Nowhere

Chapter 5

I remember the last night that the three of us were out here together. Must've been around the beginning of fall. The weather was getting colder, but the rainy season hadn't started yet. It was still good enough that we could be outside until the middle of the night.

We still had a bottle of wine, but Dawn was already drunk. Dawn had finished the previous one almost entirely on her own. Matt and I had only taken a few sips since neither of us were big drinkers nor could handle alcohol well. She was lying on the sand on her belly while she was texting; she had been texting all night with a little cute smirk on her face. I had my head leaned against Matt's shoulder and his arm around me, while I looked at the moon reflected on the water and thought about my last year of high school.

I was worried about my grades and where to apply for university. Those thoughts were haunting me since the first day of the new school year. Matt and Dawn were keeping me sane by telling me I had nothing to worry about, that my grades were great and that I would be fine, that any university would accept me. But I only wanted one, and I wanted to get into a literature degree and become an editor, since I didn't think I had it in me to be a writer but still wanted to work surrounded by books. This decision wasn't supported by some of my peers and even teachers. Everyone thought I had the brains to become a doctor or an engineer, some sort of scientist, and that spending my life with books was wasting my potential. But I didn't care.

This night had been their idea to distract me from my irrational anxious thoughts. A night just the three of us, as it had always been. When we were together, it made us feel like everything was going to be fine.

"Do you know who she's talking to?" I asked as I quickly glanced her at.

"No idea. Some new crush that she'll probably get over in a week." We chuckled.

Dawn had a different crush almost every day. None of them were ever serious. She would find anyone and everyone cute. That's all it ever was, crushes on people that she barely knew and never even spoke to. The same feeling every teenage girl has as she looks at a picture of their favourite singer or actor. That's the way Dawn was. The epitome of a teenage girl swooning over a different person almost every day. Nothing ever had any true meaning, but for some reason, I found myself staring at her and feeling that this time was different. There was something there, but I quickly brushed it off, thinking it was nothing. Just Dawn being Dawn. She would be over it in a week. I wish I would have paid more attention to her, to her subtleties. Maybe there were signs after all, and I just never saw them.

"What are you two lovebirds whispering about?" Dawn tried to get up and move closer to us as she reached out her hand to the wine bottle, but she stumbled back.

"Don't you think you've had enough?" I grunted like an old lady pulling the bottle aways from her as she kept trying to reach for it.

"No, I'm still perfectly fine." She said as she laid back on the sand.

Matt grabbed her and helped get up. He held by the waist and managed to take her inside the house. I stayed outside a little longer, breathing in the fresh air and trying to calm my nerves about the upcoming school year. Teenagers can be so dramatic.

"I left her asleep on my bed. We can take the couch." Matt said as he got back.

"Was she okay?"

"Perfectly fine. Fell asleep immediately. She's snoring."

A slow love song started coming out of the speaker that we had placed on the sand. Matt grabbed my hands and pulled me closer. He put my hands on his shoulders and then he grabbed my waist. We chuckled as we clumsily wobbled on the sand.

I sigh as the memory leaves me. It was nice when it was just the three of us. Dawn got along with everyone, but she was different with us, she was more herself. We knew sides of each other that no one else knew. But I guess... that in the end... not even Matt or I knew enough.

"To celebrate the old days," Matt says, bringing me back to the present, as he shows up with a blanket, a bottle of wine, and two cigarettes.

We sit on the sand and wrap ourselves in the blanket. Even though it's summer, nights still feel cold as the ocean breeze touches our skin. We drink straight from the bottle, and we light our cigarettes.

"Shit," I say, expelling the smoke. "This is as disgusting as I remember. Why did we do it?" I put out the cigarette as I sip the wine, trying to get rid of the taste.

He laughs. "Good question. We thought we were so cool and edgy. Those were fun nights."

We stare at the moon reflected in the water as we finish the bottle. A young couple holding hands walks past us and goes in the B&B. They are both probably in their early twenties. She has a pretty olive skin tone and has long, straight, black hair. He is a ginger with freckles that stand out against her complexion.

"Newlyweds. They had a very nice ceremony here at the beach a couple of days ago and are going to leave soon and travel to Vienna for their honeymoon."

"How do you feel about taking over this place?"

"Nervous. But happy. This is my home, and I truly enjoy taking care of it. I think this is a very special place. It's worth it."

"Every place in this town brings back memories. Memories of us and Dawn. But we're still here. She isn't. The memories don't bother you at all?"

"No. I think memories are important, even painful ones. Some of the best moments of my life were here. With my family. With you. With Dawn. I want to preserve them."

"I don't know if I can be here, in this town, without her. It's too painful. Life is so much more painful than death. When you die you die, it's the end of the line, all the suffering is gone."

"No one knows what happens after it."

"Matt, can't you just leave me with my ideology? It's comforting to me to know the suffering ends eventually, that it ended for her. I want to believe death is a lot harder for those that stay than for the ones that go."

"I'm sorry, Rora." We gaze straight into each other's eyes for a few seconds.

I break eye contact and look at the horizon. "Don't you think it's about time you stop calling me Rora?"

"I don't even remember how that started. Dawn introduced us, and she just said this is my sister Rora. Then it just stuck with me."

"She was four and she couldn't say Aurora. She would always just say Rora."

Dawn struggled with my name for a few years, she would first roll the Rs and then a weird sound would come out, and then, slowly and going through different phases she finally started to be able to produce something that sounded vaguely similar to Aura, but as my mom and I insisted on the missing syllable somehow it became Rora, and she completely ignored the Au. I think my mom tried so hard for her to pronounce her Rs that Dawn decided to ignore the rest.

Matt laughs. "How come I didn't learn about this earlier?"

I shrug. "Now that you know, do you still want to call me Rora? You two were the only ones."

"If you don't mind, I would like it if you could always be Rora, at least to me. You've been Rora to me for almost twenty-three years."

"Just you, then. Aurora for everyone else."

Matt pulls out his phone from his pocket and start playing music. "Dance with me. For old times' sake."

"Matt..."

"Build new memories." Matt pulls me up and grabs me by the waist. "We'll never forget our times with Dawn here, but you can also associate this place with other things."

We slowly wobble around in the sand. Matt tenderly smiles at me, and his eyes look right back at mine. I'm really grateful for Matt. I'm glad he's here with me. I wouldn't be able to do this without him. It's a good thing he showed up exactly when he did. Otherwise, right now I would be driving away, back to my tiny apartment filled with silence and a deep void. And as much as it hurts, I think he's right. I need to build new memories. I need to let go and move forward, eventually. I'm not yet sure how I'm going to do that, but I'm sure I'll find my way.