Sway

Little Adventure

The first time I ever visited Southwick Beach was with Phineous. He had gotten invited to this party and thought it would be cool if I came and met some of his other friends.

Being the kind of person I am, I thought it was a terrible idea. I never really liked to mingle, especially with my best friends 'other' friends.

As you can probably guess, I still ended up going. I'm glad I did because, it turned out to be amazing. Not only did I really enjoy Phineous's other friends, but I fell in love with one part of Southwick Beach.

The sky.

Southwick Beach is known for its amazing sky views. When the sun starts to set, you can usually spot ginormous stars beaming in their brightest forms.

Now the taxi driver was pulling off into the distance, leaving Charlotte and I standing at the edge of the beach. It was nearing 7:30PM and the sun probably wouldn't start setting for another few minutes.

Charlotte looked like she was second guessing my idea of an adventure. Her blue eyes took in the empty beach ahead of us. The sand led into the water that was slowly rushing ashore every few seconds, and the large deck was kind of falling apart.

"I know it looks a little vacant but, it's actually really amazing." I tried to reassure her before taking off my converse and stepping into the sand. It was still slightly warm as it wrapped itself around my toes.

She watched before taking off her own shoes and doing the same, "I can't believe I've never been here before."

I started walking slowly towards the water, "Well, as you can see, it's usually pretty lonely here."

"How'd you find it?" She was right beside me, holding her shoes with her slim fingers.

"Phineous. He's lived here for years now."

With every minute that passed, the sun lowered further and further. It was beginning to get that burning lava look, with a slightly pinkish tint around the clouds. It was only a matter of moments before the stars would appear.

"How'd you two meet?" She asked with a curious tone as we finally reached the water.

I plopped down on the sand close enough to the water so that my toes were touching it, she did that same.

"We met in high school," my brown eyes gave a light smile as I thought back to those days. It seemed like it was so long ago, like I was aging faster than I should've been.

"So you guys are serious friends then," her blonde hair shook as she slowly nodded her head.

I laughed a little, "Yeah, I guess you could say that. He knows everything about me and well I pretty much know everything about him..." I suddenly felt a little sad as I remembered Tristen from the bar the other day. Obviously he and Phineous had a thing going on, and my best friend didn't even tell me about it. I shook the thought away, making a mental note to ask him about Tristen tomorrow.

"So tell me more about yourself?" She asked while leaning back on her elbows. I had to force my eyes not to wander to her exposed legs as her dress lifted slightly.

"What would you like to know?" I turned a little so that I could look at her beautiful face.

Her fingers played in the sand while she thought up a question, "Do you play any instruments?"

My heart immediately skipped a beat when I pictured her sitting on the stage in Sidewalk, plucking the strings of her Martin D-28.

"I do," her eyes widened, "guitar, piano, cello, violin, and the drums."

"What the fuck Talia!" She was now sitting up completely. Her blue eyes blazing with so many questions, and I couldn't even blame her. Most people were shocked when I told them how many instruments I played.

"Yeah," I scratched the back of my neck, "I was obsessed with everything musical when I was younger."

"No shit!" She said, causing me to laugh.

Then I looked up and I saw it. Like a diamond laying on top of navy blue cloth, the single brightest star I'd ever seen. She caught me staring up and looked up herself. As soon as she saw it, a gasp left her mouth. Her body relaxed and her eyes never left that star, "This is the best part of Southwick Beach." I said.

"I've never seen a star that big before."

I smiled, feeling like I had accomplished something. "Did you know, there's presumably 1 billion trillion stars in the universe?"

She laughed, "1 billion trillion?!"

"Yeah, that's what Google says."

Her eyes finally left that star and landed on me, "You're so weird."

My happiness kind of dimmed when I heard that, "Oh."

"No! Not in a bad way..." she looked at her palms as a bunch of sand fell from them.

"In what kind of way then?"

"A good way, kind of refreshing." Her hands hit the sand and she looked back up at the sky.

I wanted to ask her if she would elaborate, maybe tell me what she meant by refreshing. But there was something about the way she said her last sentence, as if she was happy to be away from something. I figured I shouldn't push it with the questions, especially since we'd only just met this morning. Instead I followed her example and leaned back on my elbows, feasting my eyes upon the multitude of galaxies above us.

We remained that way for awhile, just sitting and talking about little things. I found out that she sang at open mics quite often, that she had once tried to go to college but dropped out after a few months, and that she was just getting out of a relationship... with a man.

After hearing her say that, I wanted to run into the water and dunk my head underneath. It felt like I was being stabbed repeatedly, the word 'boyfriend' replaying in my head over and over again. Suddenly, I wished I had asked her about her sexuality earlier. Then I felt bad because, even if she wasn't interested in me in the way I had hoped, she was still by far one of the most intriguing people I'd ever met.

So I inhaled and pretended like I hadn't been imagining us holding hands all day. We continued pointing out different stars and trying to guess which ones they could be. It was damn near impossible, but, we had fun.

Eventually her phone rang, she looked at the caller ID and excused herself. I watched in curiosity as she walked further away so I wouldn't hear her conversation. I didn't need to hear it to tell that it wasn't a good one, her face no longer had that calmness.

When the conversation ended, I tried to look away and pretend like I hadn't been watching her pace back and forth.

"I, Uh," she leaned down to grab her shoes, "have to go."

"Oh," I squinted while slipping on my own shoes, "is everything okay?"

She nodded, although I could see right through it, "Yeah, I just need to get back home."

"Okay, well, I'll call an Uber."

"Actually, I should probably ride alone."

Her words were surprising, "Right, yeah. Okay then."

She sensed that I was disappointed, "but, thanks for showing me this place and taking me on a little adventure."

I smiled a little, wishing that the adventure could've lasted longer.