Letters to Angie

Part 1: Summer

The black of night encapsulated the world like a blanket draped over a bird cage. Darkness stretched far and wide, arching over the glass ocean into an eternal horizon, disappearing behind a mound of fluorescent green waves with foamy white peaks.

At the shoreline, where the rippling low tide crept onto land, stealing handfuls of sand back into the sea, a girl in a flowing white sundress stood with her feet soaking in the water. Long, silky black hair cascaded down her shoulders. Her skin was bronze from days under the blazing sun during countless matches of volleyball and endless hours of hiking through the hills. It glistened beneath the pallid moonlight.

Across the way, beside a crackling campfire, sat Henry Sullivan. He silently watched her, scrutinized her, hoping he might somehow discover what made her tick. Orange firelight flickered against his eyes. He reached down and retrieved a handful of sand, letting the grains sprinkle between his fingers. It was therapeutic, like watching the sands of an hourglass sift into the bottom vial.

To his left was the rest of the party. Kids around his age noisily chatting to one another. Jovial and gripped by a sense of freedom. They drank from red solo cups with cheap beer and stolen liquor. The invisible weight of high school pressures and conformity had finally been lifted from their shoulders, and within a few months, they'd be off on new adventures.

He could join their celebration. The furtive black sheep of the flock, but instead, he forced himself up and staggered across the beach. His shoes left behind gridded impressions in the sand, gently swept away by the soughing breeze. An image came to mind as he ventured over to her. Him, crawling on hands and knees as the beach rose up around him. As it swallowed him whole. Pulling him into a world of darkness while she bathed in the light of the moon. It was an absurd thought that elicited a frail smile upon his chapped lips. He stopped a few feet behind her, careful not to get his shoes drenched by the lapping waves that now rose to her calves.

"You're missing a moment," he said softly.

She scoffed. "I think you're the ones really missing a moment here."

"Maybe."

Shifting from one foot to the next, his brain fiercely churned to conjure something significant to say. Something clever and worthwhile. Something that would impress her, humor her more than he was actually capable of.

"What are you thinking about?" A paltry attempt at conversation, but enough to keep it alive. He was proficient at this; keeping things afloat even if they never went anywhere.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, illuminating the profile of her face for a moment. The other half concealed in a mask of shifting shadows. It was quite fitting really. To him, it added a sense of mystery to her.

"Do you actually want to know," she said, "or are you just asking?"

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know."

She turned back toward the ocean, her eyes gazing far off into the abyss. "The world is just noise—it's static. Everything is so loud now that you have to scream just to be heard. I hate it."

"Is this because of that fight you had with your mom?"

"No." She sighed. "Not completely."

"I'm sure she didn't mean it like that, you know."

"Why do you always take her side?"

"I don't!"

"But you do. Every time I tell you about...never mind. It doesn't matter anyway."

It dawned on him then things might've been better had he stayed by the fire. Had he remained where it was warm and silent. Where he could just be a spectator. Henry was astute as playing the façade of a human without having to engage in the emotional muck that makes a person...a person.