Pre-note: This section is a little odd. I'd love feedback: do I get the setting across? Is it everything that happens too random or occurring too fast? (The pull Nika feels towards the water is explained later.) Anyways, thanks to everyone who lets me know what they think, whether it's here on my blog or on my Facebook page :)
Chapter three, section two:
The wind blew my hair in my face. With one hand I restrained it; the other I stuck out the window. The day was amazing, a perfect 22˚C. But, I just couldn’t feel happy. Although I’d told Jake we’d start fresh, I couldn’t just forget all the little memories that had come back to me. My mind whirled with questions, but they stuck in my throat. Each time I looked at Jake, my mouth would open to say something but nothing would come. Instead, I watched the city disappear behind us on this stretch of busy highway.
I glanced at Jake, but he was fully devoted to the road; not even the radio broke the silence. He had seemed excited about taking me wherever we were going, but now he simply sat with an all-knowing smile on his face as he broke off the highway and onto “Road 81.” I watched the way his hair blew about in the wind, his face as still as stone as he tucked a stray piece of hair behind his ear.
People believe in love at first sight. I never did; I always thought it was lust at first sight. In this case, however, it was love at about tenth sight, although at the time I didn’t even know it. All I knew was that my heart started to beat a little bit faster every time I looked in his direction.
The next thing I knew, Jake was pulling into a parking space. I gasped as the engine stopped and I realized where we were.
The ocean stretched before my eyes. The waves crashed onto a yellow-white beach, framed by grasses and an endless sky.
I opened the car door and ran over the dunes, through the green brushing my legs to the sand that caught my feet, and straight to the ocean, never looking back. The ocean seemed to sing a song that only I could hear.
My flip-flops were off in moments. I stood with my feet in the warm waves and a smile on my face. I looked up at the cloudless sky and let the sun’s light fill me up. Slowly I closed my eyes.
Again, I was rushed with memories. My mother, my grandmother, beaches, cottages and summers spent with extended family. The thoughts filled me with an ache for my family, as well as the happiness that comes from childhood memories.
I stood there for a long time, until a sound from behind me brought me back to the present. I turned around to see that Jake had set up a blanket on the beach. He pulled food from a picnic basket; flip-flops lined up with the edge of the blanket.
While he was turned to carefully take something out, I pulled my navy dress over my head, my wings slipping out of the straps easily. I ran into the waves, letting them catch me as I dove in.
The water became deep quickly; I was suddenly swimming through the water in only my navy bra and underwear. The sea was tropical warm, but as I pushed myself beneath the waves, there was nothing but sand and black rocks along the ocean floor. Returning for air, I gasped then pushed myself under again. The water wrapped around me as I pushed myself out further and deeper. The ocean floor was at least ten feet below me, scattered with rocks. I was able to hold my breath for much longer than on earth, and I noticed my wings had opened under the water. Their size shocked me; they are as wide as I am tall. With them spread above me, I didn’t find the pressure pulling me up towards the surface; instead I floated along in a warm abyss. My body never grew tired; rather it was soothed by the water. My mind’s confused state washed away into a peace I hadn’t felt since I arrived in Heaven.
Although I was swimming under waves, there was little pull from the current. I had no drive to return to land; I felt my heart pulled instead to this wide stretch of ocean, and I let it tow my heart out to sea.
Suddenly, someone grabbed my hand. I opened my mouth to scream, swallowing salt water. I was pulled to the surface where I coughed and sputtered, my wings closing up behind me. Jake wasted no time in pulling me back towards shore. I was much further out than I expected, but I still protested at my rude awakening from my ocean dream.
I put my free arm across my chest, covering my bra from Jake’s view. “What are you doing?” I tried to cry, instead coughing it out with sea water.
“Have you noticed how far out you are?” was Jake’s response. “You have to come back or you’ll be pulled all the way out!”
“But I’m not even tired,” I said, pulling my other hand from his and stalling our return to land. “I can swim way out and back easily!”
“You can’t just keep going,” Jake said.
“Why not?”
“There comes a point where you can’t turn back, and you can’t go there.”
I didn’t know how to answer that, but still I moved my hand away from his when he tried to hold it again.
“C’mon,” Jake said, calmer now. He reached his hand out, “Come back with me. I’ll explain to you why you don’t grow tired when we’re back on the beach.”
Slowly, I put my hand in his. He mentioned, “I’m not looking at your bra.” Then he began to swim, gently pulling me along with him as I let my arm drop away from my chest.
He was wearing his jeans, but he was bare-chested. I caught myself watching his nicely defined arms – one pushing the water from his chest, the other attached to the hand that held mine – and shook my head.
I took a breath and pushed myself back under the waves, softly pulling Jake under with me. Underwater our wings opened; we were swimming side-by-side with the tips of our feathers touching. He smiled, and I smiled back.
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