I close my eyes and breathe deep, wishing to smell the thick, salty air of Assateague once again. The air here in Texas is thin, dry, and hot, not at all like east coast air. All I smell is dust and dirt, but I keep my eyes closed and try to remember anyway.
It’s nearing midnight and we are sitting in a lifeguard stand a couple hundred yards down the beach from everyone else. We’ve ended up there after walking along the shore as we attempt some semblance of a conversation- we’re supposed to be defining how the two of us fit together in life. At that point, I don’t think we even knew the answer.
Walking down the beach we talked about our lives- where we’d been and where we hoped to be going. I think if I hadn’t been talking to him, I might have cried telling my sad story, but somehow with him, the sadness couldn’t take control. There was another emotion in his presence taking a deeper root.
Even now as I daydream, I am overwhelmed by the memories- visiting him at work on the boardwalk, running down the beach barefoot, playing in thunderstorms, reading poetry together well into the morning, driving to church with the stereo blaring. So many simple things that seemed like nothing at the time- so many things I took for granted.
Not now. A thousand miles away, I miss doing laundry together on Sundays. I miss talking out at the picnic tables late at night. I miss watching him praise Jesus as he leads worship on the drums. I miss the way he gets excited about the smallest things, and then suddenly they aren’t small things to me anymore. I miss grocery shopping together. I miss cooking Sunday lunch together. I miss everything- as long as it is together.
Together at Assateague is my favorite memory, though. It’s filed in my brain between running in the rain together and the night we both accidentally fell asleep in the girls apartment living room. Not that anything happened- it’s just funny to remember waking up and wondering why no one else found it necessary to wake us up and tell us the night before. We were on separate couches, completely oblivious to each other’s existence. And, in my defense, it was my living room, not his, and I fell asleep first.
Assateague.
Even the name sounds special. Like some kind of fairytale. An enchanted island of ponies where white beaches crash with crystal waves and the sound of praise and worship drifts on the breeze. Bonfires flicker in the distance and the dark sky above us is brilliantly illuminated by a million gleaming stars, untarnished by the bright city lights of Ocean City.
We’re sitting on the lifeguard stand together. We climbed up to talk as we watched the moon rise on the cloudy eastern horizon. At all the right moments, the moon breaks through the clouds and paints a masterpiece on the seascape, broken only by the thundering waves, an ample soundtrack for our surreal moment. I don’t remember piece by piece the words that were being exchanged.
I remember I’m fiddling with a piece of shell that I’d found earlier. I’m nervous as I rub it back and forth between my fingers, keeping my hands busy. I’m trying to keep my mind off of the one place I really wished my hands could be- in his. Just in case, though, I decide to fidget with only one hand and leave my right one conveniently sitting on the seat next to me, so that it won’t be awkward if he happens to be thinking the same thing. Elementary, I know.
This is the point in which the memories get blurry. I stop remembering details and start remembering emotions. The way my stomach did summersaults every time he said something that made me smile. The way I couldn’t stop blushing after he grabbed me around the waist and plopped me back down next to him after I mockingly threatened to leave. The way the sticky air made his skin glisten in the moonlight and his eyes twinkled like the stars at everything I said. The way, slowly, after awhile, we weren’t so very far apart after all. Six inches turned into nothing rather quickly.
There were not-so-wonderful moments too. The tone in his voice after I told him I had cut myself before. The sadness he seemed to feel for me as I poured out my life story, the good, the bad and the terrible. But, he understood. He asked questions that most people are scared to ask, hard questions. How long has it been since you last cut yourself? Why did you do it? Do you think you and Courtney will ever be friends again? He asked the questions I wished I could answer, and listened to me stumble through my thoughts, even when I didn’t know what to say. He offered advice, but most importantly he listened. He listened with his whole heart. And he ended up stealing part of mine.
He drove me to the airport on the last day. By then we had convinced ourselves that it was nothing more than a bad case of summer love. We were just friends. Friends with special memories and bright, happy futures in Texas and Pennsylvania. We were happy for each other, sad to leave, but nothing more. Before getting on the plane and waving goodbye, I told him I needed him to hold onto something for me. I held out the piece of shell from the night at Assateague. I figured it was a suitable gift to remember me by- a piece of my story to fit into his.
His face lit up and he laughed the little boy kind of laugh that I had grown so much to love. His face lit up and I could tell that something about “us” wasn’t over. But I was getting on a plane, and he was getting in a car and two very far away schools were waiting for us to bring our summer knowledge back to them.
And that’s where the story ends. Except that I don’t think it does. I think that day at the airport was somehow connected to the day at Assateague, and I think somehow I accidentally put more than just a little shell piece of me into his hands that day. I think I accidentally gave him a whole lot more.
