To me the ocean has always been a place where I could go and find some sort of peace. Whether it be from home or from school, it was a place where I didn’t feel judged.

The way I see it, more people are in love with the beach than with the ocean itself. They go there, dressed in their best with friends or family. Some play in the water, testing their limits by going impossibly deep while others stay on the sand to be kissed by the sun.

I never fit into either of those groups. I never fit into any group, really. And maybe that’s what leads to this…cause and effect. Torment and escape.

Some say that the most inconsequential things add up to be the most vital shove over that last cliff. Well, they’re right.

Nothing seemed wrong with my life. I lived, and that was enough. Other people needed some sort of guarantee that their lives were worth living, but I was never one of them.

I was one of the few people I knew that was completely comfortable in my own skin.

The phone buzzed on my nightstand, clattering with shivers loud enough to make me jump in my seat.

I crawled across the floor of my room and answered without checking who it was.

“Hello?” I pinned the phone between my shoulder and ear and crawled back to the pile of papers and books on the ground. English assignment.

“Hey Andy, Sweetie.” I immediately recognized the voice of the only person who’d ever called me Andy and the pen dropped from my hand.

“Vana?” I asked in disbelief.

“I’m back, and I want to see you.”

My heart stalled in my chest, waiting for at any moment, time to continue. Waiting for some proof that this was happening.

In every life there’s a best friend who sweeps you away. One who’s closer than a sister and it seems almost as if you’ve found another version of yourself, only better.

I met Vana in middle school, and from that day on we seemed glued together. That was until the day, two years ago, that she ran away. No note, no explanation, and no hint that anything was wrong. She just left without so much as a goodbye to me.

“Andy?” Her voice was distant, ghosts of words I both longed and feared to hear. I had dreamed of hearing from her for so long, hopped so much and believed so truly that she would come back, and now that she was I didn’t dare believe it.

“Are you there?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” She sighed on the other side, and I was so reminded of a million other conversations that I had to fight back tears. “When can I see you?”

It was too late for me to get out with permission, so I would have to sneak out…

“Is midnight okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Vana said. “I was afraid you would say no.”

“Why would I say no?” I asked.

“We’ll talk about it later, okay. Meet me by the rocks.”

I opened my mouth to reply as the phone clicked silent. I checked the clock and grimaced.

Two hours.

I tried to go back to the English assignment, but found that I was reading the same

paragraph over and over again without understanding anything. My mind drifted through a million

places at once, some good and some not. Eventually I gave up on the assignment, promising myself

that I would finish it when I got home and could concentrate. Instead I took a slow and scalding

shower, letting the water beat at me from all sides.

Taking as long as I possibly could I got ready, choosing everything from my makeup to my

clothes as carefully as I could. Finally the two hours were up, and dressed in a plain white dress I

hadn’t worn in years I left the house as quietly as possible.

The walk to the beach felt shorter than usual. I passed the sidewalk and walked along the

sand until I hit the pier, and under that were rocks where I was going to meet Vana. I sat nervously on

the pile of them. Cigarette buts and beer cans littered the area, the result of a less than decent

teenage sense of morality.

The minutes seemed to take an eternity, each second passing by with the same slow

deliberateness I had used when getting ready. No forms came along the beach with open arms, none

of the shining blonde hair I remembered flowed the icy breeze. I was alone. At one thirty I stood up

and brushed off my dress, ready to call it a night. She wasn’t going to show, she was gone and always

would be.

Just as I was walking away I heard a voice call from further under the pier.

“Wait!”

I froze; almost not wanting to see who it was that had called out, though I think I already

knew. My heart pounded in my chest and my throat constricted. Nerves flew jitters throughout my body

until I was shaking with anticipation and fear. I turned slowly, like they do in movies when they know

the monster is right behind them.

But this was Vana. My Vana. She was no monster.

Sure enough, she was standing in the rocks, eyes sunken in so they looked like deep holes

in the darkness.

“Vana,” I whispered.

She climbed out of the darkness and came towards where I stood next to the sandy beach.

With each step she took forwards I wanted to make it stop, tell her to go back to wherever she’d been,

or maybe even run for myself this time. Her body was thin. Thinner than it had ever been, enough that

her arms and legs were like snapped twigs as they steadied her on the rocks. I could see all of the

individual muscles moving, wiggling under skin where they shouldn’t be seen.

“I’m sorry; I should have come out sooner.” Her voice was raspy, like she’d been smoking

for a long time. The closer she came the more she smelled like the street just after a rain. Damp,

almost moldy, and stuffy with the scent of cigarette and something a little bitterer. “I wanted to see

how long you would wait.”

I wanted to reply. I wanted to fall into her arms and burst out crying. I wanted so badly for

it to be like years ago when we were just kids, waiting and dreaming of the day we would join the kids

below the pier. My mouth seemed glued shut, as the ghost of my friend came out of the shadows and

stood before me like a skeleton corpse. There was nothing alive about her. Not one thing.

“Andy,” she said, tilting her head and trying to get a better look at me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded once, and then shook my head. I was not okay. She was not okay. Why had she

come back? What did she want?

Vana extended a hand out to me, and I gasped; the first audible noise from me. Track

marks lined her arms, and as soon as she knew that I’d seen them her arm dropped to her side.

“I don’t do it anymore,” she said. “It was the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, quitting.

But that’s why I’ve come back, I’ve changed. Can we talk?”

As much as I wanted to reply, all I could do was stare. This was not how I’d imagined her

return. Not at all.

“Please, Andy. I’m so sorry. Let me explain.”

I let her pull me back into the darkness of the rocks and sat next to her, still completely

and utterly speechless I didn’t so much as look at her again.

“Are you going to say anything?” She asked.

It took a minute, but I looked up. Behind the skeleton, I could see who had once been my

best friend. Vana. She was still there, but not at the same time. I focused on the features I

remembered and tried to see her as before. I tried to ignore how her hair was gray and sparse, or how

her eyes were bloodshot and tired.

“I’m sorry. It’s just…surreal.”

Vana smiled, but her teeth were chipped and yellowed. I ignored it and tried to smile back.

Her smile faded just as quickly as it had come, and the air was serious again.

“I’m so sorry about what I did. It was wrong, so wrong. But I’m back now.”

Her tone was so optimistic, so happy. How could she be like that? Couldn’t she see that I

was still falling apart inside, and that her coming home like this was worse than if she’d never come

home at all. She wasn’t Vana anymore, as much as I wanted to pretend so.

“So what?” I asked.

“You have every right to be angry with me, Andy. But please, try to understand. I was

suffocating.”

I scoffed, and felt terrible for doing so, but it was out of my mouth before I could stop it. All

of my pent up anger and emotion poured out all at once, and I was useless to stop it.

“Don’t laugh at me, okay. You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

I shook my head at that. “No, I don’t know. But I do know that you went through all of that

by choice, and I don’t have any pity for you.”

“I don’t want your pity,” Vana said, her voice had hardened to anger like mine.

“Then what do you want, Vana?” I asked, “Why are you here? Why did you come back?”

“Because I was dying out there! Its hell and I crawled my way out. I thought you would be

happy.”

“Happy.” I shook my head as the first few tears fell. “You thought that I would be happy

that you came back after you left me. You left me, okay. I had nobody. I still have nobody, and it’s all

because you couldn’t deal with your life. You know what, that’s life, okay. It get’s tough, and some

people deal, and some people run away.”

“Of course, all you can think about is yourself.” Vana stood and glared at me, her hollowed

eyes looked more frightening than mad.

“I thought about you for two years. Waiting for the day you would come back. And now

you’re here. I think I deserve to think about myself for once.”

“You don’t understand!” Vana yelled, her voice cracking as vocal cords tried to fight past

their abuse. “You don’t know what it was like.”

“Because you never told me.” I brought my voice down. I was tired of yelling, and tired of

putting all of my energy into fixing broken china. It was over, all of this now was like trying to stick two

backwards magnets together. I could try all I wanted, but it wouldn’t stick. “I was your best friend, and

you never even said goodbye.”

“You would have tried to make me stop.”

“I would have done whatever I could, so what. Is that wrong?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Stop it, Vana. Just shut up. I’m tired of hearing about it. I’m glad you’re alive, and happy

that you’re turning your life around. Just leave me out of it. I’ve had enough.”

I turned and walked away, knowing that with each step I was tearing myself further away

from the solid anchor of my life. The thought of Vana, my sister and best friend, had kept me going

for long, it was time for me to learn how to deal with life on my own.

Vana never followed me. Never called for me to wait, and every time I looked back she was

standing there, on those rocks, hollow eyes watching me, crying for me.

I was crying for me too.

As selfish as it was, I left her to her life, and made her leave me for mine.

I stand back at that beach now, night has gone and seems like an eternity ago. Vana is

gone, and the sun is just rising. Another day, another set of choices to set the path of my life forever.

Just one day at a time, until you can’t take it anymore.

I hold my arms around me to seal in what warmth I can as the icy water laps at my feet.

Standing here I know just why people come to the beach. It’s an escape from the everyday life, a way

to get past all the things they feel trapped in.

The water is up to my knees now, and I’m walking further in. A wave crashes against my

stomach, nearly knocking me over. I walk in further and further until my feet don’t touch the ground

and I can feel the current taking me. Waves crash around me, yet I don’t feel them him. My dress

clings to my legs making it harder to stay afloat, I’m losing my breath. I’m too tired to keep going.

To me the ocean has always been a place where I could go and find some sort of peace.

Whether it be from home or from school, it was a place where I didn’t feel judged. An escape.

I go under, feel the peace of water pounding above. For a second I can feel everything go

right, and there’s only one thing left to do.

Just breathe out.

________________

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-JC