Prism Realm

Prism Realm (Short Story)

"Do you believe in creatures that we can't see?"

I cut a curious glance at my best friend. "You mean like faeries or ghosts?"

River plucks a handful of her rustic brown hair that's whipping around her face from the cool breeze rippling in off the ocean waves and tucks it behind her ear. "Yeah, and unicorns and goblins and stuff." The wind grabs her hair again and throws it back into her bright green eyes.

It seems like a silly question a child would ask, but I know River is quite serious.

Starting from the age of eight, we would meet at this old tree log on the stretch of beach behind her family's condo at the same time every evening to watch the sunset. Back then we used to discuss meaningless childish topics like music, boys, and girls we didn't like at school. But three years ago, when I was fifteen, my parent's moved me to the other side of the country, and River and I were separated for the first time since we were four. She's always been a wild soul with a gypsy heart, but during those three years that wild soul transformed into an untamed beast full of wonder and experimentation. Then tragedy struck her life as sudden as the day my parents told me they were taking me away from the only home I've ever known, and

River started questioning every aspect of life and found it harder and harder to accept that what we see and know is all there is.

I'm surprised she hasn't asked me sooner, to be honest.

I shrug my shoulders and watch a wave crash over the sand. I missed this place. There's no oceans in Indiana. "I don't believe, but I don't not believe either."

River snorts and shoves my shoulder. "You haven't changed at all. You still refuse to take sides."

My bare feet slip in the wet sand, and I let gravity finish what River started and take me down. My butt hits the sand with a soft thud.

"That wasn't very nice!" I scoop up the mushy grains, mold them into a ball, and flick it at her.

She squeals as her arm shoots up to shield her face. "I didn't mean to shove you that hard. Now I have sand in my mouth." She scrapes at her tongue with her fingernails and spits on the ground. "Gross."

I roll my eyes at her. "You're still dramatic, I see."

"You try having two crazy artists for parents." River slides down onto the sand next to me and leans back against the log. "I wish your parents were artists. Maybe they never would have moved away from Cali." Tears gleam in her eyes.

My parents are corporate lawyers. How my straight-laced, suit-wearing mother ever became friends with River's free-spirited, bare-footed mother is beyond my understanding. But it brought us together, so I don't question it.

"Don't cry." I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull her closer to me. "I'm here now."

"But I needed you sooner." Tears rupture from their ducts like a too long contained pressure valve.

My own tears quickly follow.

Her mom, Molly, fought lung cancer for the past year, and my parents wouldn't let me come back to Oceanside to be with River. Our moms had a falling out right before my family moved to Indiana. Neither I nor River know what it was over, but it must have been something utterly unforgiveable for my parents to not let me come back here. Molly died seven weeks ago, and I had to wait until I turned eighteen last week to be able to come here without my parents reporting me as a runaway. If my mom felt any grief over her former friend's death, she didn't let me see.

We cry for a while with our heads together, until the orange glow of the setting sun invades the horizon and the waves begin to crash over our bare legs and feet.