Lake reflections

Summer was over and so were we. I guess what we had couldn’t be described as “love”. We were like two passing ships in a vast ocean taking refuge around the warmth of a lighthouse.

He was something I’d never seen before, peeking at me from the churning water and I had panicked. A smart person would have ran away but I swear something came over me when I jumped in to save him.

The second i hit the water I knew I’d made a mistake. The waves slammed me against the dock and sucked me under and I knew I was going to drown.

i was calm almost, coping with my mistake when cold hands gripped me, digging its nails into my back as he drug my foolish body to the shore.

He looked so.. angry, warbling deep in his throat. I couldn’t hear him but I got the gist.

I just watched letting him berate me. I’d never thought a boy was beautiful before but his strange speckled face and dark eyes captivated me. He was so cold, gripping me and trying to shake me to life.

i graced my eyes down his body, shocked at the slick fur wrapped along his body. Without thinking I reached out and grabbed it. That stopped the angered warbling and I was immediately dropped into the rocky sand.

He moved back faster than I could keep with. He held the weird fur shawl close to his body, slowly pulling himself back into it.

Once he was covered he turned and flopped back into the ocean.

i spent an hour resting on the shore and recovering. When I finally had the strength to move I went back to my grandmothers house. She scolded me too, her southern accent thick with affection as she shooed me out of my sopping wet clothes.

She ushered me into the bath still angrily grumbling about foolish boys and swimming in clean clothes.

i smile and thanked her even as she swats my head and leaves me to it. I watch out the window at the ocean and try to see if I can spot the weird boy among the waves.

Eventually grandma yelled for me to get dinner. Once I made it down she plopped me in-front of the fire with a plate piled to the top and began detangling the thick curly hair I inherited from her.

her wrinkled fingers worked through my hair, her dark skin glowing against the heat of the fireplace.

My mind wandered and I couldn’t help but speak.

I asked her about mermaids and mysteries of the ocean. She quietly recounted the stories she knew, the ones grandpa wooed her with.

”selkies”

she told me, beautiful women with seal skin clothes. How lonely sailors captured them upon land with their skins hidden away.

How they cried for the sea even as their children grew rooted to the sandy shore.

she seemed possessed telling me, her voice not her own as she told me such mournful tales.

once she was done she shook it off, asked me why I asked. I shrugged asked if selkies

were always girls.

she told me there are though their stories aren’t nearly as sad. They come on shore for the lonely and love them. But they never could stay. The sea was their home, their first love.

i nodded along mind already churning. Had I seen a selkie? Would he appear again?

I went to bed stomach and mind full as I drifted off.

A storm came in late in the night, as it often did. The house shuddered and complained but didn’t fall. I tried to sleep but my heart pounded in my ears. I had to move. I kissed my grandmother on the forehead surpised to see her sleeping through such a racket.

I sat by the fireplace and stoke it, listening to the storm and imagining seas full of mystery.

Morning came quickly and I headed out to the beach to see the damage. Seeweed strewn across the rocky beach, tangled and looking half alive. Driftwood settled into the sand, bleached white and brined from the sea.

among them something brown laid in the sand. I don’t know what possessed me to pick it up but I did.

The second I held it I knew what it was, who it belonged to. It felt wonderful between my fingers, silken and warm when a cry broke through my admiration.

I headed toward it, frightened by the sight of a naked cowering boy. His dark skin scarred and bruised.

He recognized me first, or maybe the skin in my hand but either way we looked at eachother and we both knew. His eyes flicked between me and the skin, a tremor traveling up his body as he tried to decided his next move.

There was a wildness in his eye, a warning and so much fear. Shaking I set the skin down and backed away.

It didn’t take long before he was snatching it up and running for the sea.

Days passed, things began to appear. Fish, shells, braided cord with shards of sea glass.

my grandmother teased me, cooed about the village girls catching a whiff of her handsome grandson but I knew who’d put them there.

At night I would slip out of the house to watch him dance, bring him fruits and foods that I liked. We traded things, laughed and told stories even when we barely understood each other .

I remember the first time he dragged me into his dance, the moonlight turning our skin ocean blue as we twirled and kicked up sand. We fell into a heap laughing and kicking.

His hands were cold, always cold as the sea but his gaze was warm, boiling me from the inside. His lips were warmer, soft and tasted of salt..

I waited for him every night, danced, ate and shared stories. We were in our own world for one short perfect while.

But the wind gained a chill and the nights started to get longer. Summer was fading and so was our time.

Some days he didn’t show and some days I couldn’t either. I had to pack, make sure grandma would be okay without me.

I was never sure where he went when we were t together but I could always feel the pull the sea had on him. Eventually the tide would pull him back out and away from me.

i had thought once, just a split second on a sad night when I couldn’t hear his feet kicking through the sand, that I could take his skin. He trusted me, I could keep him and our bubble would never pop.

then I remembered how cruel that was. If this was love I was steps away from ruining it.

eventually summer came to an end. I spent the very last night clumsily singing a song he’d tried to teach me. I cried as much as I hate to admit it.

but I saw him there, his head just barely peeking over the waves. He called back, one long mournful note and I almost begged him to come with me. But instead I smiled and watched him disappear where I couldn’t follow.

Our moment ended, a blip in the face of eternity.