Her Shells | ✔

~ Part One ~

I loved Her the first time I saw Her. I was eight and had only seen love in the form of movies and storybooks. I never imagined myself in love. To me, other people were supposed to have love, and I was only supposed to watch their happiness, never having a taste of my own. But when I saw the Ocean, my heart leapt from my chest, and the receding water took it with Her.

I played on the shoreline for hours, collected shells that washed up and put them in my overalls pocket, and watched the light of the sun reflect a blinding white off the calmer part of Her, off in the distance. I reveled in watching the seagulls as they danced along with the breeze like ballerinas. I giggled over the funny looking crabs that sidestepped over my feet that were buried in the sand. I adored the way She inched upon the shore, the water lapping around my ankles playfully. I loved everything about Her.

But we were only there for a day.

I cried. I begged. I pleaded. I wanted to stay with Her, and I told my parents as such.

"What are you talking about, Carolina?" my mother exclaimed, hauling me over her shoulder, "Stay with who?"

"The Ocean!" I insisted, tears and snot leaking down my face. "I want to be with her! She wants to be with me too!"

"What in the world are you going on about? The Ocean isn't a person, Carrie! It doesn't want to be with you!"

But I knew she was wrong. For as my screaming form drew further and further away, I could see it: the form of a woman, made entirely of water, rising from out of the deep. The setting sun glowed shades of yellow and pink through her liquid form. She smiled sadly and She waved goodbye. I watched Her with wide, curious eyes and eventually I waved back.

When the shock of seeing the Ocean having a physical form wore off, I cried harder, and my mother just continued to take me away with exhaustion on every word she scolded me with.

For months after our vacation, I would question both of my parents when we're going back to the Ocean. Neither gave me a straight answer. I anticipated them to say something along the lines of, "We're going right now!" But instead, all I got was either parent telling me to go ask the other, because each was too busy to deal with me.

Eventually, I gave up on the answer I longed for, and I settled for taking the shells from that delightful visit and clutching them tightly all the time. At night, I'd whisper into them, telling my Beloved how my day was, how I missed Her, how I can't wait to see Her again someday. I'd make wishes into these soft pink shells, hoping to be in Her beautiful presence once more.

There was never any reply, but I was convinced She could hear me. After all, I was sure I found Her in every aspect of life. I saw Her in the puddles of rain on the sidewalk. I felt Her on the summer breeze curling around my bedroom. I could smell Her lovely briny scent whenever my mother cooked with sea salt.

I knew She could hear me and I knew that She was with me everyday in the form of my shells.

I took the shells with me to school. No one really batted an eye at this, since I wasn't that interesting to begin with. Some kids would ask to see them, and I would hesitatingly oblige. They all told me how pretty they were, and just as I thought I had found a friend, they would skip off to be with another group. And I was left to my own devices. I became known in later elementary school grades as "the weird girl" because I was hauling around my shells all the time.

I was a quiet, lonesome child, and I had been since toddler-age. I had no interest in getting to know people and becoming friends. All I wanted to do was play by myself or sit beside my parents.

As I grew older and entered middle school, I carried the shells around still. I was considered odd in elementary school for bringing them, but here, I was even stranger. I hadn't grown up with most of these kids, so they didn't know my quirks and they didn't know this was my norm to carry the shells around with me. This made me the target of bullying.