SearchingA Chapter by K. Searching “Yeah,” She sighs. “It’s exactly like that.” His face is in his hands, his fingers spread across his eyes, then across his mouth. He turns his head toward the water, with only his eyes on her, biting his nails. “Old habit I could never kick.” He mumbles after a sigh, when her eyes flicker to his gnawed fingernails. “So, uh, what do you want to do about it? I mean it’s not really something that’s gonna be fixed easily, you know?” “Well, we could, you know, start by finding her, yeah? She seems pretty, uh, easy to track down, I mean, she gave us her address herself.” she gives a half-smile in the moonlight, her skin tan and her brown hair drifting in the breeze. The whitecaps rolled over, fading into the dark blue of the sea, an almost mesmerizing illusion. “But she’s also mad, remember?” he crosses his arms, squeezing his chest. “It’s not going to be that easy. She’s not stupid enough to just be there, and she’s not just going to go right out and talk about it.” “I know, but we have to start somewhere, okay?” she huffs, standing and wading into the shallow water. “I’ve always been a little afraid of the water,” she sighs. “Just the hugeness of it, you know? They say the oceans contain about 99% of the living space on earth, and humans have only explored about 10% of that space.” “Major in marine studies?” “Nope, just curious.” The wind begins to pick up again, goosebumps prickling across both of their arms, bringing the calls of seabirds and crickets and children to the seafront. “So,” she smirks, looking over at him, rubbing her hands across bare arms. “Are you going to be the gentleman and give the lady your jacket, or am I going to have to find someone else?” “I don’t see a lady around here…” his voice fades away as he looks over her head, looking into the dark. He laughs, taking off his jacket and ruffling her hair. “Very funny. Should we head out?” He nods, walking ahead of her, towards the blinking lights of the pier and the muffled laughter of families on their last trip of the summer. She trails behind, picking up the stray shell every so often. He’d glance back to see her mouth turn up slightly as she inspected each shell, tossing the cracked and broken ones back into the water. “Don’t like the broken ones?” he turns, walking backwards with ease, with his hands in his pocket and the small smirk smeared across his face, as if he were leaning against a wall, searching the bar for a prospective one-night-stand. “Nope.” “Why not? Some of them are prettier broken up.” “Reminds me too much of things.” “Back story?” “Rather not talk about it.” “Right.” he turns back around, walking slower until his arm is bumping with her shoulder. The flashing lights of the circus pier were above them now, the excited screams of little girls on the merry-go-round and the shouts from the boys who won the basketball jersey for making the most hoops loud in their ears. “Want to go up?” her eyes come up from the sand and her hands for the first time since the began to walk, flickering to his, then to the pier above. “I think I’m going to head in for the night, we’ll start fresh early tomorrow.” “Aye-Aye, Captain.” he brings his hand to a salute, flashing a stern, but mocking, face, bringing her laugh to his ears. “Shut up. Here’s your jacket by the way,” she slides it off, and starts up the dune to the townhouses that stood on stilts. “Thanks.” He flashes a grin and brings up his palm in a wave as he walks onto the pier, dodging the children and receiving apologies from jogging parents. The bright, flashing lights brought it all back- the click of the bullet sliding into the chamber and the quick flash as the bullet flies out, the screams of- he grips the pier railing, shutting his eyes so he can only see black. He reaches into a pocket of the leather jacket, searching for the medicine he took only an hour before when he had his last episode. He had been having so many lately, and he’d reached his daily limit for the medicine episodes ago. Instead of the pills, he finds a cracked shell. It glimmers in the flashing lights, the blue and purple and soft grey and pink, becoming red and yellow and green all at once, but it was a controlled change, one that didn’t hurt his head or his eyes. It steadies his mind, it steadies him, maybe because it made him think of the shells he collected when he was little, the ones he kept in the jar beside his bed, or maybe it was because she had given it to him.
© 2014 K.Author's Note
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