shorthand

“This is the seashore. Neither land nor sea. It’s a place that does not exist.”

Kara read the words in a hushed tone. We sat on the seashore, huddled close to a bonfire that wavered in the night. The sea was far enough away that we couldn’t see the waves, but we could hear them. We smelled them too, thick and salty in the air and pressing close against our skin.

“Anything we do here will be forgotten,” she said.

She looked at me with wide honey eyes, her face flickering. The fire shot up sparks, and they floated past her unwavering gaze, her curled dark hair, and into the night. I couldn’t tell if she looked devilish or angelic, but her cheekbones drew fiercely upwards from under her eyes, and she seemed to be proposing something beyond understanding.

I returned to the seashore many years later, long after Kara had died. I had forgotten the look of her face and the feel of her skin, but the sea breeze reminded me of her eyes. The salt air had pulled heavily at our lashes, and we had sat close together, eyes half-closed, staring, unsure, wanting. We were both thirteen, deep into summer by then, our skins tough and dark like wood left too long in the elements. Kara’s grandmother had been black, and I would brush against her skin sometimes, jealous that she kept summer skin with her even after the season had passed. I’d stroke her arm, questioning with my touch why she was so beautiful. I was nothing compared to her, and I always felt a sense of abandonment when she touched my matted blonde hair or frail skin.

We showered once a week that summer, but if it rained, we’d dance in it and leave bathing for another time. We went barefoot, laughing at storekeepers who scolded and shooed us from their shops with brooms and white paper clerk hats. Kara stole salt-water taffy constantly. Once, when visiting the boardwalk, I stole fried oreos, my bare feet slapping as I ran away into the summer crowd. Kara’s face lit when she saw the gift, and she pulled me down the steps to the sand. We feel heavily, our skin scraping on the sand, half atop each other. She laughed, her face tilted to the blue sky, whispering quickly, “This is the seashore. Neither land nor sea. It’s a place that does not exist.”

And I ate the stolen treasure without shame, laughing as the sugar melted in my mouth and the fried dough burned my cheeks. Kara kissed me sloppily on the forehead and then pulled me into the sea.

“All is forgotten,” she screamed as the waves licked against our skin. “And now we exist again.”

Kara died the winter she turned twenty-two, in a car crash far away from the ocean. The accident was a mundane way to go, not just for Kara but for anyone. By the time of her death, I hadn’t seen Kara in two years, although I wrote her letters every day. I saw a letter from her every month, no matter how busy she was or how far away she was living. I saved each one in a locked box under my bed, never re-reading them. I knew she changed too often to ever resemble her last letter, and I never wanted a ghost of Kara. After she died, I broke open the chest's lock, too furious to find the key, spilling the letters over my broken hardwood floor. There were thirty-two letters, including the ones from our childhood, each with her curling handwriting on hand-made paper. Kara never bought cards, finding instead paper with flowers pressed into the pages. She found the stationary at a shop by the sea where we spent our childhood. I had never returned there, but Kara told me often that the seashore was as beautiful as ever. She missed me. Wouldn’t I visit the seashore with her again? There was always silence after she asked, as both of us remembered that night by the bonfire. Everything we do here will be forgotten.