One Billion Apologies

It wasn’t the sun’s sudden reversal nor the tides rolling out that I noticed first. It was the blood on my hands, evaporating into thin air, like ballerinas leaping off my skin and disappearing into a dusky sky. For a stretchy, taffy-like ten seconds I watched as every bit of the boy’s blood left my hands, a crime attempting its own undoing. The knife slipped itself from his tanned neck, and the handle inserted itself into my closed fist like a key in a lock. My body rose to standing. White sand trickled off my knees, reuniting magnetically with the beach at my feet.

That’s when I saw the crashing waves changing their minds, lifting off the beach and pulling away one by one, like little apologies for the billions of times they had crashed into the shore before. The sun halted its dip as if it knew it had just missed something sinister—it threatened to peek and be my only witness. Unless there would be nothing to witness at all; maybe it could all be undone.

I was a puppet to time. And the strings were pulling me in reverse.

---

12 hours earlier

I put on the kind of makeup that looked like I wasn’t wearing makeup and joined my travel companions at the resort restaurant I couldn’t afford.

There’s Sela, they said. Last again.

My tardiness was, of course, intentional, as Macy never ate much so I knew she’d give me her untouched bagel. For free. I borrowed the money for the trip from my stepdad, who I knew would forget about said money, which was basically the only quality that made him better than my first stepdad. But that’s another story. Mom was the one who convinced me to go, saying it would be good for me, as moms say. I almost always took her advice. I was almost always honest with her too. Almost.

Everyone was ready to hit the beach as it was the only place you could feel the breeze in the otherwise stifling heat of the island. I was glad it was our last day, though I was trying not to show it in my face nor in the way I shuffled down to the sand with the tribe. Tribe. That’s what Corinne had called the six of us when we landed for Spring Break five days ago, and I had nearly gagged. Speaking of that which is stifling.

The thing is, I always had trouble making friends. I was naturally irritable and generally brooding, unlike Corinne who was a walking party. I was also not the girl-next-door; that was Macy, who was obviously into Aaron due to his unironic emo vibe. Corinne’s arm candy was fraternity president and prep king whose name was a well-suited Mike. And then there was Jordan, who some might have called a ringleader for his charisma and swishy black hair, but who I called—under my breath—a narcissist.

So there I was, complete with frizzy hair and a frown, somehow part of the tribe. That was probably thanks to Macy who was a serial dog rescuer. Was I a rescue? Anyway, if you threw us all together and turned on a camera, we resembled an Avril Lavigne music video.

On the morning of our last day, I tucked myself into the sand next to the girls and as far away from Jordan as possible without my choice being obvious. He carried a negative energy, a bad karma that it seemed only I could feel. Corinne and even Macy flirted with him all week, while Mike and Aaron hung on his every word. I was trying to cancel out their worship energy with my ignoring energy, but I couldn’t get the scales to balance. Jordan had dark secrets. And probably the only reason I could feel his was because I had a dark secret too.

It was like an anvil on my chest when Jordan was close. Each day, when he would finally put distance between us and leave the beach to dive into the ocean, the weight would lift, replaced by daydreams of him underwater suffocating, suffering. Dying.

He would always re-emerge to my great disappointment.

This psychotic cycle repeated all week, the daydreams growing stronger each day. If I wasn’t afraid of sharks, I would have followed Jordan into the water and--.  

Sela, Corinne said. Aren’t you going to get in? It’s our last day.

I feigned surprise as if I hadn’t been counting down the hours to the freedom of our flight home.

Fish pee in water, Mike said, the Mike-iest thing to say, and I was grateful for his weak attempt at defending my choice to stay dry.

I’m almost at my peak tan? I shrugged.

Corinne rolled her eyes. You’re fully in the shade of the umbrella. Fine, finish your book, she said, gesturing to the paperback I had been pretending to read all week. Come on guys.

Macy, Mike, and Aaron followed Corinne hypnotically into the ocean. They joined a still fully alive Jordan for a swim while I hung on to my last shred of sanity.

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Evening

We ate dinner on the restaurant patio with a view of the apricot sunset. The boys dined on steak and lobster with a bottle of god-knows-how-expensive red wine. Corinne and Macy had burgers, and I had a salad plus a plethora of uneaten fries from Macy’s plate. Another sign that I might have been a rescue animal of Macy’s, but I digress.

Jordan was giving me nasty, knowing smiles throughout dinner, making my palms clammy. Did he know I hated him? That I was happy I would never have to see his face again after this night? Or, maybe he discovered that my stepdad wasn’t my first stepdad, that the first had died mysteriously one night when Mom wasn’t home?

Jordan couldn’t know. No one knew about that. At least not the part about me also being home.

It’s hot out here, I said, desperate to wrap up dinner, for the sun to fall, for the night to be over.

Let’s walk down to the beach! Corinne said like she’d just invented a new concept.

Mike signed his room number on the ticket, and we left the restaurant two by two. Corinne and Mike were arm-in-arm, Macy and Aaron shoulder to shoulder, and Jordan was holding such steady eye contact with me that I faked a frightening sneeze so I could turn away from him.

Go ahead, I said, stepping back to the table to grab a napkin, in which I wrapped Jordan’s used steak knife. I tucked it into the back of my shorts when no one was looking and followed the tribe down to a darkening beach.

Four of the six dispersed. I didn’t notice, frozen in the sand, staring at the ocean. The water was the color of Mom’s bruises. The pink sun, her bloodshot eyes. The waves crashed onto the shore’s skin shamelessly like angry fists. My heart twisted from the memories of my own helplessness which had morphed into a violent determination to act. The bathtub, the water, the blow dryer, the electricity, the adrenaline from carrying it all out.

Again, the anvil sunk into my chest. A darkness, one I was all too familiar with, was close. Was it my own? I pulled my eyes from the ocean to see him, the other lost soul on this beach besides me. Before I could run, Jordan pushed me down to the sand.

Despite my fear, I desperately wanted to know why. Power? Control? Is it always that? I didn’t have time to think or plan, like I did the first time. Though I did have one sharp, sliver of hope in my back pocket.

I kicked and thrust my hips until I pushed Jordan off me. Sand stormed about us like a tornado. A strength from deep within me burst forth. I pinned him down, pulled the steak knife from my shorts and forced it into his neck. Blood covered my hands. His body went limp.

Dread flooded my insides. I could not be that person again. I could not replace darkness with more darkness. There had to be another way. A different fight I could win—for me, for Mom, for all. I could be more. There had to be more.

A sliver of hope.

The blood began to disappear. The knife slipped out of his neck. I stood as white sand fell from my knees. It felt natural to surrender to time, to relinquish control, to let the darkness fall away. The first time would not be undone, I knew. And the undoing of one million transgressors and their one billion transgressions could not be. But this time...

The waves reversed,

changing their mind in

apology

The sun rose—

a bloodshot core softened

to gold