Raindrops
Quicksilvre
Sorry for waiting so long to post the next chapter. I was going to wait a little bit, and a little bit turned into almost a week. However, this week I'm off from Tuesday to Sunday, so I'll probably have at least one more update after this by Sunday.
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Summer jogged to a stop, panting. She first leaned over, putting her hands down on her knees, then sat down hard and laid down on the road. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying in vain to block all thoughts of what had happened out.
Every muscle in her body was clenched as she tried to keep in the tears, causing her to tremble all over. A cool breeze blew dust around, some of it going into her burns and wounds. She opened her eyes just a crack, enough to see the sky and the palms around her.
It was a beautiful, warm morning, the type that would greet her almost every day back home. She remembered how it would look from the Harbor School Student Union–nice, bright beams of sunlight spilling onto the courtyard; hot cups of coffee; students wandering in every direction; Chino and Cohen on a couch overlooking the pool table....
She curled up tight as the tears streamed down her face, stinging the whip marks. She wiped them from her face, taking bits of dried blood with it, and wiped it on the ground. She ducked her head down, expecting more to come, but nothing else happened.
She was too tired to even cry.
Sniffling, Summer looked down the road. The coast was probably a day's walk away–a day without her map or any of her supplies, abandoned back in the cart. She got up, moving sorely, feeling her shirt flap behind her where it had ripped. A deep breath later, she stretched her legs, took one last look behind her, and started forward, as fatigue gnawed at her.
God, how long was I running? Half an hour? Probably, it's pretty light out now...probably three, four miles out of town, at least. Yeah, you'll make it there by tonight. Get to the ocean and...do something. Summer winced as the wind blew dust into her cuts. Better than going back there, I guess. Maybe you can get a coconut or something, and maybe they'll be other people there.
More dust blew into her, making her grit her teeth. "Keep going. You'll survive."
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Dear friends, Marissa started her letter.
I've been here in the home for maybe two, maybe three weeks. I know, everyone here really wants to help, but it's not doing anything for me. I know I'll get better, but the only thing I'll get better for is to go back to the house with Mom and Caleb, and that's not the future that I want.
I don't want any future anymore. I see nothing but blackness when I look to it anyway; it won't make any difference.
Tell Daddy I'm sorry. I really am, to him, but there is no point for us to be together, even across a phone line over the ocean. Tell Caitlin sorry, too, and sorry about China.
Tell Ryan I love him. Tell him sorry, too–sorry for all the drama. I know between drinking and Oliver and everything else, I've been hardly better than a bitch to him, so...Ryan, I'm really really sorry over all that. Tell him, Daddy too, that I really want to meet them both in the hereafter, if that's at all possible.
It probably isn't. I'm going to hell, probably. Even if I wasn't going to before, I will be now–and both of them will go to heaven. I've gotten over it. Maybe you two can visit? That would make it all worth it.
Sincerely,
Marissa Cooper
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The beach was beautiful. Summer had always loved the ocean, and the beaches back home, but they were nothing like those that laid before her.
There were no stands, no towels, no beach balls, no sunbathers, and no litter. The waves washed ashore, massaging fine, pure, almost-white sand into neat lines. It was more beautiful than beautiful. It was perfect, like a present–it was as if it had been created just for her, that very day.
She went up to the waterline and took off her shoes. Stepping into the water, she felt the cool feeling jolt right through her, a quick shock to her whole system–but pleasant, like a nice double latte. If the water under the bridge was a bunch of knifes stabbing into her, the ocean was the other side of the pillow: nice and refreshing.
She walked along the water for a while, staying in ankle-deep water. As nice as it felt on her feet, Summer didn't want to get salt water into her back or on her face. Besides, it was good for reflection. Bit by bit, she had pieced together everything that had happened, from the crash to the flight to the meeting with Keyne to her journey.
Pain, then beauty and amazement, then more pain, then more beauty, then more pain. Half of her time was in heaven, and half was in hell–as far as she could tell.
She waded back onto the shore and walked away from the water. Summer was headed toward a grove of palms, hoping to find a coconut that had already been broken open, but no luck: there were plenty, but the only ones there were either spoiled and ripe with flies, or were unbroken and unyielding. After struggling for a few minutes trying to break a few on some rocks, she gave up on the idea of eating for that day. She decided that it would be better to conserve energy and look for others later.
Summer laid out on the beach, under the trees. The sand beneath her yielded under her easily, forming a little bed, and didn't scratch at her wounds. The rumbles of her empty stomach kept Summer up for a little while, but as the sun began to grow lower in the sky, the heat was enough to lull her into a trance. As the sky grew orange and as the tide slowly moved in, her eyelids grew too heavy to hold up, and she slowly drifted off to a peaceful sleep.