The Potential of a Day

Chapter 13: And as the Sun Sets

And as the Sun Sets

          The sun is finally setting. It’s eight o’clock; and the brilliant globe of light is taking its last stand. I haven’t done it in a while; watched the sunset. I used to do it all the time, just sit on the beach and watch the day fade slowly, beautifully into night. Since I was a child I would do it, whenever it was warm enough to sit by the ocean at night. Eventually, I got bored of it; watching the sun set. But I didn’t stop going to watch it whenever I could; not then. Sephie still forced me along almost every night.

          It wasn’t until after her death, that I stopped going to watch it. I disliked it; the sun. How it glowed, intense and sure in the sky, every day. And every night, it sank, absolutely certain that it would rise again the very next day. Its death was incomplete; just sleeping; never fading forever. It had a duty, to forever light the morning sky. That duty frightened me. The idea that the sun could not die, not completely, because it had a duty; terrified me.

          But as I watch it now, I come to a very simple, very obvious realization.

          I am not the sun. 

          Though I do in fact have duties, they are duties that do not demand completion. I am a child. And the world can survive without one lost girl. I am not needed. I am not the sun. I can sink, and never rise again. I have fallen.

          “It’s beautiful,” Abby breathes.

          “I suppose it is.”

          A few more moments of watching the sun sink in the sky, before Leo speaks. “To hell with watching the sun set; you can do that whenever the hell you want. And it’s depressing.” And with that, Leo is stripping his shirt off, uncovering sculpted muscles, and marking that I can’t quite categorise in this falling darkness. “I’m going swimming.”

          “What?” Kurt demands; poor kid, if he has to put up with his cousin’s shenanigans like this all the time, he must be slightly confused. But Leo doesn’t make any response; he just jets forward and dives into the ocean.

          “Looks like fun, I’m for it,” Abby announces, and runs into the surf, fully clothed; giggling as the waves break against her thighs. Reluctantly, Kurt makes his way into the water as well, though only up to his calves.

          Not letting the younger boy stay in his comfort zone, Leo splashes Kurt, a huge spray of water across his shirtfront. “You bastard Leo!” Kurt exclaims, and counters with his own wash of water in his cousin’s direction. 

          Abby turns back to me, a laughing smile on her lips, “Lily what are you waiting for? Come on in, it’s great.”

          Why am I not in the water yet? I am struck with this strange desire, this need to get something. To do something; something completely random. This is the ocean, the end of land, the end of my town. This is the ocean in which, three years ago, I lost my necklace. Lost my little piece of a matched set. I have the strangest urge…

          “I need…I need to go get something.”

          “I’ll drive you,” Leo pipes up, sloshing out of the chilly salt water.

          “Oh no, I couldn’t. The good part of the festival is just getting started, I couldn’t take you away from that.”

          “Look around you, Lily; are we even at the festival?”

          “No…gas is expensive,” I insist, “I’ll walk.”

          “I’ll drive you.”