We Were Once Extraordinary

Fine

 After The Event

We hike in silence, the only words passing between us is the haunting words of our past. The wind carries laughter and jokes and chatter, of three innocent kids. I want to follow it.

When we finally arrive, I'm sweating and hot. I check my phone, it's a eighty-nine degrees outside. Typical Florida, always hotter than it needs to be.

"It's hot." Zan Phelps announces and sits himself on the sand.

"You don't need to remind me."

"At least we have a view."

"At least we have a view."

I sit down next to him, trying to drown my memories with the ocean. I watch the waves and let the rhythmic beating of them calm my nerves, it doesn't work well but it does something. I feel a tug on my shoulder, "It's not the same without her."

"No," I say, "It isn't."

"I shouldn't have come here."

"No," I shake my head, and grip the sand tight between my fingers."you shouldn't."

"Are you going to make me feel even worse about myself?" He asks and looks over at me.

I shrug, "You said you were fine. What is there to feel worse about?" I look away and think over them for a moment, "Unless of course, you did something that is worth feeling bad about."

I watch him as he takes in my sentence, and I watch him even closely when he tries to avoid it. "Why would you think I did anything?"

"I never said you did," I answer, "but I am asking if you did. It's hypothetical, not real, make believe if you must."

"You should be a lawyer."

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not."

"You are lying!"

The words come out sharper, louder than I expected them to be. They fill the wind now, and what was once our perfect little sanctuary from the rest of the world, untouched and innocent will now know the anger and grief that I hold. This place was a white canvas, and I just took a bucket of black ink and spilled it.

"Stop lying to me!" I yell, standing up. "Don't lie to me, you and I both know that you are hiding something. You either spill it to me or you don't. Just don't lie to me."

"Fine-" Zan Phelps stands up,"-I am lying! But so are you!"

I let out a laugh, a maniacal laugh. Irony was a sweet treat, with a bitter aftertaste. 

"Of course, I am. What else am I supposed to do? Just be broken and wallow in my self-pity and the past? No. You and I both know we can't do that. It doesn't work like that. You get up and you start over. Am I okay? No, but I need to act like it. Am I fine? No, but I will be. So, you need to stop trying to bring back what's gone, what is dead. Because the dead don't come back."

The rant I have been holding in for six months is starting, words that have been written and repeated in my head over and over again. Because Zan Phelps was a good friend, but he isn't my friend anymore. 

"Robyn-" He begins, but I cut him off.

"Don't even. You were doing just fine on your own! You left me as soon as things went bad, and you made a life of your own. So, don't you dare come back here and try to make things go back to how it was! Six months, you left me for six months!" I fumed, "Six months and you didn't even remember me."

It was silent between us.

Just like it was for six months. 

I said everything that needed to be said. 

It was silent, yet words still seemed to fill my head. I am a writer at heart, words were all I know.

The boy in front of me fell, he fell so far from where he started. He only wanted love and acceptance, he only wanted to be free, he only wanted to fly. So when he did jump, he jumped from the highest ledge he could. He dived into the water and he forget that he could drown. He fell in love with the ocean and left me alone in the sand.

I was the sand, constantly being blown away. Constantly being taken away. Meeting only the tips of the ocean and never really knowing it's depths. I stare out at the ocean, at the irony. The three of us, boy, ocean and sand, all of hopeless. One meant to drown, one meant to be mysterious, and one meant to never know the full story. It was like one of those hopeless fairy tales. The ones that when they are told are happy, the ones that are supposed to make you feel happy. But like those fairytales, when you find the real story you learn about how sick and twisted, they really are.

I used to consider myself a writer, but never did I think I would be the one blind to the story unfurling in front of me.

Good thing I'm not a writer anymore.