Shells
She's lining up seashells on the beach, the sea wind blowing her hair into knots. Her swim top is falling off one shoulder, her toes are sandy. The sky is turning grey with a brewing storm.
His eyes roam into the distance, watching the clouds roll in over the water. They're unwilling to leave, unwilling to admit that it might be time to do something other than be in each other's company.
"Did you ever do this as a kid?" she asks, tipping her head up. The sun, which has broken through the clouds, makes her freckles sparkle like stars. He wonders if the world could stay like this if the two of them didn't have to leave for college in a few months. Maybe they could live on the beach instead.
He squints back, uncrossing his ankles and digging his heels into the sand. A wave crashes onto the beach behind her. "I don't think so, no. I never made seashell barriers, only weird kids do that."
She scratches the sunburnt skin at her forearm and straightens to full standing height. "Right. You know I needed barriers like this to keep the annoying kids like you out of my space," she says with a sharp grin, stepping onto the other side of the line.
Pink and brown and tan seashells separate them now, too small to ever really keep them apart.
She glances at the sky, watching the first raindrops fall, and he scrunches his nose as one hits his glasses.
"Do you want to go for a swim?" she asks, thumb in the belt loop of her bathing suit shorts.
His eyes skim over the water, then her. "I can't swim in glasses," he says, pretending to be offended. The rain is warm where it hits his bare skin, and he imagines it's warm where it hits hers as well.
She laughs and pulls her shorts off, tossing them at him. "Oh boo-hoo, what's there to see anyway?" She kicks up sand when she runs into the water, splashing it everywhere as she squeals gleefully.
He catches the shorts, holding them to his chest as he sits up to watch her. He cherishes the last seconds he has of clear vision, then pulls his shirt over his head as he stands, and leaves his glasses on the towel he's just vacated.
The seashells are just a blurry line in the sand now. She's just the outline of a body, hollering at him to join her, joy rippling from her like a toxic chemical. He can't even see the clouds anymore, they blend right into the landscape: sea, sand, sky, it's all become one.
He pauses at the seashell line, wondering if there'll be other friends of hers in college that she does things like this with. Wondering if this is the end of whatever they have.
The sun's beating down on him, still hot despite the rain, still bright even through the storm. He steps over the line of shells and lets his feet sink into the wet sand, eager to feel the water.
He's barely shin-deep when she dunks her head under, disappearing for a heartbeat before resurfacing with slicked-back hair and dripping eyelashes. Her eyes are so big he can see the details of them without his glasses, or maybe he's just memorized them that well.
"Come on!" she screeches, her hands wrapping around his wrists like vines, her face serene as a siren. He splashes her, feeling rainwater trickling down his temple and down the curve of his nose.
She pushes against his chest, her hand splayed. He doesn't have to see her hand to know exactly what color her nails are painted: the same soft pink as those shells back on the beach. He laughs and reaches back, but it's too late, she's tackling him, and they fall back into the water, tumbling out of the reach of the sky, of the rain, and eventually, each other. Slowly becoming one with the sea, gleaming like two sea shells on the beach.