Alki Beach

My hands shook ever so slightly on the steering wheel, the only subtle indication of my heart pounding in my chest, threatening to betray my feelings to the boy sitting next to me. ‘He’s just a boy,’ I tried to tell myself. The boy that had been my best friend since the sixth grade when we would sit at obnoxiously orange lunch tables and make fun of all the other awkward middle schoolers. The boy that flashed me a huge smile, braces and all, every time I came to his house to hang out with his sister, with a secret alternative agenda of seeing him. The boy that had told me I looked beautiful at freshman year homecoming, even though my hair was still soaked with chlorine from the swim meet I had just come from. The boy that had been there for me every time other boys made me cry, or when I needed someone to make me laugh. The boy I’d been in love with since the day I met him, but hadn’t had the guts to tell him for five years. Oh right… that boy.
I tried to calm my nerves as I pulled off the freeway and onto the car lined road to Alki Beach. The song P.S. I Love You was floating softly through the airwaves and out of my car radio, ironic I know. I wished I could tell Brendan so easily, just slip it in to one of our conversations. ‘So I went to the mall today, and oh yea, p.s., I love you!” It had proven a slightly more complicated task for me, and I punched the ‘next’ button on my stereo, envying the singer who had her love life all figured out.
I finally squeezed my car into a miniscule spot in front of the beach, putting my disgraceful parallel parking skills to work. As I stepped outside, the chill winter air caught me by surprise and I shivered in the thin coat I had worn. Of course Brendan noticed and I had to argue incessantly to avoid the chivalrous surrender of his own jacket. We stumbled over the soft brown sand toward the ocean, daring each other to brave the icy cold waters. Kicking off my shoes, I inched my tiny baby toe into the very edge of the frothy black sea. Shivers erupted up my spine and I ran from the water to the top of a sandy hill where Brendan was sitting laughing at my brilliant idea to stick my feet in the ocean in the dead of winter.
I laughed with him and lay back onto the tiny quilt we brought, almost too small for the two of us, which worked out quite well actually. A thick layer of bonfire smoke drifted over us and mingled with the smell of the ocean. A family to our right was chasing after their hyperactive kids, trying to keep them away from the impressively drunk teenagers to the left of us. Everyone was celebrating the new year that was on its way in about fifteen minutes. I stared up at the stars, seeing them clearer than ever in the black sky as the moon illuminated the shining silver waves lapping against the shore. I ran my hands through the soft sand as Brendan and I traded new year’s resolutions we both knew we wouldn’t keep.
As the countdown began my fluttering heart seemed to stop in its tracks. Our eyes locked and in that moment, every unspoken feeling and emotion came flowing forward. Through that one glance, I saw everything both of us had ever wanted. I struggled to breathe as we went silent for the first time in the entire night and slowly leaned ever so slightly forward…
All of a sudden the sky erupted with fireworks. We were jerked away from our perfect moment to watch the fire dance in the blackness, illuminating the night sky in color. The kids screamed and the teenagers drank and everyone was celebrating the new year; but we were celebrating something completely different. And as the air grew colder, sky grew darker, sea grew calmer; we remained on our tiny blanket in the sand, listening to each other’s heart beats, which had finally betrayed us both.