Summer
“Mom, I’m going out for a swim,” Claire Redburn called as she took a step outside and peeled off her robe, revealing a red ruffled bikini. It was the last day of summer in the Sunshine State and Claire was going to make it last. Her long, black hair appeared even blacker as the sun bounced off of it and she squinted her green eyes to avoid the harsh light. Claire wasn’t what you’d call an exercise junkie but she did enjoy exercise in her daily life. She quickly walked across the hot, bleach white sand and stopped at the edge of the water.
For 17 years today, Claire had lived in the blue beach house at the end of Jackson Drive in Colby, Florida. For 17 years, she’d woken every morning to the sound of the ocean and she’d crawled out of bed and slipped down the ladder attached to her second-story bedroom window, just to sit on the sand and watch as the morning sun rose over the ocean’s calm waves. Claire slipped a foot into the blue-green water as if testing the temperature and then, deciding it was warm enough for an afternoon swim, made a perfect arch and dived in. Claire loved the water; in fact, she’d been conceived and born in the very same ocean she now swam in. Her mom, Felicity, had been only 19 when Claire was born, and her father, Sam, had been 20.
Unfortunately, a year after they’d been married, and a day after Claire had turned two, her father was killed in a fishing accident not too far from home. Claire basically grew up without a father but that was fine, at least she had her mother. For the longest time, Claire thought she was adopted, because she looks nothing like her mother or her father. Her mother has gray eyes and blonde hair and her father had red hair and blue eyes. Claire stopped swimming as the memory of her father’s red curls swam through her mind, in that moment, she forgot to breathe.
Claire had seen a couple hundred doctors to try and get a diagnosis on her condition but no doctor had seen anything quite like her. She literally sees her memories in her head and every time she does, she stops breathing. Doctors had tried to case it as Dementia and Alzheimer’s, but she didn’t have any trouble not remembering things, that’s the problem. She remembered things in pictures in her head. Claire finally woke up from the memory but as she kicked her feet she realized one foot was stuck in a crevice, she was drowning.
She used every bit of her strength and kicked as fiercely as she could but it was no use. Then, just as her eyes started to close, she felt a hand pull her loose and drag her towards the surface. They sputtered to the surface together, Claire being carried on her rescuer’s back, who she now recognized as her neighbor and best friend, Shaun. She knew it was him because of his light brown hair and the green eyes that were staring down at her as he laid her on the sand.
“Hey,” he said and she smiled, “hey, sorry about your clothes, but weren’t you coming in anyway?” He shook his head, “No, actually I was just coming to tell you goodbye, I’m moving tonight, actually, today, well, right now, I came to tell you that I’ll write, I promise I will.” “Where are you going?” Claire’s smile disappeared when he said the place she’d been dreading, “North Carolina, but I get to be with my girlfriend again, finally” he pulled Claire up off the sand. Shaun met his girlfriend Lucy while he’d been visiting his grandfather last summer in North Carolina; he claimed he loved her, so why couldn’t she be happy for him? “Oh, well, that’s great,” her voice cracked and she looked down at her feet, “what’s wrong?” Shaun lifted her head up. It wasn’t Shaun’s fault she was sucking at this goodbye, “Well, it’s just that,” “Shaun! Let’s go!” Shaun’s mother Julia yelled, “coming!’ he turned and ran towards his house. “Shaun!” Claire cried out after him as she started crying and dropped to her knees.
“I’ll write!” he called out as the clouds above them darkened, and just like that, he was gone.
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