"You've never been to the beach?"
Henry turned to face Elizabeth in surprise as he asked her, glancing over at her from the bookshelf in his apartment. They were spending yet another of their free evenings there, as they had been more and more often since the term ended and left them with free days to kill.
"No," she replied with a shake of her head that sent her blonde ponytail swinging slightly.
"Me neither," Henry replied, and Elizabeth looked at him.
"Oh."
"We should go," she said. He stared at her, confused.
"Go where?" he asked.
"To the beach," she laughed. "We have two weeks to kill before either of us has to be at a job, we could just…take a weekend."
Henry thought about that.
"We could," he remarked, and she nodded.
"We can see the ocean together for the first time," she said, and her blue eyes sparkled at the idea. Henry smiled; he couldn't have said no to that even if he'd wanted to.
Four days, two duffel bags, a hotel reservation and a several-hour journey in Henry's beat-up truck later, the two of them arrived in a quiet little beach town. Even in the summer, the place was far enough off the map and tiny enough that it felt small and sleepy. The salty air whipped at Elizabeth's hair, blowing it in her face and she laughed as she brushed it back. Henry smiled, watching her. She looked so relaxed and at home in her shorts and tank top with sunglasses on her head. They had only just finished checking in, but Henry was already sure that this weekend had been a very good idea.
"Come on," Elizabeth said, sounding excited. She took his hand and pulled him along with her as she glanced over her shoulder at the sand dunes near the hotel that she knew were hiding the ocean from view.
"Already?" Henry laughed, and Elizabeth smiled.
"Well, that's why we're here, isn't it?" she asked rhetorically. Henry had to give her that, and he nodded in acquiescence, thoroughly tangling his fingers with hers as they fell into step beside one another. It was a perfect summer day, the whole place drenched in sunshine and not a cloud in the sky while a pleasant salty breeze ran across the sand, not strong enough to be annoying but just enough to cool it down and cut the heat.
As Henry and Elizabeth crested the dunes, the horizon stretched out endlessly before them, Atlantic ocean waves crashing against the shore in endless rotation. Elizabeth and Henry slowed to a stop on the sand and stood there, side by side. Elizabeth stared out at the place where the sparkling water seemed to meet the endless sky, the line blurred and distant. Henry, meanwhile, was overrun with gratitude. He glanced over at Elizabeth, and his heart was fit to burst with his immense love for her.
"What a view," Henry remarked, and when Elizabeth glanced over at him to find his eyes on her rather than the ocean. She grinned and shook her head.
"Shut up," she laughed. He laughed, too, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, tucking her against his side where she immediately wrapped her arm around his waist in return and rested her head against him.
"It's amazing," she breathed.
"It is," Henry agreed. "And so are you."
Suddenly, what had been funny was tender and the two of them looked at one another. In that moment, Elizabeth realized that it didn't matter- ocean, mountains, city- as long as they could be like this, side by side and looking at one another.
As long as she and Henry were together, she didn't care. What once might have scared her, this utter attachment to him, suddenly felt exactly right.
Henry leaned forward, kissed her lightly, and smiled as she buried her fingers in his hair.
"Come with me," Elizabeth said when they pulled apart. Henry caught the bright, mischievous look in her eyes, a look he was very familiar with by now, and he knew better than to argue with that. So he let her take his hand and pull him along again, farther than the dunes, onto the sandy beach, closer and closer to the water.
Even as she pulled Henry along with her, Elizabeth couldn't stop staring at the water, the way the waves crashed to the shore. It was mesmerizing, and there was something about it that pulled her in, something almost magnetic. There were a handful of other people on the beach, but neither Henry nor Elizabeth paid them any attention as they made their way to the edge of the ocean.
Not even stopping to take off the sandals they were both wearing, Elizabeth led Henry into the shallow surf and both of them felt for the first time, the ocean waves wash over them.
Instinctively, they looked up at one another, and a beat of silence passed, before it was broken by simultaneous laughter, loud and wild and wonderful and filled with joy.
To both of them, in that moment, it felt as if they were standing on the edge of the world- hand in hand.
It was still feeling that way the following morning, which found Henry and Elizabeth walking together along an otherwise-deserted beach, just after sunrise. Both of them were always early risers, but especially on vacation. Neither of them ever wanted to miss a minute of the day, and this was certainly no exception.
The ocean waves lapped gently at the shore, reaching out for their bare feet as they walked, hand in hand, each of them holding their sandals in the opposite hand. At the horizon, the sky was a brilliant mix of pastel yellows, pinks, and blues, looking the way Henry remembered the Easters of his childhood. As the sun rose from the dusky blue it had been when they crested the sand dunes a few minutes earlier, the sand beneath their feet seemed to shift, melding from a cool, dark thing into a sun-warmed and golden shifting surface that could almost be captivating if one looked at it too long.
It was not yet seven-thirty, and already Henry felt the unmistakable calm and brightness of what was promised to be a really good day.
"So," Elizabeth started, gesturing to the vastness of the ocean beside them, "one ocean down, six to see." Henry laughed, shrugging his shoulders.
"I don't know," he hedged. "I could probably be pretty happy staying here with this one."
"I doubt that," Elizabeth laughed. "You won't be really happy until you've flown over all of them."
Henry smiled.
"Maybe," he answered. "But I would be happier to see them with you."
Elizabeth was past the point of hiding the pink in her cheeks when she was around Henry, and Henry was past the point of pretending he didn't take pleasure in the way his words sometimes made her blush.
Looking out at the endless expanse of ocean before her, Elizabeth's thoughts fell to Henry's career, and maybe for the first time, a touch of anxiety or fear crept into her chest at the prospect of it. She'd known practically from the beginning that Henry was promised to the Marines, but in her usual way of compartmentalizing, she had avoided thinking about it too hard. Now, hand in hand with him at the beach, it started to occur to her that there would very likely be a day in which Henry would be out there, flying over some big and distant ocean, without her.
The feeling of unease that came with that was stronger and more intense than she cared to admit, either to Henry or to herself, but she couldn't help thinking that perhaps it was important, the way that lent itself to such attachment to Henry.
At what point had she come to imagine him as such an integral part of her future?
She couldn't quite remember, but now as they walked together she realized that she could no longer imagine a future without him.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked, looking sideways at her.
Elizabeth paused, feeling caught between her newly acknowledged feelings of utter attachment and her long-kept desire to keep her cards close to the vest.
"I just really like being here with you," she said, choosing her words carefully.
"And?" Henry asked, clued in to her hesitance as usual.
Elizabeth smiled, finally looking back from the water to meet Henry's eyes again. He watched as the now fully-risen sun caught its rays in her honey blonde hair and warmed her skin to a golden hue, and thought that he might give up everything if it meant he could look at her like that forever.
"And," she continued, smiling, "I would like to see all those oceans with you, too."
"Would you?" he asked, surprising her a little bit with the quick and forward nature of the question.
"What do you mean?" she asked cautiously.
"I mean…" Henry started, hedging slightly now that he'd opened the line of conversation. "I don't know, I was thinking…I like spending all of my time with you the way we are here," he continued with a little shrug of his shoulders and a gesture toward the beach around them, still nearly deserted at such an early hour.
"Yeah?" she prompted, keeping her gaze on him.
"I would like to be able to come home and spend time with you every day," Henry finished, and Elizabeth felt her heart skip in her chest as she realized what he was saying.
"Like, live together?" she clarified.
"I mean- it's something to think about," he answered. "I know you mentioned your lease is up this summer and I still have a while left on mine. We don't have to decide right away, but if you want to…" Henry shrugged. "I just mean I think it's an option."
Elizabeth studied him for a moment.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered, and there was no trace of hesitation or uncertainty.
They looked at one another there in the sunlight on the otherwise deserted beach, and Elizabeth realized that she wanted to live with Henry- very much, in fact.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?" Henry repeated, sounding as surprised as Elizabeth herself felt.
"Okay," she said again.
"Just like that?" he asked, and Elizabeth laughed, and then Henry laughed too at the sheer surprise and joy of it.
"I mean, I- I want to look over my lease and we'll have to work out particulars, it's not just like that but it's- yes, I want to," Elizabeth said, her words tumbling over one another until they were stopped, not so much by the end of her thought as by the pressure of Henry's lips as they crashed into hers, there on the beach where the waves crashed into the shore.