I Do Until I Don't

Chapter 18

 Fannar lets go of my hand once we've reached the shore. The sun has finished setting, and the moon is reflected perfectly along the ocean. I look up at the stars, trying to catch my breath. It takes me some time to spot some but, once I do, the stars keep appearing and appearing until the sky is filled with them. How can someone get bored of that?

"Are you okay?" Fannar asks me when I finally turn back to face the ocean. "Why are you all red and breathing really fast?"

"I don't know."

Fannar doesn't believe me. But, the thing is, I honestly don't know. I don't know what keeps happening when I'm surrounded by many people. Still, now, the feeling starts to vanish, but it is still there.

"I can help," Fannar insists.

"I don't know. Really."

"When did it start? How do you feel?"

I explain to him to the best of my capacity what I felt but it is hard when I don't know what I'm feeling. "It's like... It's like you could ask me to take a plate and I will take the plate, but then I'll wonder if I'm really taking the plate. But it's not... it's not like wondering as in questioning myself on the meaning of life. I really have the impression that I'm not taking the plate even though I am. Does that make sense?"

I guess it must not make sense because Fannar doesn't answer. His gaze is locked on the peaceful ocean. It's in moments like these, moments during which everything is silent around me save for the sound of the waves crashing on the sand, that I know that magic exists. How could it not?

How could he have taken the Northern Lights for granted?

"Do you feel better now?" Fannar asks.

"A little. The feeling doesn't disappear quickly. It can take, like, two days."

"TWO DAYS?"

I nod.

"And people know about that?"

"Just Julia. But she says it's normal and stuff." I look at the ocean. "The ocean helps." I smile and turn around to look at him sideways. He's on my left, our body facing the ocean, but we're looking at each other. "Thank you. You helped. I wouldn't have thought of leaving."

"You didn't look well."

"I'm fine now. The ocean always is the best remedy."

Fannar smiles.

"Is there anything the ocean can't cure?"

"I'm not sure."

"Probably drowning," Fannar tries.

I laugh and sit down on the sand. The waves might wet my dress if they come closer, but I don't care. I dig my feet in the cold sand. Fannar looks down and joins me.

"Do you believe in magic?" I ask me after looking at the ocean in silence for a while.

"I do." I turn my head to see if he's kidding. He isn't. "Do you?"

"Yeah." I sigh. "Life is too wonderful for it not to have magic."

"In Iceland," he starts (I love it when he talks about Iceland), "in Iceland, people believe in gnomes and dwarfs living in rocks. You know, like in Frozen. People now have stopped believing in them, but not everyone. In kindergarten, we'd have classes on folklore and I'd come back home and would apologize to every rock I'd step on by mistake." He smiles at the ocean like it knows all his secrets.

"I didn't know Icelanders believed in magic."

"Oh yeah. My grandma used to make this magic soup. She said it was magic, that it could cure any disease. And it always did."

"Could I have your grandmother's soup recipe?"

Fannar laughs. "I'll ask her."

I start playing in the sand with my finger, tracing little symbols all around me. The sand goes under my nails, but I will complain about that later.

"What about you?" Fannar asks. "I always talk about Iceland, but what about you?"

I trace a flag in the sand as I explain, "I'm half French, half American. Boring. I don't even speak French! No one in my family believes in magic. I'm the only one who does. My sisters always tell me I'm being a baby and that I should grow up and see that there isn't any magic in this world." A wave arrives at our level, wetting both Fannar's and my legs, and erasing the flag I drew. "I think they haven't lived enough. There is magic all around us."

Fannar stares at me without blinking before grinning. "You are different than everyone else."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No, I like it."

I shoot him a playful smile. "Are you practicing for our fake-couple thing?"

Fannar smiles shyly. "No. No, I'm not."

We continue to play in the sand. Fannar covers his body with sand. I give up my little sand drawings, and help him out, covering his legs with wet sand and then dry sand to make it stick even more.

Once we finished covering him in sand, Fannar gestures for me to take a seat and he starts covering me. He's trying hard not to move any of his body parts other than his hands for the sand not to crack. It's funny to watch, he reminds me of a robot.

"Are you scared of the ocean?" Fannar asks me out of the blue, trying to cover my toes.

"No. Why would I?"

He shrugs. "You don't what's out there."

"So? I don't know what's waiting for me when I grow up, but I'm not scared."

"Why not?"

"I like Life."

It's not the best reason ever, but it is mine. I can't possibly be afraid of something I like.

*****

"ELLA-MAE? FANNAR?" I hear someone scream. Sabrina's voice. "ELLA-MAE!"

"HERE!"

I wave as I turn over, getting rid of all the sand that is over me.

Sabrina stops when she sees me helping Fannar getting up.

"Don't tell me you had sex."

"What? No."

Thank God it's not sunny or my red cheeks would have been visible from outer space.

"Then where were you?"

"Here."

"Why?"

"I..." I don't know what to tell her. Should I tell her about the thing my brain does when there are too many people? No, she'd worry for nothing. There isn't something I can do about it, anyway.

"We wanted to talk," Fannar says, helping me out.

"Oh. Okay." Sabrina stares into my eyes and tries to see if I'm hiding something. She knows it's not the complete reason, but she doesn't insist. "Let's go. If Alex stays another moment, he'll pass out."

"Where is he?"

"Right here─" Sabrina turns around but no one is behind her. "I'm going to kill that bastard." She runs back to the party, grabbing me by the hand, dragging me along. "ALEXANDER JOSEPH HANNAH!"