Tour group after tour group, Levi led the way around the deck, pointing out where certain things used to be before they were refitted. He lectured ad nauseum about how the USS Texas was the first battleship to launch an airplane via catapult. The first to feature analog rangekeepers, mount anti-aircraft guns, receive a commercial radar, and so on.
One couldn’t go a full tour of the ship without being informed about its status as one of only a couple of ships to serve in both world wars, not to mention being designated as the flagship of the entire Atlantic fleet in the second world war. His favorite story was the one mentioned in the patch he’d given Andrea for her backpack. During Operation Overlord, more commonly referred to as D-Day, the ship was used for shore bombardment, but the land forces pushed the Germans back so far that they exceeded the firing range of the battleship.
Captain Baker had the brilliant idea to have the sailors intentionally flood the starboard side blisters to make the ship lean 2 degrees. The angle may sound insignificant, but shifting the maximum firing angle of the fourteen inch guns from 15 to 17 added an entire mile to the range they could hit targets at.
While Levi’s cheeks became sore from so much artificial smiling, Andrea was bored out of her mind. She could have sat on her phone like most of her colleagues, but she made sure to keep all distractions well away. From her perch on a wooden tower, she overlooked the beach and everyone in the water with constant vigilance. Every split second counted when it came to saving a life, and she took the utmost pride and responsibility in her job.
So many long, summer days spent baking in the sun had turned her skin from a lighter shade of white like Levi and darkened it into a perfect tan. One could be easily mistaken for assuming her heritage unless her singlet shifted to reveal the world’s starkest tan lines on her shoulders and the edges of her thighs.
Her gaze passed back and forth like a sonar ping, counting the heads poking out of the water and noting when each one returned to shore. In the middle of her count, she paused. Her eyes squinted to search for a boy she’d counted on the last pass but couldn’t see on the beach.
Without thinking, Andrea shot from her seat like a missile. She’d rather be safe than sorry and be wrong about the boy lost beneath the waves than assume he wasn’t. The other lifeguards perked up when they saw her suddenly running and began going into a frenzy to try and get everyone out of the water, assuming the worst.
Andrea leaped into the water and soared through it toward where she last saw the boy. Panic sharpened her focus. As the water cleared, she saw him in the distance hovering just below the surface of the water, hiding under the water to presumably scare a sibling or parent. Andrea relaxed, slightly. She got to the boy and lifted him up above the surface of the water.
“Careful, I thought you were drowning when I didn’t see you surface.” Andrea said dryly. The boy seemed embarrassed that the entire water had just been cleared because of him. “I-I was twying to see how long I could hold my bweath. I’m sowwy.” The boy couldn’t pronounce the letter r, which kind of reminded Andrea of a very young Levi who used to struggle with the same ailment and called her “Andwea”.
She took him back to shore, swimming with ease even when only propelled by her legs. His parents were panicked and waiting at the beach when Andrea handed their son back to them. “My apologies. I was watching the surface of the water and assumed the worst when I didn’t see him after a few seconds. It turns out he was just trying to see how long he could hold his breath, but I’m just glad everything’s fine and he wasn’t actually in trouble.”
The parents both looked relieved and thanked Andrea. “I can only pray instances like this are the only mistakes you make as a lifeguard, God bless.” The mother in particular replied, giving the young woman a hug. The rest of the beach-goers were not nearly as understanding with many grumbling with annoyance that they were interrupted over such a seemingly minor misunderstanding.
Before long, everything was back to normal. Meanwhile, the boy’s parents opted to stay away from the water and go get lunch after the incident. Andrea returned to her post and was met with a clipboard being chucked at her head.
“Damn it, Andrea! Why’d you have to go and do that!?” Stacy, another one of the lifeguards and a schoolmate of Andrea’s, was irate that she was interrupted from scrolling on Instagram and doing her very not water-proof makeup.
“Sorry some of us take this job seriously and not an opportunity for free money and an excuse to sit at the bitch—I mean beach.” Andrea threw the clipboard back. Her Freudian slip seemed to really set off Stacy.
“No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend yet. You overreact to everything and are so bitchy over nothing!” The irony of Stacy’s words was not lost on Andrea whose eye twitched.
“Your mom got caught giving a dude a blowjob in the bathroom at the country club, and it wasn’t your dad. Your parents are getting a divorce. They’re just waiting until after your birthday to tell you.” Andrea had endured years of Stacy’s shit, meticulously recording and filing every insult and transgression into her memory. Now, she decided it was finally time for the nuclear option.
Stacy stared at Andrea like her brain was running on a dial-up connection for a moment. Then she burst into tears and ran away to cry in her brand new white Cadillac with only 13 miles on it. The feeling Andrea got from listening to Stacy sobbing followed by the tires peeling out in the parking lot was euphoric.
For the first time in a while, a natural smile came to Andrea’s face and she laid back in her chair, continuing her hawk-like observation of the ocean with that little extra gleam in her eyes.
Time flies by when you’re having fun, and before long, it was time for the siblings to start heading home. Levi was on his way to clock out when a bunch of guys from school that knew him rolled through. That’s not to say they were friends, but they heard rumors of Levi’s ability to hold his own in a fight, and Levi knew that wherever they went trouble followed.
The group certainly wasn’t quiet as they harassed the girl managing the table where guests bought their tickets. Without thinking Levi marched up and paused for only a moment to listen in on the conversation before fully intervening.
“Twelve dollars? Better be booze and a show down there.” One of them exclaimed with a violently fake hood accent.
“Sir, it’s the standard price. Maintaining and restoring the ship costs—” the girl tried to reply only to be cut off.
“I don’t give a damn! For twelve dollars to look at a fucking boat, there better be hookers or sumn.” He interrupted.
“Pay the twelve dollars or leave her alone.” Levi snapped. The group turned to face him and started to laugh.
“Ooh, oh no, here’s mister knight in shining army to save the day. Does your sister work here too? YOOO, what if his sister is the hooker we’re paying twelve dollars for?” He turned back to his buddies while continuing to laugh.
“Leave my sister out of this.”
“Or what? Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be buried in your sister, but preferably six inches instead of feet if you know what I mean.”
Levi weighed if criminal charges would be worth it and determined the answer is yes. Before the boy could even react, a fist flew through his face. The air filled with the sickening crunch of cartilage and bone. He went flying several feet away with blood gushing from his broken nose and cut skin, some lingered on Levi’s knuckles.
A crack rang out, but Levi wasn’t sure if it was the guy’s skull hitting the pavement or the ground splitting ever so slightly on its own. “If you ever insinuate anything like that about my sister again, I will hit you again, and you won’t be able to get up next time. Now are you guys going to pay or leave the lady alone?”
The group backed down after watching their friend get his face flattened and ran away, leaving him behind. Levi checked on the woman at the counter to make sure she was ok after the incident and instructed her to call an ambulance for the not so poor bastard that just got a double serving of fist and concrete.
In the parking lot, his Ford Ranger patiently waited like an old Border Collie. It was beat to shit, older than he was, and looked like a pile of red dung with an engine, but by god it still ran and cranked right up, ready to work.
The radio didn’t work and hadn’t for years, but Levi didn’t particularly care. He settled right into the torn and chaffed bench seat, gave the shifter a wiggle to make sure it was in neutral then turned the ignition. The four cylinder engine came to life without issue even after 745,000 miles.
It was a quick twenty minute drive across the causeway and down Broadway Avenue J to the aptly named East Beach Street that took him right to East Beach. Andrea leaned against a light pole with one leg crossed over the other. When Levi cruised up to her, she chucked her bag into the bed of the truck and hopped in the passenger’s seat.
“Why is there blood on your knuckles?” Andrea asked.
“Why are you smiling? You never do that unintentionally.”
“I made a girl cry today. Who’d you punch out?”
“Some dude from school. Apparently no one warned him not to bring you up around me, because he made a comment about you being a hooker. He won’t be making comments for a while.”
“Wow, my hero. Thanks for saving me.” Andrea rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Anytime.” Levi replied seriously despite the sarcasm in Andrea’s comment. The drive home wasn’t very far. It just sucked because of traffic from tourists. They finally made it back to their humble little abode in the middle of the island. Their mother was gone on a merchant marine ship, leaving the two to fend for themselves. The bills were paid, and they had access to a debit card to buy their own groceries and food with money from their mom if needed, but generally the twins had become pretty self-sufficient with the money they earned working full time in the summer so long as the major bills were paid.
Everything returned to its rightful place. Their backpacks sat on the floor next to the front door. Their shoes went across from the bags. The keys to the truck hung on a hook next to the spare house keys, and so on. The kitchen was totally barren. When something was taken out it was immediately cleaned after use and put away. Every night before bed, the twins went through a whole process of cleaning the whole house to ensure there wasn’t a speck of dust or dirt just as it was when their mother left it.
Neither felt like putting much effort into cooking lunch, so Levi just grabbed a five cheese frozen pizza and chucked it in the oven. Andrea ditched her lifeguard singlet for more comfortable red short shorts and a Spongebob tank top. Levi also tossed his work shirt into the laundry basket and settled for just his gray undershirt.
They sat in silence at the kitchen table, waiting for the pizza to cook. The oven timer ticking was like a chisel chipping away at Andrea’s patience, hammered by Levi’s silent, steady attention. Andrea finally cracked first, as always. “Do you still plan on going into the Corps when you graduate?”
“It’s the place for me. You know it. I know it. Mom knows it.”
“Mom was also part of it. Of course she wants you to join.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because the Marine Corps is a cult, not a branch.”
“That’s rich coming from you. You want the prestige of the Navy but are too scared to go any further than the shallow end.”
“The Coast Guard does more in any given day than you ever will as a marine.”
“Yeah, saving idiotic tourists from natural selection and pushing papers.”
The timer ticked once, twice, then dinged: one minute left.
“Levi. You know it’s risky. You aren’t even guaranteed that they’ll give you a specific job.”
“The job I want is being a marine like mom no matter what the MOS.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m concerned.” Andrea drummed her nails against the table. Her jaw tightened just a tad.
“Not all of us are blessed to be beyond even the most elite Olympic swimmers with a clear cut purpose. The marines will give me one.”
Andrea held his gaze. She stopped drumming her fingers and rubbed her hands together in her lap under the table. It irked her how deadset Levi was on any given topic. He had a nasty habit of getting tunnel vision on what he wanted. Yes, it made him unstoppable when it came to reaching his goals, but it left other greater opportunities neglected and lost.
Just as her train of thought arrived at a response, the oven went off loud and flat. The pizza was done, and so was the conversation. Levi stood up and took a step, but halted. The air thrummed with energy that came in pulses, just enough to make the contents of the cupboard shift slightly. Even with the windows closed, the smell of the sea permeated the room.