Riptide

I wrote Ruby, once. I told her that I forgave her and that I was sorry that she had so much hate in her heart. I hoped that she would find some kind of peace. She never wrote back.

July 4, 2018

The sun burned my skin and made the white sand glow so brightly that it hurt my eyes to look at it directly. The beach was crowded, but not unbearably so. There was a nice little spot a fair distance away from the shore, and it was there I decided to prop up my umbrella. As I pierced the soft sand with the bottom of the umbrella, a great wind smacked up against me and I lost my grip. The umbrella tumbled to the sand.

“You should have waited for me.”

I smiled at Paul. “You’re a slowpoke.”

He lifted his eyebrows and pushed the umbrella deep into the sand. “You weren’t saying that this morning.”

My mouth opened to say something smart back, but a body collided with my legs. “Aunt Presley? They’re selling ice cream. Can I get some?”

My hand played with Aedan’s blonde hair and a calm tenderness overtook me. “Not now, babe. You want to go swimming, don’t you?”

He looked up at me and poked his chin into my thigh. His grin was so much like his mother’s that I had to fight to keep my smile. “I can have it after?”

“After,” I promised, my heart aching at the emotion in his eyes. “Maybe when we go watch the fireworks.” He wasn’t okay, not yet, but he was on his way to recovering from his mother being gone. Still, he was constantly afraid that things and people would slip away from him. My heart broke due to my role in putting that anxiety into his psyche.

Still: he was alive, he was safe, he was with me. We were going to be okay. I knew it.

Paul stripped himself of his shirt. “It’s scorching out today. I can’t wait to get into the water. You’ll be okay back here?”

After I rubbed suntan lotion onto Aedan’s frighteningly pale skin, I looked at Paul. He was so dear to me that it hurt. Aedan, too. I never expected that my story would turn out like as it did, and for a moment, I wondered if I hadn’t lost my mind and imagined it all. Paul caught me looking and reached over to pinch my ass.

“I asked you a question, miss.”

“I’ll be okay,” I said, rubbing my butt. “That hurt, by the way.”

Aedan turned his wide and innocent eyes back at us. “What hurt?”

“Your aunt pinched herself.”

Aedan shook his head. “That’s so silly.”

“I know, right?”

I playfully swatted Paul’s arm. “Okay, okay. Enough ganging up on me. Go have fun.”

The two of them had become fast friends over the past two years. Aedan took to him better than I hoped, which was beyond a relief. In time, I imagined us moving in together, marrying, having kids.

I waited until the two submerged themselves into the topaz water. Then I peeled off my sundress and took a deep breath.

I had been afraid of the ocean ever since it nearly stole my life from me. It was time to let the scared, naive, insecure teenager finally rest. The woman I had become knew there were much bigger monsters to face than a little bit of water. I had faced them, fought hard and won. Maybe I had sacrificed parts of myself, but in the end, I had won, because it was me standing there beneath the powerful and life-giving sun, my toes in the warm sand, my freckled skin caressed in the breeze, watching the loves of my life happily splash each other.

We had won.

I walked down to the water and stepped into the shallow waves. The foamy water was cool and smooth, and more refreshing than I remembered it. I looked for Paul and Aedan and grinned at them when I saw their astonished expressions. Paul was the first to break, and the matching grin that brightened his face made me bolder. I pushed into the water, letting it take me into its power.

For just a second, the familiar terror made me tense, then I heard Aedan cheering me on, and I got past it. I wouldn’t die here, not today, not with them waiting for me just a little further in the waves. It was natural to float, to glide, to laugh when Aedan flicked water in my face, to sway with the tide surrounded by Paul’s arms. It felt like home.

Dust to dust, they say, but then again, we are nearly 60% water.