Crashing Into Blue

Chapter 33

By time I make my way home that night, I'm emotionally and physically exhausted. All I want to do is lie down on my bed and possibly never get up again. But as I toss off my shoes in the front hall, the sound of the ocean crashing onto the beach at the back of the house pulls at me like a puppeteer controlling my strings. I stumble towards the back deck in a haze; I don't even reach the flower power chairs. I let myself drop unceremoniously onto the steps where I untangle my legs, pushing my feet into the cool sand. I let out a sigh at the sight before me. Birds are gracefully dipping and swerving through the air. The ocean is dark blue, with orange and yellow tones painting the sky in an infinite backdrop. I close my eyes and let the salty breeze swirl in my hair, picking up tendrils and letting them drop back down slowly. I tilt my head back and open my eyes, expecting to see the fiery sky above me. But I find myself crashing into the blue.

"What are you doing here?" I ask Samson quietly.

He drops down next to me slowly, not quite looking at me.

"I wanted to come by since we haven't gotten to talk much since the mini golf incident and I got your texts..." He cringes at himself as he says this, and something in the way his nose scrunches up loosens something in my chest. I find myself laughing at the absurdity of the entire situation.

"Yeah, it wasn't our finest hour was it?" I ask him teasingly. He finally looks at me, relief flashing across his face.

"Did you even know the manager had that much authority? I mean banned for life? Did he not see the other people playing?" He mimics a mini putter being waved in the air wildly.

"Samson, they were kids! They didn't know what they were doing, and they didn't hurt anybody."

He sobers up after the words pass my lips. The momentary relief that was between us is gone as quickly as it came.

"Maybe we didn't either," he says looking out into the water.

"To which one? Knowing what we were doing or hurting somebody?" I ask him tentatively, feeling like this is all about so much more than the mini-golf. I turn to look at him; jaw clenched and skin glistening, his eyes are set on the distance. I'm too scared to approach the topic I've been dancing around for the past few weeks, and I hate how lame that makes me. He saves me the choice by not answering my question.

"Has Patrick been coming around lately?"

I bristle at the mention of Patrick, thrown off by him wanting to talk about someone else when all I want to talk about is... us. Or what we could be.

"Um," I say trying to catch myself, "he hasn't, thankfully."

"Isn't that what you wanted, though?" he asks me sharply.

His tone catches me off guard, and I feel us slipping back into our old argumentative routine. We might as well be fighting about the grapes I put into my smoothie and their fresh produce status. It's the last place I really want to be.

"I guess, but..." he doesn't let me finish the end of my sentence before pushing himself up off the step and wiping the sand off his shorts.

"You know, coming over here probably wasn't a good idea. We're both tired, I just got off work and you did too probably, so I'm just going to go..." he lets the sentence trail off as he walks down the steps, past the shed, and out our gate.

I look at the door leading into the shed. The light is throwing shadows out of the doorframe, and I wonder if my mom heard the exchange. If she's going to come out and sit next to me, ask what's going on as she pushes my hair off my forehead like she used to when I was little. The shadow elongates as she moves towards the door, and my heart picks up its beating in anticipation. But all I get is a closed door. I feel my heart drop.

I turn back towards the water. I think about Samson and what I want, and I finally let myself admit it; him. I want him, as crazy as that is, since he's always been there within my reach. But suddenly, he's as far as he's ever been, and I don't know how to get there. I walk out to the water and let the cool foam slip over my toes. We're not too different from the waves, I think to myself. We came together with a powerful force, but we collapsed upon impact. I wonder if we crashed too hard for anything to remain.