David and Eden got married early. Right out of high school. They had been dating since freshmen year and loved each other very much. Though because they got married so early and wanted to start their family immediately, they both had to skip out on college. But they were both already smart. David the valedictorian, Eden the president of the student council. So nobody really thought they had skipped college.
The couple moved to a very small city in South Carolina. So small that it rarely showed up on maps. After all the city on had a population of about 800. It had all the essentials, just not as many. The city was later called Wallflower, for its hidden and shy. Wallflower was right on the water with a great view and soft sand. Everyday many people would gather there for strolls, or parties, or a picnic. The people were nice, the view was amazing, they had all the appropriate shops within walking distance from all houses. Wallflower was the perfect place for David and Eden.
Exactly why they moved there. They moved into a two bedroom house with two bathrooms and a two car garage. The house was next to another couple and very close to the water. The kitchen was dated, but David promised that when they got enough money he would make sure to renovate it. Years later when the couple had more than enough money, the kitchen stayed the way it was, because they wanted it stay the same for memories. The living room was small but cozy and they spent much time in there laughing about old times. They did not know that was also going to be a room filled with much sorrow. The bedrooms were a normal size, the master with a bathroom attached to it. The family room was large and spacious, as well as the dining room, which left much room from their furniture.
David had silver-blue eyes, short brown hair with a chiseled chin and slight stubble. Women often asked him out, and he always politely declined saying he was married. Handsome or not he was a bright man. He was constantly making new friends and improving relationships. When he walked into a room, the whole place seemed to light up from his smile. It was rare that you ever saw him not grinning from ear to ear. Not to mention his sense of humor made even the bored people laugh. David was good with his hands so he worked at the local jewelry store and it wasn’t rare that people came in just for his work.
Eden had reddish brown shoulder length hair, a slender body, a beautiful smile and striking blue eyes that seemed to stare right through you. Although she was slightly petite, Eden was confident and courageous. However, she was quite the spitfire, but she tried her best to do it politely. Eden was a leader and really liked to help others when they were having trouble so she went off to be a full-time tutor. She considered being a college professor, but the college in Wallflower preferred that she become a tutor since a lot of students needed help. And just like her husband, she was pretty and men asked her on a date frequently and every time she let them down. Eden loved only her husband in a romantic way as did David to Eden.
It was when Eden turned twenty that she wanted a child. And nine months later a baby girl was put into her arms in Wallflower Memorial Hospital. Eden and David hadn’t discussed a name yet for they decided they didn’t want to know the gender until the birth. Immediately Eden knew to name the baby girl June after her bright blue eyes that seemed to promise happiness.
June grew up to be an honest girl who always told things the ways they are. June and her parents were a tightknit family so June always told them her boy crush, her grades, who she didn’t like. But she was prejudice and at age thirteen, June knew this. So she tried to change herself. She saw how her mother seemed to love everyone, so she tried it herself. And it worked. Everybody liked June and June liked everyone even the people who were shrewd and cruel.
She was elegant and polite, but also incredibly fun. Always wanting to playing card games or wondering around the water saying she wanted to explore and discover everything in the sea. She had her mother’s leadership and her father’s grin. Plus June was very pretty. Up until age fourteen June loved her hair long. It was a grayish brown color that went to the middle of her back. It shifted each step she took. Despite that she then cut it to a pixie cut. It wasn’t short and spiky like many, it was actually just a bit longer than the usual pixie. The hair was feather like and soft. It fell over her forehead like side bangs that framed her heart shaped face perfectly. When people at the high school saw this they thought instead of June looking more boyish, she looked more feminine. That was the year that June spent a whole lot of time outside by the sea staring there alone for hours, she forgot sunscreen each time so not only did she get a sunburn, but also a lot of freckles.
And a couple years before that she met her best friend named Marcy. Nobody really understands how they became friends since June was super smart, while Marcy was in the retarded class. Or how June was friends with everyone, while Marcy got annoyed with most of them. But Marcy’s parents didn’t really ask her how because they didn’t really care. As long as Marcy had a friend. Besides this could have a positive influence on her. Soon Marcy started going to church with June’s family and started to be like June. Marcy went over to her friend’s house so much that she was practically family. Eden liked her fierce behavior and David liked her humor.
Marcy’s parents were jealous people. They saw the young couple all the time making friends and having good paying jobs. They were getting older by the minute and both didn’t have a job. Marcy had a part-time job at the city’s bookstore, but it wasn’t much for all of them. Since she was hanging out with June all the time, she took time off work a lot to have fun. Marcy’s parents were lazy and alcoholics, but they wouldn’t admit it. Now they felt as though Eden and David were taking away their daughter. So they once confronted Marcy to tell her to not hang out with June anymore or they would permanently take away her guitar. Marcy was very into her guitar, but that was before she had a friend, so she rarely used it now. But she made sure to not tell her parents that and act scared. Marcy was quite a rebel anyways so a couple days later, for the first time she brought June into her house and she laughed on the inside when she saw her parents sitting on the couch smoking with their shocked faces. And then she led June to her room and they talked for hours inside Marcy’s small bedroom. When June left, Marcy’s parents sprang on her. Spanked her like a child with an old belt they had reserved for that certain use and yelling about her betrayal. Although the house was filled with many screams, inside Marcy was smiling too, for this was the first time she had defied her parents and it wouldn’t be the last.

That was the day Marcy got a gash just below her eye, from her mom slapping her across her face. Her mom had done a back handed slap and her ring caught on her cheek. The blood poured from her cheek and dripped onto her red hair. She ran to June’s house and asked them to treat it. Eden got the gauze, David got the steroids. They didn’t ask what happened, or why she didn’t ask her own parents. They just went right to work as if they already knew.
Later that week Marcy liked the thrill of defying her parents so much that she got all her money together and went on a shopping spree. She already had red hair, but she dyed it blood red to remind her parents of what they did to her. She also got three piercings in each ear, two at the bottom, and one up top. And of course, a choker necklace that said ‘REBEL.’ Marcy thought that this would really spell out who she was to her parents. After all, Marcy wanted to do a lot of these things for a while but her parents never let her.
Thing is Marcy had an older brother, Thomas. Thomas already was a rebel when he moved out at age seventeen and in with their aunt. Thomas had made the plan to bring Marcy with him, though Marcy wasn’t allowed to go because her parents had threatened her. Marcy and Thomas saw each other a lot but they weren’t to talk, only if they were alone. Their mom, Vivienne, once caught them talking in the grocery store and she sliced Marcy’s back with the old belt.
So now whenever they see each other they make sure their guardians aren’t around. Marcy had planned on moving in with Thomas once she turned seventeen in two years. ‘Someday’ was written on her wall in big letters.

The first year of high school was when June met Winnie Marks. June was the class president and was constantly helping out around the school. So when she was help planning a dance, she met Winnie who was also on the planning committee. Winnie had volunteered herself. They became instant friends.
Winnie was already friends with Marcy for they were in English class together and frequently talked. But Winnie was also very shy. Not to the point in which she wouldn’t talk, just had a hard time trusting people and holding a conversation. But June and Marcy were different to her, they were both so open and didn’t judge Winnie’s problem. They just added it to their own problems. So Winnie started hanging out with them.
Winnie had sandy blonde hair that was shoulder length and every day without fail in a stubby braid. She was short around 5’1” and compared to Marcy and June who were both around 5’7”, very short. But she had a pretty smile and a cute laugh making a few boys ask her out. Winnie wasn’t interested though, she wanted to wait till college. She loved the color aquamarine and often wore it. Winnie also wore a dog tag around her neck. She later told the story of how her father was in the army and when he returned home one time he made a dog tag for her with a date etched onto it. Winnie said the date was when he was to return home for good and he promised her that if she kept it on herself at all times, that he would give her a great prize. Marcy wanted one herself, for it looked cool. And June looked up how to make one. That very night the three girls got together and tried it themselves. All failing miserably, they decided they would do something else fun another day.
It was September and the water was still warm so the three girls decided to visit the sea after school one Friday. And they did. June walked among the rocks looking for seashells and looking off in the distance. Marcy and Winnie playing in the water splashing each other frantically. Their shorts were rolled up more so they could get farther into the water. They once accidentally splashed June and both froze for a second thinking what would happen next. In a flash June was in the water.  June decided to wear a dress that day with a floral design. There was no way for her to not get the dress wet, so June shrugged her shoulders and dunked completely in. Her short hair slicked back, her dress clinging to her body.
That was when Marcy and Winnie looked at each other and followed in suit. They laughed at the water soaking through their clothes and how bad their hair looked. June swam underwater picking up more strange things like old glass and smooth rocks. June gave Marcy and Winnie both pieces of sea glass saying ‘it was what held all of us together, since we couldn’t make dog tags.’ They then went to June’s house and ate pancakes that David had made. He joked with them, until Eden ushered him out of the kitchen and sat at the table asking for all the gossip. Marcy told everything, Winnie sat there confirming it and June laughed with her mother as Eden heard of all the cute boys.
That summer going into their sophomore year, Marcy decided she wanted to join the track team. She had Winnie and June time her as she ran as fast as she could around the track. Marcy’s brother came around once and instantly they were looking around them to see if they were being spied on, then they broke into a hug and fast talk. Thomas was a fast runner and in high school had been on the track team himself. So he coached Marcy in his free time and sometimes went on runs with her out in the woods so they wouldn’t get seen.
And even though Marcy could run really fast when she needed to, other times she was just normal. It was like she had no motivation. Thomas tried to give her money if she beat him, but Marcy just wasn’t fast enough. They needed something stronger. So Thomas slapped Marcy across her face and then started running at high-speed. Marcy was a hot head and getting angry quickly was her specialty. And so that’s what she did, she ran around the track incredibly fast to catch her brother and she did. She caught her brother a couple yards before the finish line and past the line jogging. Winnie high-five Marcy, June whooped for her and Thomas pulled her into a bear hug.
Marcy went home that day singing “We are the Champions” and dancing around on the sidewalk. And a couple minutes after Marcy had arrived home, she got a call from June.
Marcy was running as fast as she could to Winnie’s house. She ran even faster than she did earlier that day and when she arrived, she heard wails from inside the house. Marcy hurriedly opens the door and heads over to Winnie’s room. There sat Winnie in a corner sobbing and wailing, June sitting next to her soothing her.  Instantly Marcy knew that Winnie’s father had passed on. The date that he was to come home was just next week and he had died. Marcy sat on the other side of Winnie and hummed a reassuring song. The three girls sat here for hours all the way until morning when Winnie finally fell asleep. June and Marcy still sat there resting and eventually fell asleep themselves.
Later, school started and Winnie went on auto-pilot. It was as if she was moving through life as a robot. She went off the deep end and drowned in a sea of grief. Marcy and June tried their best to comfort her, but Winnie never looked at them and just walked away.
A few days later, they all went to June’s house. Marcy had dragged Winnie along while June walked ahead of them. June wrote an essay, but occasionally got distracted by the water only twenty yards away. Marcy and Winnie sat on the bed. Winnie just looked at the comforter under her and suddenly perks up. She pulled the sea glass June had given her out of her pocket and held them out to me. Marcy reached into her own pocket and pulled out hers, then combined them until there was a small pile of sea glass of blues, greens and yellows. June takes her sea glass from the box on a self in her room, then set them too into the pile.
We sit there for several minutes just looking at the rocks. Then abruptly Winnie starts to cry and June then cries, Marcy too. Winnie pulls them all into a group hug and they sob through smiles. Winnie whispers ‘Thank you.’ And they stay like that for the rest of the day.

It was that one Tuesday in November that June decided to go to the beach again. She hadn’t told her friends about it because she just wanted to collect more seashells. Marcy and Winnie had followed June though and when they arrived at the beach, they understood why June hadn’t mentioned it to them. Granted, June liked seashells and needed a few more to complete a craft she had been working on.
Though they were both surprised to see that June started to climb up a large rock overseeing the water. Many people had jumped off the rock and used it for contests, but some also got hurt due to sharp rocks near the bottom. She still had her backpack on. Marcy thought she saw June say something, but couldn’t tell.
And then she jumped. She jumped in like it was some kind of game. A pencil, is what they called it then. Winnie ran, she ran like somebody was chasing after her. Marcy followed suit.
By the time they found June, she was pale and scratched at the bottom, laying among the sharp rocks. Winnie yelled for help and eventually someone heard her and told the police. When the police arrived there was nothing they could do. Marcy had gotten June out of the water, but everybody knew that it was too late. June had crashed her head on the rocks and her perfectly freckled, smooth skin was scratched and cut. Her hair was red with blood and her body crumbled and still. June’s eyes were still open, and almost immediately one of the police officer closed them with two fingers.
Winnie cried hysterically again, but this time there wasn’t another friend to comfort her. Eden and David went into a depression and couldn’t seem to get back on track for a while. Marcy was too shocked to cry. She had thought that June loved this earth and wanted to be a person who did something great in this world. The picture of June lying dead wouldn’t leave her mind. Some people thought June jumping was a dare from Marcy and Winnie, others thought she was just playing around, many thought she was pushed. Only the people closest to June knew it was suicide. But nobody in Wallflower would believe them because they had also known June and to them, she was a happy girl.
Later that year Winnie and her family moved away. Marcy tried out for the track team. Her motivation was tricking herself into seeing June at the finish line and then running towards her. She won every race she entered.

Eden and David tried to let go of June by having another child. But when the baby arrived nine months later, it was a baby girl who looked exactly like June. Eden couldn’t handle it, David either. So they decided to give their daughter to their next door neighbor a week later. Their neighbor was girl who had turned seventeen that day and would be moving out very, very soon. The girl accepted the daughter even though it would be hard for her herself.
The next day the girl moved out with the baby and in with her aunt and brother. That night she sneaked into her old neighbor’s house. In through the window like she used to. She searched for something, anything that would explain what happened two years ago. And she found it. Taped inside June’s favorite book was a letter that said: ‘M, I wanted to explore the Sea.’ And in another book: ‘W, I’m so sorry I did what I did so soon after your father’s death.’ The girl could hear Eden and David’s sobs in the other room. Their desperate cries to God.