Beauty

8

sand caressed the side of her face as she lay there on the water. the tide had rolled in now and she hoped so badly that it would drown her now. she realized she had landed on the small patch of land that was sandy. normally it was covered in water but the tide was not there when she'd arrived and now as it rolled in covering half her face. she could still breathe and she wanted to lie there until she couldn't and wasn't anymore. 

her name was being called. 

they were looking. 

the town knew. 

they knew grace had now become a broken girl with a shredded heart. one with not even the power to keep herself eating. or living. 

not one person said a word to her when they found her nearly dead in the water. she was taken to a hospital and that was how a new story began with the first one ending. 

cameron was never one to regret. so now regretting everything, he'd changed. this girl had completely twisted him into some sick bastard in his own mind. he left her with a bouquet of her favorite flowers and not a word to be said. 

what a sick cruel joke. telling someone you love them and then choosing to never speak to them again. 

he felt like a monster. he would listen quietly to the radio every morning. somehow hoping he would hear something about her. he had no clue what she would be doing on the radio. he thought maybe she would search for him. but nothing had come up. 

he was now in washington, his trip almost concluded. he was on the wrong side of the country. he should've been on the east coast and he knew it. but he existed on the west coast for years to come. he never knew that someday he would drift back to that small town on the east coast as if the town were a siren luring him in like he were a sailor. 

grace had only ever felt the kind of pain she experienced from cameron leaving once before. she'd compared the two in the early stages of her heartbreak and didn't realize that the pain was nearly equivalent. 

her grandma took care of her from the time when grace was in 3rd grade to her passing a little over a year after grace's heartbreak. so grace was saddened by the loss, but nothing felt painful anymore thanks to the medicine she had been prescribed by her therapist in that year. 

in her early years, grace's grandmother would her to sleep. only because if she didn't grace would have known the world of night terrors all too well. grace's parents died in a car crash on new years eve and it left grace all alone. grandmother was everything to her. and now that she was gone grace felt like she must take the same rolls as her grandmother had. 

grace owned a coffee shop now. the only hard part was that it was next door to the flower shop. it reminded grace of cameron. but she had gone numb to it all as of now. 

grace remembered the first time seeing the flower shop after it all. she thought she'd seen him through the window. she fell to the ground in the middle of the sidewalk and sobbed. she had to be escorted home by the town police man. 

now she didn't feel a thing when she saw the shop. 

she'd found a new spot because her old one on the beach held too many memories that she wanted to forget. 

she knew she would never forget of course. how could she when everything around reminded her of him. 

and just like grace, cameron had been able to see a part of her in everything. especially the beautiful things. 

he knew he would never forget grace's beauty. never.