Catching Sunshine | JJ Maybank

1 // The Gold

I always thought drowning would be the worst way to die. Ironic, given the fact that I had grown up on an island. Surrounded by water.

But after what transpired a little less than two months ago, I could safely say that the fear never quite left my thoughts, sharply emphasized whenever I stared out across the Point where their boat had last been seen. Until it had disappeared into the eye of the storm like a ghost in the mist. Like a phantom.

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I stood at the top of the sand dune, watching the island sprawled out underneath me and glinting in the early evening sunlight. It was that same mountain of ocean-molded earth that JJ and I had escaped to that day. The day we confessed to one another what everyone else apparently had seen coming all along. I thought it was funny that we hadn't come back here since but maybe it was better that way. Maybe the only memory I wanted to have of that place was of him dancing around, frantically trying to explain his feelings before I ran away. Of me breathlessly giggling when I realized we had both wanted to tell each other the same thing. Of his lips pressed against mine, of the tension that had been building up for years finally exploding when I felt his work-worn hands find homes on my bare skin...

But JJ wasn't with me this time around. I was alone, staring at the tide dump the sea's rejects onto the beach. But suddenly, the light caught on something floating a ways offshore. An unknown sensation tugged at my gut, telling me that it didn't belong there. That something was wrong. So my feet began dragging me down the slope of dune, carrying me where I needed to go without my brain having to tell them to. As I got closer, I could make out two masses now, bobbing together in the rapidly darkening sea. When had it gotten so dark outside? How had I completely missed the sunset?

But horrifying recognition began to wash over me: a mustard yellow t-shirt, cascading blonde hair that for whatever reason held its color despite the water. "JOHN B!" I screamed, running faster now even though I seemed to be getting no closer. What felt like an endless stretch of beach sat between myself and shoreline. "SARAH!"

With only the pale, ghostly illumination from the half-moon above, I couldn't tell if they were swimming or...still. No, they had to be returning to shore, I was sure of it. The storm must have sunk the boat but they were good swimmers; they would have been able to summon the strength to battle the raging waves if it meant getting back home. Just as the thought raced into my brain, I blinked and I was standing where the land met the tide. Icy cold salt water rushed over my bare feet, soaking my skin with a bone-stiffening chill. I briefly considered wading in after them, to help their tired bodies with the last stretch of the journey.

But just like before, in a second, they were in front of me. It was like the fabric of the universe was folding itself in accordance with my brain, which was a terrifying concept in and of itself. But nothing could have scared me more than what I saw next; half in the surf and half on land, John B and Sarah's bodies drifted motionlessly as the ebb and flow of the ocean kept them roughly tethered to one spot. I'd never seen anything so grotesque: salt crusted along their strands of hair and coated the lashes of their closed eyes. The brine of the Atlantic had infiltrated their skin and clothes, leaving kelp pieces to cling onto their clothing and the beginnings of tiny barnacles to form along the soles of their shoes. That couldn't be possible could it? They hadn't been missing for that long?

But perhaps the most shocking was the sickly, ghastly shade of blue that had taken over their normally sun-kissed tan. They shone like ghosts in the night, like the monsters that had haunted sailing ships for centuries. I wanted to throw up, to scream, to run away, anything. But I was glued here, unmoving, forced to take it all in.