Summer Somethings

One: Cape May's Ocean of Secrets

Round trees fat with spring fly by the car window. One, two, three—I count and ignore the gnawing anxiety in my gut.

A notification ding pinches the air and I look down at my phone.

Elizabeth <3: 13 Missed Calls. I reread for the one-hundredth time and groan aloud.

"You're having fun back there?" Dad lifts a brow in the rear view mirror.

My mumble is half-assed—definitely not one of my more full-assed mumbles—and he notices but refocuses on the road.

He tries again, "Are you excited to see your old friends?"

"Any friends I had either forgot me, had the good enough sense to leave Cape May, or are now way too cool for me."

I think back to the Instagram post I tirelessly searched for in my pre-vacation ritual: tall, tanned, old friends together with their arms over each other's shoulders, while I remain on the other side of the screen; untagged, forgotten, and buried in decades-old suitcases and gym bags.

"Pah-lease," Dad guffaws, "you're the coolest kid I know!"

I raise a pierced eyebrow at him, reflected through the mirror.

"You're super punk, and clever, and are a very talented photographer—"

Aimes, can we please talk?? lights up on my phone and I drown out the parental flattery.

By now, Elizabeth is about a hundred or so miles behind me, so I should be focusing on the anxiety at whatever awaits my arrival rather than what I'm leaving behind. After a few rocky weeks—I'll be honest, months—Elizabeth dumped me, accused me of being "too okay", and wanted to fervently discuss our thoughts and feelings. I don't consider myself the kind of person to go in-depth about my relationships with the person I'm breaking up with. Well actually, the person who broke up with me.

"—and you can drive stick," Dad finishes with a flourish.

I return a small smile, and he's distracted by something on the radio.

Leafy-green trees and highway signs are soon replaced with cliff-side guardrails, winding roads, and the most magnificent-feeling, least-polluted wind on the planet.

Sitting up, I let my phone fall to the floor. I crawl over the bags on the seat next to me to reach the window facing the ocean. As it rolls down, the soft crash of waves and refreshingly salty air immediately soothe the jagged feeling coiling in my gut. Seatbeltless and with a smile crinkling my eyes, I sigh at the big blue ocean and its endless but invigoratingly haunting horizon.

"It feels better now that we're here, huh?" Dad chimes.

"Yeah," I say.

He continues somberly, "Wish your mom were here to see it,"

"Yeah," I say.

My back pocket vibrates with another call from Elizabeth that I plan on missing as I help Dad unload the bags from the hatchback.

"Jeez, Dad, what on Earth did you pack?"

"Enough," he shrugs.

I roll my eyes, "Clearly."

Our old-school family wagon had choked and shuddered up the concrete driveway to huff to a stop in front of a squat beach house painted a dreadful blue-gray. It was once a vibrant cobalt blue, but years of being battered by coastal winds and an evident lack of upkeep reduced it to a shadow of its original color.

Putting down the bags, Dad whistles up at the house with his hands planted at his hips. "Gosh, this place hasn't changed a bit,"

I inwardly cringe. Sure, if before it had looked like a pile of beach-rotted planks stacked on top of each other. Just a decade earlier, I must've looked at this house just like Dad was—with rose-colored glasses, no expectations, and a healthier imagination. I remember running around the foundation, feeling the grass poke out of the hot sand; or chasing after someone on the wraparound patio, thinking about the splinters in my bare feet but never really caring.