Even if I don’t know where I belong, I do know that when the sea calls, you have no choice but to answer.
2
Harlow
My head plunges beneath the dark water and my skin burns. Tightens. I feel it changing ... and not just the tattooed flesh. My legs in their entirety seem to fight.
Fight me.
They stop pushing to stay ashore and instead my feet kick—against my will, my legs pump—propelling me away from the shore I know.
I blink beneath the water, and my chest constricts the same way my legs do.
My heart begins to beat in a different rhythm. A heartbeat I’ve never heard before.
But it’s a beat I know.
I know that sounds insane but so is the fact that I’m no longer on solid ground.
I want to go deeper. Go farther.
It’s like I can see something that isn’t there.
But maybe it is there. Maybe for me, it’s something deep inside, something that’s been there all along.
My destiny.
And right now, I swim toward it.
Chloe’s words echo in my ear... it doesn’t matter where you came from. It just matters where you go.
Is that what this is? This is me finally going somewhere? Because my heart is saying something I don’t really understand. My heart screams for me to swim.
I have nothing to lose. Not really.
What is the point of living if I spend my entire life on the shore, just waiting for something to happen?
What if this is the something?
I don’t want to miss it.
Not that I have a choice. My body has a mind of its own.
I’ve spent my entire life overcompensating. Being outgoing and overly-friendly, and keeping a smile in place when I really wanted to scream. Really wanted to give the middle finger to everyone who seemed so good at keeping their shit together.
But deep down, I wanted to tell the entire world that I wasn’t, in fact, just a pink-haired girl with a penchant for iced coffee with a good sidestroke.
I’m more than that.
I know it in my bones, apparently.
Underwater, I open my eyes and look around, my heart pumping fast, and just like every time I’ve been in the water since I was a baby, I breathe easier beneath the shore.
Of course, I don’t talk about that.
There’s no reason to. I tried before, of course, to tell my parents that I could hold my breath for an hour. That even though I wore a snorkeling mask when I took tourists out on the boat around Oahu, I don’t actually need goggles and flippers to move below the rippling water. And everywhere I swim there always seemed to be a seal close by. My spirit animal. It was more than a joke. I knew it was true.
He came for me tonight.
I blink beneath the water and see him up ahead.
I follow.
I blink at the colorful fish swimming past me, pumping my legs, propelling myself deeper into the sea. It makes no sense. But, for the first time ever, as I give in to the ocean, I feel free.
Maybe it’s the culmination of a life spent going in circles, never really getting anywhere.
I live in my parents’ basement for goodness sake. I go to community college part-time and for the rest of it, I’m a quintessential beach bum. The friends I meet are only here in Waikiki on a layover before starting the rest of their actual lives.
That’s what I want. To start living; not just getting through. I keep swimming, thinking about Chloe and her beautiful, romantic, picture-perfect, life. Her life isn’t passing her by. She’s jumping in with both feet, refusing to be a bystander. And the entire time that happily-ever-after unfolded for Chloe, all I managed to do was get a nose ring and a tattoo.
Not exactly winning at adulting.
I roll with the water, stretching out my arms in front of me, and as I do, the clothing I wore out tonight—cut-offs and a tank top—seem to fall away, shredding to nothing as the water propels me forward.
How is this happening? Memories of my life flash by. Driving the boat and always managing to find the very best spots on the island. If I’m steering the rig, we’ll end up where a pod of dolphins play, or where a pack of turtles graze. My parents call it the Harlow Touch... but I know it’s more than that.
It’s dark in these depths, nearly pitch black. I’ve never done this before-- swim so deep I wind up lost.
I look around for the seal, but I can’t see it.
Air bubbles escape from my open mouth as I breathe.
I shouldn’t be able to do this.
Breathe in and out, without sputtering and coughing.
Without drowning.
But I’m not drowning. I’m swimming faster and faster, my body gliding through the water. My legs no longer burn, they shimmer. I take a deep breath, my lungs lighting up as if the saltwater hitting my core awakens me for the first time in my life.