A Place

It's something like breathing. The steady motion in and out, slowly but steadily, each breath and exhale leading and determining the next. "I could watch this for hours," she told him. "Why don't you move back?" He asks her. "I don't think I would appreciate this as much if I had it every day." With every second passing the sun sank further and further into the blurred horizon, and with the downward motion came the ignition of fiery warms pinks and oranges and yellows and deep deep purples streaking and waving across the darkening blue of the sky. The wind was slight, and the temperature, which had once been luke warm, was sinking with the time passing. She shivered but refused to get any closer to him. "Moving home now would be like giving up. Giving into my nostalgia, but giving up what I've wanted for years. " He looked at her, and watched her watch the waves. She didn't look much different, but then again neither did he. The grassy hill behind them was emptying, with the families and couples retreating to their cars, the darkness pushing their hearts and heads homewards. They were the few sea gazers left. "Let's go down to the sand," and with that she pulled herself up from the cooling grass and began taking wide steps to where the grass met the sand and the sand met the waves. Without even thinking he stood on his feet and started after her, looking back only to catch a glimpse of the people moving the opposite direction between the omnipotent palm trees. She had already shed her shoes and rolled cuffs of the ends of her jeans. She was ankle deep in water, staring ahead towards the endless pacific. "How's the water?" he called out to her. She turned and smiled and shouted back, "You should come and see for yourself." He laughed, saying, "You're crazy, it's the middle of November, that water must be freezing." She heard what he had said but ignored him, focussing instead on the sun half way passed the edge of the world. Up above the moon was already showing it's face, waiting for it's turn to dominate the sky. She was infect very cold, and although her feet were buried deep in the sand, the icy water was biting at her ankles and the bottoms of her calves, causing chills up and down her arms and spine. "I couldn't have asked for a better sunset," she whispered. To her left were the wooded cliffs cutting at hard angles to the solitary space of sky and ocean, and beyond were the stars of land, the lights of the next town south. To her right was a long stretch of straight beach, going farther and farther into the distance until it seemed it was cut as the edge of paper is cut. Straight ahead the sun had finally sank, and all that was left was the water color clouds of the sky. Suddenly she felt sad, knowing that she was leaving tomorrow. She took a last look at the horizon and turned back towards land, towards her home near the Atlantic. He was sitting on the sand, hands with fingers crossed lazily resting on his knees, watching her walk back to him. She always came back to him, ever since they were 14 and lived here, just around the corner from one another. It didn't matter how far across the country she moved, or how far away she stood from him, at some point she always came back, and he felt security in knowing this. She was walking straight towards him with sand sticking to her feet and wet jeans, and with an expression he suddenly realized he didn't recognize. She stopped just in front of him. "Well, did you get what you came for? That was quite the sunset." He said to her. She bent down and grabbed the laces of her white old shoes, and when she stood up she looked right at him and said," Yeah, I think I can leave now." And she did. She left that evening in a car to her old home, and the next morning she left on a plane to her new apartment. She left for her future, and left the past behind.