Carter's Ocean

Carter liked the ocean.

He never talked about it, but he drew it all the time. I would hide outside his room and watch him. He had long fingers, elegant and poised, that dripped along the nape of the pencil. His strokes were even, fluid, and each line floated next to the other atop the page. Each wave took you down unpredictable curves and brought you along a rollercoaster of bottomless drops, leading you along with the pull of the current. I was dragged along the bottom of the sea and drowned in the beauty of his grace. Mesmerized, I would watch the ocean at work. 

Carter was calming, for the most part. He always had this small gleam in the deep, blue set of his eye that made him look like he was thinking. His hair was always a bit messy, sticking up here and there, but it made him look alive. I always wanted to ask him what he was thinking about, but I was too afraid, so I hung back. I was merely a worthless grain of sand beneath his feet and he didn’t want much to do with me. I was not as important as the thoughts swimming about his head. 

One day I worked up the courage to ask Carter if he wanted to do something with me; I hadn’t asked him to do that since we were young. I didn’t know what we would do together, what our dynamic would be like, but I asked anyway, rashly forgetting to choose the ideal moment in which to expose my vulnerability.

Carter had been outside shooting hoops. There was a strong breeze, one that blew his hair wildly, and tugged at the corners of his steely lips. The clouds held an army of piercing raindrops on its fingertips and cast a foreboding, grey mist to trample our backyard. His eyebrows were buried deep into the tip of his eyelids and the calm blue of his eyes was hard to make out from the back door. I stepped outside fearfully, building up courage as I walked, and tried to approach him as he took yet another shot at the basket. I put my hands in my pockets and began to speak.

“You wanna do something?”

The wind prodded at his clothing and held it tight against the lean figure of his abdomen. He didn’t turn to look at me.

“What?” He almost growled the response. 

“Do you wanna do something?” I tried again. This time, the basketball slammed against the backboard and he whipped around to stare at me. 

“I can’t do anything with you because I’m busy.” 

I was persistent.

“I could shoot with you. We could play knockout.” It was the final straw.

“Damnit, Andrew, can’t you see? Don’t you see what’s going on?! I don’t want you around. You’re a complete piece of s**t and I don’t want to see your face again, you hear me?” The composure of the ocean had been ripped apart and as he spoke, the words rolled from his tongue like giant waves crashing on the beach. He dismembered the sand and began to drag it under with the power of his current, eyes gleaming with a dark and furious azure hue as he spoke. Wind whirled about his head and made his hair fly out in all directions, poking and stabbing anything that came in its way. The sky above began to drizzle its spears of water and spark scraping goosebumps along my sandy skin. 

It was a storm. 

It took me a few minutes to recognize what had occurred. I didn’t know why Carter was acting like this, why the ocean had taken a turn, but I overcame my shock and began to fight back. I balled up my fists and punched blindly, aiming for any part of him that I could hurt. But he was bigger, he was stronger, and a deluge of swift punches flew into my eye, my cheek, my mouth, my head. My brain whirred with delusional anger and my eye was swollen, forced shut by the power of the ocean. My tongue was numb and I rubbed it along the inside of my throbbing cheek as the storm pulled away from my beaten, bruised body to assess its work. 

I could see the cloudy look in his eyes fading away and leaving instead a soft wave of sorrow as he saw what he had accomplished, but I scooted away fearfully and angrily from the ocean. Although my face sent echoes of shooting pain about my body, my heart ached most of all and I refused to let the sea’s licking waves near the tips of my sandy toes. 

“I’m sorry, Andrew.” His elegance and grace was gone and instead of controlled motions, Carter was quivering. I could see him shaking. I could see him trying to recover himself, but it wasn’t working. “Oh gosh I’m sorry Andrew, I’m sorry. Today wasn’t a good day, it just, I wasn’t in a good mood, you know? I had all these things going on, and, I… Oh gosh I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.” Little rivers began to appear upon his face, small tributaries streaking down his cheeks and feeding into the ocean. 

I ran away.

Mom took me to the hospital when she saw me and the doctors gave me a few stitches on the corner of my eye. They tried to piece me back together, tried to mend by broken pieces, but my chest still pulsated to a steady rhythm of pain. I told her I got into a fight at school and Carter didn’t say a word. He was calm and tall and straight faced as I spoke, the tributaries gone and his hair pressed flat against his forehead from the rain. Afterwards, he went upstairs to draw. 

When I got back from the hospital, I tiptoed up the stairs and sat outside his door like I had for years and years. His eyes were back to the calm blue of the past and his hair back to normal. I watched his sophisticated elegance and slight yet commanding grip on his pencil, but I witnessed this with fear. Each wave was still just as perfectly shaped, but the spontaneity of the curves scared me now more than ever and I worried of the storm lurking beneath the surface. 

I brushed the door softly with the tip of my nose, alerting Carter to some unknown force outside his room, but I moved away quickly from his view. 

I never visited the ocean again.