Epilogue
“Do you think it’s the right time?”
I watch Hadley make her way up our path back to the house to get changed while I maneuver my hair into a bun on the top of my head. My sweater is damp from my bathing suit but Evan’s shorts are already dry.
“I think it’s the perfect time.”
Evan pulls his treasure chest from his backpack and nods for me to follow. We walk barefoot through the sand to reach our small cove, the cave in the rocks where we never found anything but rocks and sand.
“So this is it,” he says as we stand in front of it.
“Yup.” I grip the photographs in my hand tighter. “No ghosts, no sailors haunting the lighthouse. Just us.”
“Just is an understatement.” Evan smiles.
He asks me if I’m ready and opens the treasure chest, placing it on a rock outside the cave so we can see inside. Everything he had in there the day I slept at his house still remains inside, but this time there’s something new. Gingerly, I take the receipt in my fingers.
“Is this from that burger place?” I laugh.
Evan snatches it back and places it back in the chest. He looks embarrassed. “It was our first date.”
I grow silent, finally looking down at the two things I brought. The first one is easier to look at, easier to say goodbye to.
Evan and I sit on the edge of the boat, our legs dangling in the water. I’m smiling, my head turned sideways so you can see my face while his hair covers the side of his in the wind. My dad had taken it from behind when I wasn’t looking, and though I blushed at first, I’m glad he took it.
The second is one of the photographs Cade’s mother had given me. It’s the one with the writing, where I sit beside him in our chairs, grinning at the camera. I kept the sillier one of me in my lap for myself, taped onto my wall without a second thought.
Gently, I touch my anchor necklace and place the photos inside.
“We’ll come back,” Evan says when he sees my face. I’m not crying, not upset, but I’m sad. A happy kind of sad. “We’ll find it a year from now, or maybe two. And we’ll remember.” He squeezes my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
I tell him I’m okay and to put the chest in the little hole we found inside the cave. Slowly, he closes the chest and Cade’s smiling face is gone.
A weight is lifted off my shoulders.
When Evan comes out of the cave, he stands beside me and we turn out towards the ocean. The tide is coming in, creating big, pretty waves. He takes my hand and I lean my head on his shoulder.
“I’m not on pause anymore,” I say out to the ocean. If Evan hears me over the sound of the tide, he doesn’t say anything. The water comes up onto the sand and touches the end of my toes as the breeze picks up my hair. “I am okay.” I smile to myself as I realize the words.
I am okay.
YOU ARE READING
As I Am
Teen Fiction"Do you want to talk? You know, about everything?" Evan asks. He's staring up at the star-covered sky as he holds our brown bag of French fries. I finish my sip of my vanilla milkshake despite not wanting to stop and follow his gaze. The stars twin...
