"Just smile, you idiot!" she laughed, shoving him playfully as he frowned into the camera lens. The gentle waves lapped at the supple skin of her heels, and her grin widened as a protective arm engulfed her waist almost inadvertently to protect her against the chill. She sighed and leaned into his frame, holding the phone at an angle to capture the poorly repressed amusement on her Kiran's face.
She had dragged him to the beach the moment the weekend began because, well, it was finally summer! If you asked Kiran, he would tell you how she thrived in the summer, how she glowed, her whole face alight. It wasn't the tan that blessed her already sunkissed skin, nor the freckles that revealed themselves on her nose that charmed Kiran, however, but the sort of aliveness that Mare had an air of. She was a magnet, his aphrodisiac. And he knew there was no better way to fall. Because, of course she would catch him.
Fortunately, Kiran's often all-consuming love never once proved to be one-sided. Mare lived for his smug grins, his soft, slow kisses, the little indignant sound he made when she ran up and crushed him in a hug. She spent her free days planning for the future and forcing him out on excursions. Spent her love by interlocking their fingers so that their matching bracelets lay intertwined the moment he was within her reach. She stole away late nights and sunrises, documenting it not on her phone, but in her mind. And if her memory started to fray, she'd lock away how she felt in her heart. Fittingly, the two being the inseparable pair they were, Kiran was the only one who possessed the key.
The heat beat down on them, and despite their loose attire, the two quickly grew sweaty and tired. And what did most humans do when faced with scorching sand and cool water? They ran toward the reprieve. They faced the force of nature that was the ocean. Hand in hand, the two lazily sauntered deeper into the shiver-inducing sea, holding the other for warmth. Both were more than willing to give, and in return, they gained.
But, like most good things, greedy forces waited to steal them away. Beautiful, the ocean seemed to sigh as they stepped in, the waves gradually edging higher. Beautiful, the clouds agreed, poking in for a closer look. The two were so wrapped up in the bubble of the quiet day and whooshing winds, that they failed to notice the signs put up behind them. They warned of high tide, of missing humans in rescue vests, of 'one's own risk'. They were so wrapped up that they didn't notice that they were the only two left. The only two left to succumb to the sudden rip of the tide, the ocean's greatest weapon.
One moment, Mare was being splashed gently; the next moment, she was shoved forcefully, frantically toward the shore.
"Shit, shit! Mare, go!" she heard in her ear. "Go!" A desperate plea. One of love. One that would haunt her for years to come. What if, she would wonder. What if...
We hadn't been there?
We had seen the signs?
What if Kiran had never died?
But the truth of the moment was that she made it out of the ocean that day, lungs and heart still working. Her breathing true and steady.
The truth was that she eventually managed to drag her Kiran onto dry land, that her trembling fingers felt his pulse, or rather, lack thereof, as she keeled over on the sand. She lay her ear on his heart that had once beat for hers, and prayed for the rise and fall of his chest. Tears mingling with the equally salty water that drenched them both, she sobbed into his shirt.
"Please," she cried.
"Please," she whispered.
Her last plea was a tormented shadow of what it had been once. "Just smile, you idiot!"
