Hey ya'll! So, I've mentioned that I was in a writing dry spell, and last week the lovely
suggested that I write a short story to get my writer brain working again. So I did. And it totally helped! I wanted to write one short story per month this year, but this is only my second one because I'm a slacker. Sigh. Here's the story.
I stand by the sea and wait.
The water is dark and tumultuous, crashing at
my bare feet. The bottoms of my jeans are cold and wet, sticking to my ankles
and up my calves. Rocks and sand give way under my feet as the water pulls
back, claiming the land, taking it away because it can. Just like it wants to
take me.
I run a rough hand through my briny hair. I
don’t want it to take me, but I’ll go willingly. I’ll go on my own terms when
I’m ready. I’ll leave Brit behind. She won’t care anyway. She never did.
I reach down and pick up a rock, smooth and cool from the ocean, turning it
over in my hand. I want to throw it but it won’t skip in this choppy water. It
warms as it steals my body heat, rolling over and over in my palm.
The sun is
lost behind thick, grey clouds, turning the horizon into an angry infinity. I know they’re watching me from the water.
They’re waiting for their chance, or for me to make a choice.
My cell phone jingles in my pocket for the
seventeenth time and I know it’s Brit again. The electronic tune grates on my
nerves, like it’s Brit’s voice nagging and pulling at me, and I yank the phone
out of my pocket and throw it long and hard out to sea. The exertion feels
good, really good, and I thrill as I watch the device soar through the air and
plunk down under the water’s surface.
I can almost feel them laughing at me, knowing
that I’m close. I’m so close.
“Ha! Cade!”
I’d know that voice anywhere, even
obscured and disembodied in the howling ocean wind. I stuff my hand in my jeans
pocket, holding tight to the rock, mildly amused that I keep the rock but chuck
the phone. I keep my back to the shore and glance toward the sound.
“Cade Johnson, man lost at sea!” Hank Donnelly
gallops down the shoreline like a damn fool, hair flapping in the breeze. I
know it’s because he’s in love with Shannon Moore, and I bet he’s just been to
see her and that’s why he has that dunce grin on his face. He’s oblivious to
the world but somehow manages to make spot-on observations.
I grip the rock in my pocket. Not lost at
sea yet.
He stops a few feet behind me to avoid the
breakers. “Where’ve you been?” he asks, panting, and I can hear the grin still
plastered on his face.
“Here.” It’s suddenly stuffy on this vast beach
now that I’m not alone. I take a deep breath of ocean air, and when I lick my
lips it tastes like salt.
“Brit’s been looking for you. Said she called
you and you never picked up. I knew you’d be here.”
“And here I am.” My tone is mocking, but Hank
knows I don’t mean it at him. I don’t even know who I mean it at. Brit,
probably. I can see her catlike green eyes squinting at me, judging me, always
wanting me to change.
The sea is inviting in its wild thrashing—dark
slate water churning, urging me to come forward. I keep my ground, feet planted
in the sand and in the sea. I’m on a precipice, in between, and I’m not sure
what will sway me one way or the other. Jolly Hank Donnelly isn’t helping.
“Everyone’s coming for the bonfire. You’ll stay
for it, right?” Hank says.
“Did you come all this way just for that?”
“Yeah?” He says it like a question, like I
should know that he’d come down to the beach just to find me.
I do know, because he’s trying to stop me but
won’t say it, and I won’t acknowledge it.
“It’s supposed to storm,” I say. The darkening
sky confirms my words, and the wind blows icy shards of seawater into our faces
for good measure. I don’t wipe it away—it might be my home soon.
“Cade…where are your shoes?” Hank takes a step
toward me, still out of the way of the greedy water.
I step deeper into the surf, my jeans soaked
through to my knees as the waves hit. My shoes are in the water with my phone,
but I won’t tell him that. It’s a dead giveaway that I’m practically signing my
life over to the sea.
Practically, but not yet. Not yet, I
shout in my mind at the eyes that are watching.
“Come on, man. Let’s get the bonfire started.”
There’s a shred of desperation in Hank’s voice. He knows. He definitely knows.
Damn, I don’t want to do this with him here.
I take a minuscule step back. I know they’re watching
me. “I’ll be right there,” I say, turning the rock over in my pocket.
Hank just stands there like he doesn’t know
what to do, staring between the ocean and me. “Brit’s coming soon. I told her I
was looking for you here.”
I rake a hand through my hair, then two hands when I let go of the rock,
breathing loudly through my nostrils. I want to be furious at Hank but it’s not
his fault he’s an idiot. It’s Brit. It’s Brit I’m furious at. I don’t want to
see her, don’t want her anywhere near me. And I sure as hell don’t want her to
see me go under the water. Just the mention of her name drives me forward into
the waves.
“Cade!”
“Shut up, Hank!” I yell as the water hits my
waist, chilling me to the bone. Dammit! I didn’t want it to be like
this. I’m halfway there and I haven’t even made up my mind yet. At least I can
be sure that Hank won’t follow me. He’s too scared.
The rush of wind and roar of the ocean is loud
enough to cover my breathing and my pounding heart and any attempts Hank might
make to stop me. I’m deaf with it, with the sea, and as a wave builds
before me and water sprays into my eyes I’m blind with it, too. My sensation is
lost, and all I know anymore is cold, freaking cold and wet and numb.
Numb.
Numb is what I’m after. Numb erases her name
and her eyes and the sound of her voice when she lies to me.
I can hear them now. They’re laughing, jeering.
They’re coming to take me if I don’t move quickly.
I make up my mind. I go willingly into the sea, plunging deep into
the water and away.
It’s like ice to my bones and a heavy veil over
my body as I swim to them. I can’t open my eyes yet but I know they’re close,
and I know they see me, and I know they’re angry that they didn’t take me
themselves.
This was my choice. Nothing from before matters
anymore, null and void in the face of what’s to come. Cade Johnson the
quarterback is dead. The only son, the failing student, the drummer, the
boyfriend. He’s gone.
I brace myself and I open my eyes.
I am Cade Johnson, man lost at sea.
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