resurface

13

"How can you not like him?" Ivy asked as Grady walked off.

I shrugged and kept my eyes forward on the orange glow starting to peak out from behind the distant the ocean waves. If I looked at him, my voice would be less convincing. "I just don't."

Ivy snorted. "He's practically perfect."

"Maybe that's why I don't like him."

"So you do like him," she said. "You just don't want to."

I shook my head. I'd never liked a summer boy. It was a waste of time.

We stood in silence for a few minutes. I slipped off my shoes and laid my feet against the cold slick rock. The wind kicked up off the waves, blowing my hair back from my face as the salt stung my skin. Again, I waited for her to argue with me, to tell me that I should like Grady or that she knew I was lying, even that she saw him almost kiss me in the dark.

She didn't. She took a few steps forward to the edge of the rocks, and the water rushed up to meet her. She didn't shriek or protest. She stood still and let the water collapse over her toes and the tops of her feet. Then she turned to me.

"Come in with me." The excitement in her voice almost made me want to.

"It's May."

"So?"

"It's freezing."

She rolled her eyes. "It's not like that's going to hurt you."

"Well technically it could."

Her smile widened. "It's not that cold. Besides, we're alone. This moment, it's ours, no one else's."

"I'll stay here," I said, and this time it wasn't the temperature of the water or that I didn't want to ride my bike home in wet clothes. "You go."

She didn't say anything else. She climbed the rocks, heading back to the beach. Then she peeled her shirt over her head, slid out of her jeans, and ran into the ocean.

I watched her, a tiny silhouette alone in the waves, and my eyes watered. She was home, and this moment she was reclaiming this place as her own. That was why I'd stayed here. This was a moment she was supposed to have alone.

*

"You don't need to be so afraid," Ivy said, when she sat down next to me. Her voice quiet.

I looked up at her. In the almost sunrise light, I could see her eye makeup was smudged and runny, her lip bruised and slightly swollen. Her hair was wet and sand clung to her skin. I wasn't sure if she was talking about the water or something else.

When she didn't elaborate, I asked, "Afraid of what?"

"Of everything." She smiled a little. It managed to look sad without pitying.

"What about you?" I said.

"I'm not afraid of anything." She laughed.

"You won't tell anyone what happened to you. Not the police, not your parents, not me," I said, my voice rising. "I was there. I remember that moment like it just happened. Macon and I were fighting and you were just gone."

Her voice came out firm and her face closed. She didn't look at all like the girl who'd been my best friend or even like the girl I'd just spent the night with. "I told you I don't remember."

"I know you're lying." As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were true. Some part of me, not swayed by the joy of having her back, knew that she was keeping something from me.

"Does it matter?" She asked. "I finally have what I've wanted for as long as I remember. I'm home. Isn't that enough?"

"It doesn't matter that someone just snatched you off the beach and took you away from your family for a decade?" It did matter. It mattered to me and to her parents, and to Macon. It mattered to everyone in this whole town.

She didn't say anything, just shook her head and picked up her shirt.

"Nothing was the same after you were taken," I said. "You have to know that."

"I'm not ready to talk about it," she said.

My eyes stung and I bit my lip to keep from saying anything else. Who knew what had happened to her. It wasn't my right to pry.

"This isn't about me, Emma," she said suddenly. "It's about you. Just because you don't know what you want to do with your life, doesn't mean you can't live. Just because something is temporary doesn't mean it's not worth having. If you keep waiting to figure things out, you're never going to get out of this town."

She stood abruptly, and climbed back down to the beach without waiting for me.

I wanted to call out, to tell her to stop, but my throat was too tight and the words wouldn't come.

So I sat there as the top of the sun crested over the water, and I tried to figure out how she still knew me so well after everything that had changed.

I didn't want to be stuck in Seaside. I knew that. It was a truth so real to me, it was practically in my bones. I carried it with me everywhere I went, with everything I did.

I was born here, but I didn't want to grow old and die here.

Getting out wasn't easy, though. Seaside wasn't like just any other place. The beach, the water, the air, the slow quiet pace of life during the year and then the rush of people and parties in the summer, that life became a part of you, it rooted you to the ground, it made you separate from everyone else, because other people, people who didn't live that for themselves, they didn't understand what it was like, which meant they didn't understand you.

I wanted to get out. I didn't want to end up like my mother or grandmother or anyone else who was going to die here. I didn't want to work at the saltwater taffy shop until I was too old to work anymore. I didn't want my only meaningful relationship to be with a child resulting from some summer fling with some guy I'd never see again. I didn't want to date and marry someone like Dan Fischer just because he could actually hold down a job.

I wanted something else. The problem was I didn't know what that something else was.

I didn't know who I was or who I wanted to be, and until I knew that, how could I know what I wanted to do and how I could come up with a reason compelling enough to just leave my mother and Seaside behind.

I stood there until the sun had finished its ascent and everything around me seemed to glow in shades of orange, pink, and gold, before I left the lighthouse and walked down the beach towards the boardwalk.

When I got there, I slid my hands into the pockets of Ivy's jacket. I expected them both to be empty, but inside the right one was a folded up slip of paper. If we hadn't argued right before she left, if she hadn't told me I was afraid of everything, if she hadn't been right, maybe I would have put it back without looking to see what it was.

This was a different kind of night for me, though. Ivy was home. I'd gone to a summer kid party, danced with the prettiest boy I knew, and stayed out until sunrise.

The paper was thin and barely made any sound when I opened it, but it stopped me where I stood.

Written in all capital letters, in black ink and scratchy handwriting, it said:

YOU SHOULD BE DEAD  

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Thank you so much for reading. Who left the note in Ivy's jacket and what does it mean--I'd love to hear your thoughts :)