Member-only story
Meet Me At the Seashore
The memories wash over me, and I remember you.
Do you ever think of those summers? Or have you forgotten how we burned under that July sun and relished every second of it? Then we’d drag ourselves to the water and try to dunk each other in the depths. It was all play, just the stuff of childish antics, but I still remember how your hand felt in mine.
Sometimes I still walk that same beach. It’s rare these days — my life doesn’t allow for much nostalgia — but I try to make the drive once a year to that quiet stretch of sand where we first knew bliss. I’ll see kids who remind me of how we used to be, and then I feel like crying. Then I wish the whole ride home that my parents still had the beach house. Maybe then I could have kept you too.
The little getaway of our childhood hasn’t changed much. The place is still a tourist trap during the summer, but at least the old ice cream shop is still in town. I always make sure to get your favorite — peaches and cream — just to hold a little piece of you for a short time.
But then it’s gone, too fast, and I have to retreat to my day-to-day life. I have a job I like, responsibilities I can stand, and enough busyness to help me forget the mistakes of the past. Even all these years later, though, I still can’t find someone who makes me smile like you did.
