This Love | ✓

Part 18

"Here we are!" Jason announced, stationing his SUV into the vacant parking lot.

A gust of ocean breeze greeted me as I climbed out of the passenger seat. The gentle wind pushed several strands of my hair into my face, obscuring my vision. Reaching into my backpack, I grabbed an elastic hairband and secured my long hair in a low bun.

Jason stood by my side, holding a blanket, a beach towel, a bright red plastic bucket, and a yellow shovel. The plastic glistened under the street lights, the beach toys looking comically small in his hands.

"I used to build the sandcastles with these," he explained when he noticed my questioning glance.

The sight of Jason, so tall and handsome under the mingled glow of the moon and the streetlights, holding those childish toys elicited a smile from my lips.

The toys reminded me of the little blue trunk stored underneath my bed in my flat in London. It held the few playthings that I had preserved from my childhood. I thought back to the Jasmine doll that was stowed away inside the old chest. A neighbour had gifted the doll to me on my seventh birthday. I remembered stroking Jasmine's long, lustrous hair and feeling jealous. Secretly, I had soaked her mane in dishwashing liquid until it resembled my tangled, frizzy hair.

"Leena?" Jason called, ducking his head to examine me closely. "Shall we?"

"Yeah, sorry," I murmured, chiding myself for getting carried away.

Jason and I stepped towards the beach shore, the wind whistling in our ears and the waves growing louder.

"This is one of the quieter beaches here, even during the day," Jason explained as we neared a strip of damp sand. "But it's the best at night."

He spread the beach towel over the sand, gesturing for me to sit next to him. I kicked off my sandals and sat down, cross-legged. Underneath the towel, the seashore felt warm, still holding in the heat from the morning sun.

For the first time since we had arrived, I lifted my eyes to the ocean. A gasp escaped my lips at the sight. The frothy waves were so close, crashing onto the shore and retreating, only to come back again. A strip of water glistened an eerie silver under the high, bright moon. It almost seemed like a pathway, leading from the shore to the horizon.

"It's quite something, isn't it?" Jason asked.

"It is," I whispered, my voice barely audible over the waves and the sea breeze, combining to form a hypnotic rhythm.

Suddenly, I was hit by an unpleasant memory from high school.

My school had arranged a two-day excursion to a beach resort. Friendless and bullied, I was the only one from my class to not go. When I logged into my Facebook account a few days later, I was crushed to find my newsfeed littered with pictures of Chris from the trip. One particular picture filled me with so much anger that I had deleted my account in a fit of rage.

The picture was of Chris and one of the girls that especially enjoyed tormenting me. Standing by the ocean, he had his arm around her, both of them smiling from ear to ear. It looked so much like the picture of him and me taken by his mother on her birthday. We were standing in front of the disastrous cake that we had baked for her, arms wrapped tight around each other, faces lit up with laughter.

My heart weighed a ton, the vastness of the ocean making me feel small and alone. The breeze seemed to change course, coming straight at me instead of blowing around me gently. The previously calm waves now resembled daunting memories, and my mind was the sand, powerless to stop them from crashing on me.

I am sitting here, an ocean away from them. Yet, I can't get away from the hate. I can't forget the suffocating loneliness.

Why did I think that this trip would fix everything?