I don't quite know how I ended up alone on the beach. A minute ago I had been walking with my family down the Bournemouth walkway, and now I was sat alone with the shore licking at my shoes.
I was fully clothed. Heavy coat and thick shoes, squinting as people in sun hats walked by. It was October. There was no sun. But apparently being on a beach gave people the motivation to wear sun hats. Or maybe I was just being negative.
The sand, which was the bad type of sand; damp, clumpy and that horrible dark yellow colour, was sticking to my black converse in the most irritating way. It was probably on the bottom of my coat too. I picked my knees up as the water got closer.
Usually it was me that wondered off from my family, but this time they had all wondered off from me. They had gone into the shop to get ice cream, and by the time I'd gone into check where they were, they had gone.
I suppose I didn't want breakfast anyway. All we did was eat average bacon and speak about shallow things that I marginally cared about. I had decided I'd rather sit down and listen to Kodaline, so I walked to the shore and plugged in my earphones.
I looked at my phone as the song started, wondering if I should text my mom to say I'm alright and I'm waiting for them to walk back down the boardwalk. But it was practically worthless. There was two directions on the boardwalk, I knew they'd walk back this way and they'd see me. It was just a matter of how long they'd be. I guessed an hour at most, so I sucked it up and didn't text.
The water then suddenly came up and engulfed my shoes. It made me jump so that I put my hands on the ground to pull myself away, but managed to plunge my phone into the pit of dirty sand.
I groaned and started to wipe the chunks of sand off my phone, but then I realised there was someone sat on the opposite side to my phone. I looked to my left and jumped even more, seeing a boy sat with his knees up and looking out at the sea.
"Sorry," He turned to me when he realised I'd noticed he was there. I took my earphones out. "You looked lonely so I thought I'd sit here." His American accent were extremely strong and slightly attractive.
"I'm alone." I pointed out. "Not lonely." You didn't have to be alone to be lonely and you didn't have to be lonely to be alone.
The boy laughed. He had dark hair, the kind that you could never be sure if it was dyed or natural. He didn't have any roots, but I was sure that no hair could be naturally that dark. His hair was a messy length, too short to be considered long but too long to be considered short. His fringe flopped onto his forehead but didn't reach his eyes.
His smile was cautious, his lips thin. He had a black lip ring on the bottom right, and I couldn't stop looking at it. His eyes were small but dark, and I wasn't sure if they scared me or lured me in.
"What I actually meant was that I was lonely so I thought I'd sit here." He corrected himself, still smirking in an unbelievably confident way but being so incredibly vulnerable at the same time.
"Ah." I nodded, wiping my phone on my jacket and plopping it into my pocket.
"And you were the only person on this beach that didn't look like they'd shun me. You know, old ladies apparently don't like my presence. Neither do those picture perfect families with small dogs." He looked across the beach to lay his eyes on the benches which were, all the way down as far as we could see, taken by the elderly. And the beach was heavily occupied by overly enthusiastic families with dogs.
"I don't know," I was smirking myself now, turning to the nearest bench that was placed just over to the right and a little back, admiring the woman with curly white hair and a coat that was as thick as mine. "She looks pretty open minded. She might actually go home with you."
"Unfortunately," He turned back to the sea laugh quietly, "My pick-up lines are lacking a bit." I wasn't quite sure who this boy was, or why he was sat with me, or why we were talking about picking up old ladies, but I sure knew that this was an interesting twist to a day I thought was going to be bland.
"For example," He carried on, now turning his body towards me and away from the sea. I was still looking at him over my shoulder because I didn't want to turn away from the waves. "Do you come here often?"
I let out a strained laugh, ducking my head down. I wasn't sure what this guy was trying to do, but it was definitely working.
"See, they need work." He shook his head at himself, mockingly looking sad. He was wearing a black bomber jacket, a grey t-shirt that seemed to hang from a frail frame and black jeans that looked too skinny for me to wear. His shoes were plain and navy blue without a brand on them. I watched as he let the water engulf his feet, not flinching one bit, like he didn't even care. "But do you come here often?"
"I come nearly every other weekend." I answered, looking back at the boy I knew nothing about. "How about you?"
"My parents love it here." He said, looking behind him to the boardwalk. "I don't know why."
"I don't know why anyone would want to come here." I agreed, digging my feet into the sand. It wasn't a beautiful beach, the shopping centre wasn't anything special and the restaurants were below average. But still, my parents were infatuated with the horrible aura of the British holiday, and insisted coming down here even in the winter.
There was a slight fog blurring the view out at sea and the water looked a horrible grey colour.
"So why do you come here?" He asked, as if I could do anything I ever wanted without constraints and he couldn't understand why I would ever do anything I didn't want to do.
"My parents drag me down. They left me at home once for the weekend and I didn't exactly prove I was responsible. I guess I deserve it, then." I sighed, picking at my nails. The third weekend they went down here I argued I needed to concentrate on revision so I was allowed to stay at home.
I, as any teenager with intimidating friends would, threw a party. It, as parties often do when you're a teenager, spiralled out of control and someone spilt rum on my mother's favourite velvet chair. I was never left at home over the weekend again.
He let out a childish laugh like he was surprised. "Yeah. I guess my parents don't trust me at home, either."
"Although I guess you're coming from a little further than I am." I pointed out.
"Where are you coming from?"
"Outskirts of London. In the middle of nowhere, it's horrible." I complained, throwing my head back and looking at the grey sky that never seemed to have any saturation this time of year.
"Sounds better than being cramped up in the middle of Denver." He replied with the exact same tone as me, but the opposite complaint.
He was surrounded by people but lonely and I was practically alone but never had I been more social.
"That sounds amazing." I let out a deep breath, bringing my knees closer to my chest and leaving a ditch where my feet once were. The tide came in and filled the hole, washing it out completely and practically wiping out my footprints.
"It's really not. No one knows anyone there. No one's special and no one matters."
"No one's special anywhere." I pointed out, looking through my hair flying around me at him, who was also surrounded by flying hair. He looked back at me with a saddened kind of confusion.
There was a moment where he just stared at me, his eyebrows furrowed as if his thoughts were so genuinely tangled at what I'd just said. As if anyone that lived in a small area was so incredibly special he couldn't comprehend my insignificance.
"You're wrong." He whispered into the wind, which had slowly became extremely strong. I kept staring back at him, waiting for him to expand, but he never did, so we ended up just looking at each other. His skin was slightly blemished by acne around his temples, his nose was an irritated red and his eyebrows thin.
I couldn't piece him together. He looked so confident in himself, so defined by his rebellion and his piercings, but his shoulders were raised and his eyes lowered. His voice was the typical American brash, so loud and sure in itself but the words he spoke didn't back that up.
I shook my head. I wasn't wrong. There were 60 billion people living and at least half of them all wanting to change the world. How many of them actually change the world? Like 2. And those two don't change the world much; the planet still spins, the sun still burns and we're all going to die.
Ah, how this Sunday morning turned into one of the most negative sunrises I'd experienced.
"No one's special and no one matters." I hugged my knees to my chest.
"You're wrong. You're so wrong." He repeated again, but this time with more passion. He stood up then, brushing the sand off his jeans. "People are special. I take it back. Everyone's special. Maybe not to me or to you, but everyone is special to someone."
I watched as he stretched his arms out and raised his voice.
"Even in Denver?" I asked, teasing him.
"Even in Denver!" He exclaimed, laughing.
I stood up, admiring the height difference between us. He was lanky and tall. I was small with bigger hips than I'd like and a smaller chest than I'd like.
"I have to go now." He said, looking behind him. His smile was so wide as he stared back at me, his eyes glistening, even in this dull light. He started to walk backwards. I stepped forwards, throwing my hands forwards.
"Wait, what's your name?" I had to shout over the win as he backed away.
"No!" He replied, crossing his arms and shaking his head. "Leave it like this. If I tell you my name this perfect moment will be ruined. If I go now then you'll still think well of me and it won't be ruined, do you understand?" His voice got fainter as he moved away.
"You can't just leave like that!" I laughed... as he left just like that.
I guess this was the 'if he was really that special then we'd meet again' kind of situation. I hoped I'd see this stranger from Denver again. I didn't know him, but, God, I wanted to.