NSC 2015 - Preliminary Stage

A Promise of Summer

A Promise of Summer

Ni: Arnie Arce

This is the last place I wanted to be. I am not supposed to be here with my cousins and their love of their lives, I am supposed to be enjoying the company of my bed and my books, too bad they tricked me. Now, I am stuck in this place where there's only sea and sand to see, only salty trace of the water to smell and nothing but sea foods to eat. I am certain, I'll die in this kind of place.

"You won't enjoy our getaway if you sit all month on that stairs."

For a month? I am not a beach girl, well, not anymore. I do not want the sight of a beach nor the feeling of the sand on my skin anymore, has she forgot about that? Is she trying to kill me? Oh, for the love of the sharks!

"Oh please! Stop with making faces. I know I tricked you, and I am really sorry about that. I don't know what to say to convince you to come with us. I just want you to feel the touch of the summer on your skin again."

"You forgot something."

She sits beside me and put her arm around my shoulders.

"I haven't forgotten about that. You know what, you should not take away what you really love most from yourself just because some assholes made ugly memories of it. And aren't you supposed to have move on now? It has been, what, months? Years? Come on. You cannot live this way all your lives."

I tried. I tried in the first year of my broken heart to start like nothing happened but the memories are too much. Everywhere I turn, I only see us-- us eating, us laughing, us kissing. All these memories are like permanent in my head, I just cannot tear it like a sticker on my wall.

"Come on let's play volleyball!" She says and squeeze my shoulders.

"I am spoiling this vacation of yours, eh?"

"This vacation is for you. I plan all these for you because I want you to smile like the sun every summer not the grieving rain. Your sadness is infectious you know and that is what I want to cure."

And you think this escape is the cure where all I can see is memories of us? How can that mend my wounded heart?

"I am keeping myself away from sadness, but what do you do? You take me here. You take me from the source of my sadness. Now tell me, how can this help me smile? How can this make me move on as fast as you may think?"

"You are not here to remember. You are here to enjoy yourself like you do every summer, Xienna! I take you to the place you love the most not to the source of your sadness. What keeping you sad is all the memories and it is in your head, it isn't here! And for the fish's sake this is not the same beach where you and he broke up! This is a different place, Xienna!"

Tears are welling up my eyes. I stand and turn away from her. I do not want her to see me cry.

"I do not know how to swim away from the memories."

I started to walk but she stopped me holding me by the arm.

"You do not swim away from the memories. You have to rise and leave the sea of memories behind and dive in a new one." And with that words, she let me walk away. I run to my room and cry away.

She is right. I should find a new sea to swim.

The next morning, I find myself sitting on the sand, my feet is kissing by the water and I take in the air of the sea. My eyes are close, a smile curves on my lips as the wind blows my hair off my face.

"What are you smiling at with your eyes close?"

My eyes snap open and saw a kid.

"I just remembered how I love the touch of the water on my skin. I remembered how I love to be in the sea like a mermaid."