Footprints in the Sand

Chapter One: Out on the Dock

Chapter 1: Out on the Dock

            Every night out on the dock I stand under the moonlit sky. Taking deep breaths as I close my eyes, I listen for the gentle waves as they lap against the mighty cliffs, and feel the cool refreshing spray from the ocean. Tilting my head back, a slight breeze ruffling my hair, I inhale taking in the salty scent from the water.

        This is everything. There isn’t anything more I could want more than to be here right now. My eyes fluttered open and I’m staring at the deep bluish-black sky filled with thousands of glittering stars.

This is everything. I thought. Crouching down I slipped my bag off my shoulders and pull out of it a leather diary, a pen, a box of matches, and a candle.

Dear Diary,                                                                                            Sunday, June 4, 2011

                                                                                                                                11:50 P.M

                It’s my last day here. My last day of the quiet, peaceful, stillness of the moonlight glimmering on the ocean waves. Of all the things that make here my home.

                        I pause, the candlelight dancing on the paper.

            Home. Most people can’t wait to get the hell away when they graduate high school. They get their diploma and then they’re gone. But I’m not like that. This is where I’m from. Where I grew up. Where everything I ever loved is. But I have to get away from my family. I can't stay with them any longer. I'll go insane.

        I don't want to leave. That's what makes me different from those other kids. But I can't stay and let my family tear me to sheds. No. I refuse to let that happen.

        I love them, I do. But you know what they’re like. They don’t think I can make it as a journalist. They want me to stay in the family business. But I don’t want to manage a restaurant. I’ve told them that a thousand times. But they already have their minds set on me taking over the business. What I want has never truly mattered. And it’s not just that. They have the idea for a perfect family. But I’m the odd one out. I’m not like them and I can’t pretend like I am. They keep wanting to change everything about me. It drives me crazy! I have to get out and if I don’t get out now, while I can, I’ll be stuck here forever. One month trip to Florida. That’s my graduation present. What they don’t know is that I’m not coming back.

            I shut my diary. It was late. Nearly midnight. I blew out the candle and slip everything into my bag. Brushing my hair out of my face I stood up. I stayed there for a few moments, enjoying the serenity of my surroundings.

            I took one last look at the ocean then turned walking across the dock. My feet softly thudding against the wood. I took out a small key when I reached my house. Unlocking the door I slipped inside silently tiptoeing across the hall to my bedroom. Shutting the door behind me I dropped the bag at the foot of my bed and kicked off my shoes.

            Flopping onto the mattress gazed around the room. It felt empty. The photographs that normally covered my nightstand had been packed away. There was nothing left on the bookcase either. All of my clothes had been stuffed into suitcases and posters had been stripped off the walls. Everything on my desk; Notebooks, Pens, paper, note cards, a dictionary, bottles of nail polish I had been too lazy to put away, and an iPod had been cleared away.

            My thoughts shifted back to graduation night. That was when my best friend and I decided to leave. When her grandmother died she left the house to Korynna. It was a two bed one bath house with a small kitchen and a one car garage. It wasn’t much, but it was more than what we needed.

            I was eighteen legally an adult. But I still felt guilty about leaving, although not as much because of my family, but because of Ben.

        Ben. They boy who took me for long walks on the beach, and stood outside my bedroom window serenading me an apology when I got mad at him. Once he even followed me to Colorado when I ran away because my brother died. Ben stood by my side through everything, and now I was leaving him. When I told him I was going I could tell by the look on his face he wanted to stop me. But he knew how I felt about my family, I’d complained to him nearly every day, so he didn’t even protest.

I knew I could’ve asked him to come with me. Under normal circumstances I doubt I would’ve had to ask, but his mother was in the hospital with cancer. He couldn’t just leave her, and I couldn’t just ask him to. I pushed myself up off the bed and changed clothes. I set my alarm clock then slipped under the covers. I drifted slowly to sleep with one word in my head

Tomorrow.