Emerson and Spencer

chapter eight (final chapter!)

Morning eventually came, when they were expected to begin the journey back home. Emerson couldn't believe the camp was almost over. After today, she'd be back at her house. She'd be in her landlocked house, with her relatives. That must be some kind of punishment, Emerson thought. They sailed into the harbor. Emerson and Spencer shared what would surely be their last kiss on boat four. Tears welling in her eyes, Emerson could only whisper, "I'm going miss you-" before the boat bounded into the jetty where she had to jump off, and watch Spencer moor the boat from afar. She walked back to the mainland beside a girl she had never spoken to.

 "It's going to be weird going back home, isn't it?" The girl said.

Emerson looked over her shoulder, thinking about what the girl beside her had just spoken. Home is where the heart is, right? She glanced to the horizon, the sunset- the view she would so miss. She looked to the waves, their salty scent prompting her mind to the memories of the nights before. The boat she now knew so well, whose sleek hull would forever be etched into her memory. Emerson looked to the ocean, which had changed her. Which had made her appreciate her life. Which had helped her to understand so much about herself. Which had introduced her to  Spencer. Spencer. Who she knew so well. Who knew her, and helped her to know herself. Who saved her life. Who she loved more than anything. She thought about the last few days, whose beauty and emotion would never leave her. Where the heart is. And suddenly, mindlessly, she knew what to do.

She kicked off her shoes, and dived into the ocean below, now azure in the sunlight. She swam beside the girl, still walking, into shore.

 “I’m not going home,” Emerson shouted to the girl, staring with mouth agape and standing on the jetty. "Not really."

 She swam to shore, where she bolted toward her house. She climbed through a window, to her room. It stood just as she had left it, unchanged. Emerson stood there for a minute, taking in what was once her sanctuary. Before she met the ocean. She ran to the kitchen, removing several watertight bags from a drawer. She then piled food inside these, along with water filters, fishing hooks, cutlery, camping stoves, toothpaste and sleeping bags. Emerson ran to her room again, taking clothing and towels and tissues and pillows and, most importantly, her passport. She now had three huge bags, full.  Her hands seemed to be working of their own accord. She slung these bags across her bike, where she rode to Spence’s house. Emerson scaled their fence, over the hot brass handles that burned in the heat of the day. She snuck around the back, unhooked the fly screen of Spencer’s window from its hinges and climbed through. She shoved his clothes into another bag, along with, after a while of searching, his passport. Emerson loaded this all into her bike, after crawling around the other side of the house, she rode back to the harbour. Her hands tied these bags into long string, and she dived to the water, as she had done just twelve minutes before. The dragging effect of the bags barely made an impression in her streamlined stroke.  She swam, a dolphin beneath the glassy ripples many called waves. She leapt out of the water and climbed a rope hanging off the side of the sailboat, its fibres a faded crimson against the ivory hull. The carriers of belongings, heavy but dry, threatened to pull her back into the water, yet she kept climbing, kept making her way up the neverending keel. She climbed, allowing the knots to dig into her skin; she was focused, she needed to get to one thing. One person.

 She reached the deck after only minutes of scaling the hull. She hoisted the plastic covered essentials up, and dumped them into a pile. She surveyed her vessel. She saw Spencer, and hugged him from behind, and she whispered, “Wanna do something stupid?”

He grinned. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking something along the lines of grabbing this boat and running off like the reckless idiots we are?”

They both smiled. “That would be completely mental.” He said, still smiling.

“Yeah. Absolutely insane.” Agreed Emerson.

Spencer grinned. “Let’s do it.”

 He kissed her, and they sailed away, dangerously fast- recklessly fast. Away into the now fading sunset. The scene behind them was a sunset of breathtaking beauty; fading vermillion to a bronze, to a xanthous band of citrine, to a deep cobalt, cornflower, indigo, to a pale shade of mauve. Their silhouettes were colourblocked  against this spray of hue. Emerson was no longer scared of the night, but welcome to it; it was summer, and she was safe. Nothing in the world could dampen the beauty of the moment, to her.

 And she sang, quietly at first but growing to a crescendo,

 “Next year, don't care.

All I know is I’ll meet you there, in the summertime.

Baby in the summertime,”

 She kissed Spencer lightly before she sang, loudly and smiling;

“That is where I’ll be.”

 And they sailed away, to open water.