In the End

The sun is warm against my face. Golden light kissing my skin, pinkening my cheeks into ripe peaches. A gentle breeze whispers through my hair, pushing my sweat tacky bangs back from my forehead. I can hear the distant cry of a seagull as it floats over the salt-soaked air.

Calling. Calling.

Who to, I wonder with a syrupy detachment, who are you searching for?

The tide draws in. The icy bite of sea water laps at my toes, my ankles, my calves. Licking higher and higher until foam sprays against my neck. The brine stings the festering wound in my side. Pulls the slow-moving blood from inside me. Copper and salt mingle, red to pink to water the same cerulean blue of the summer sky.

I know I’ll be submerged soon. My dress has grown sodden, light fabric suddenly heavy, cloying as it clings to my limbs like a second skin. I’ll be pulled out in no time. The undertow taking me to the horizon where I’ll set just like the sun.

The seagull cries again and again and again.

I can’t move; my deadened limbs sink further into the damp sand, slipping into the shifting ground beneath me. I close my eyes when the spray finds my face, turning inwards.

I think of Marnie. She comes to me in fragments as sharp as broken glass, cutting through my sternum and piercing my tender heart. I picture her beautiful smile, her silken auburn hair, her pale slender neck. I remember the radiance that spilled from her like starlight. Remember how hard I tried to hold that wonderous moment in my hands.

Remembering her is hurtful. A painful reminder that nothing is made to last.

On my next breath I suck back the sea, inhaling its depths. Water fills my nose, pools over my eyes, slips between each strand of hair.

I’m drawn away. Away. Away.

I regret that I never had the chance to say goodbye.