Reclaiming the Sand

Fly

“Fly

“I want to touch you. I like feeling your skin,” he said, sounding breathless.

“I know. Me too, baby. But let’s wait until later for that,” I urged as he pulled his hands out from my shirt and blatantly adjusted himself.

“We’d better get going if we want to get to the beach by di

“We have two hundred and twenty-three more miles to go,” Fly

“Why don’t we try listening to the radio?” I suggested.

“I like The Cure. They’re my favorite band. I want to listen to them,” Fly

We drove the rest of the way with very little talking. And I was okay with that.

Because sometimes the silence said more than words.

-Ellie-

I knew the moment we got close to the ocean. The landscape completely changed. I had lived my entire life surrounded my mountains and hills. It’s all I ever knew.

So the brush and windswept trees and flat, endless expanse was like an alien planet. Seagulls swooped and soared above the trees and the sun seemed brighter.

I rolled down my window so I could smell the salt in the air.

“Roll up the window!” Fly

“I just wanted to smell the sea air, Fly

“It’s too loud. I don’t like the noise,” he replied, relaxing again now that the sounds of traffic were drowned out by his music.

“Sorry,” I said, trying to hide how irked I was.

Fly

Slowly the sights and sounds of the city gave way to sand dunes and quaint beach shops. We followed the road and I could see the ocean outside my window. I had only ever seen that perfect blue on television. Now I was seeing it with my own eyes!

“Look, Fly

Fly

“This isn’t right. I should have been able to turn right back there. But there was no road.” I recognized the panic on his face and I knew he was minutes from a meltdown.

“Let me drive, Fly

“I’m driving. I have to do it. But there should have been a road back there. There wasn’t a road. The directions said there would be a road. See, I wrote it there,” he pointed to the paper he had propped up on his dashboard so he could see it.

I had tried to convince him before we left to use the GPS on his phone. I had explained it would make it easier to find our hotel once we got to Sandbridge. Fly

“Can I have your phone?” I asked, careful to keep my voice calm.

“There wasn’t a road back there! There was supposed to be a road,” Fly

I knew he was dangerously closed to losing it. I reached over and picked up his phone from the center consol. I found the navigation app and plugged in the hotel’s address. The directions popped up a few seconds later.

“Look, Fly

“No, it said turn back there,” Fly

I needed to get him to pull over so I could drive us. But how was I going to do that and not push him further into his meltdown?

“Fly

“Fly

People were laying on their horns. Several were yelling out their windows at Fly

I didn’t get out of the car right away. I stayed where I was and watched him. Every time someone honked their horn, he covered his ears.

Eventually his pacing became less intense and his hands stopped wringing. I got out and went around to the driver’s side and got in. I didn’t say anything to him. He would come when he was ready.

I pulled up the address on Fly

We were sat there for another fifteen minutes before Fly

“The hotel is fifteen minutes away,” I said, putting on the blinker and pulling back out into traffic.

Fly

My empathy for Fly

Because I understood Fly

And that was completely contradictory to everything I had been told to believe about myself.

I turned up The Cure and allowed the music to soothe him in a way my words never could.

Despite Fly

“You’re going too fast. The speed limit is twenty-five,” Fly

I looked down at the speedometer and saw that I was only going five miles over, but I slowed down anyway, much to the a

“Don’t follow too closely to the car in front of you. Keep at least two car lengths between you,” Fly

It was like traveling with a talking driver’s manual.

“Actually, that’s just on the highway, Fly

Fly