“Under the rocks?” The beach went on for miles and was about a quarter of a mile from grass to water, and it was nothing but rocks. “We might wanna get a move on.” I walked forward, reached for a rock, and put on it, rubbing the face.
Nothing.
“Shouldn’t we start by the water?” Scout asked as we started down the bumpy, rock-covered beach.
“He did say that you had to get wet to find them,” I said, following behind her. When we reached the water, I rolled my pants up. Scout did the same, and then we started searching for rocks.
“I think I found one!” Scout yelled with delight after twenty minutes. She was a foot in the water and waving wildly to me.
“Oh yeah? Let’s see it.”
She showed me the wet rock, and I put it close to my face. “I don’t see anything.” I shook my head. “No go.”
She tossed the rock down and kept looking.I was having terrible luck as well. It was nearly another hour before finally we were able to agree that we had found one.It was a pebble at best.
“That was so much fun!” She laughed as we sat on the rocks to rest.
My feet, despite having kept shoes on, were bruised from walking on the unbalanced terrain. “It was. And now you have a souvenir.” I handed her the tiny stone.
“Yes, I do. I wonder what other things I can get from other places. Natural things, of course.”
“Hmmm. Why don’t we try to find one in every town?”
“I’d like that,” she said and leaned into me, resting her head on my shoulder. “What now?”
We stared out into the water until the sun went down. It was the most beautiful sunset I’d ever seen. I doubted I’d ever experience another one like it.
I wanted to blurt out exactly what I wanted to happen. I wanted to turn and shout.
Now we get engaged and I marry you in some small ceremony and then on our birthdays we die and turn and then we travel the world as vampires.
But I couldn’t. Instead, I chose to hold her tight.
She stared off into the distance.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
“Ida,” she said simply. “This time tomorrow, she’ll be dead. No more wind in her hair, no more sunsets, no more nothing.”
“I doubt she cared about those things every time she killed one of her twenty-something boy-toys.”
“What?”
“She’s a black widow of sorts. She finds young men, seduces them, and when they realize they don’t want to be her slave, they suddenly disappear. She made the mistake of picking up the wrong boy. Kyle Wong.” My eyes glazed as I recalled the conversation about Ida. “She doesn’t care about death as much as you think.”
“And you’re saying I shouldn’t either.”
“Yes. You shouldn’t. Mortality is just a concept. If we put in the effort, we can live on long after our human bodies fail us.”
“Since when did you get so deep,” she teased, elbowing me.
“Don’t you want to live forever?” I asked.
“I guess it depends. If you’re talking about a legacy, if it’s a good one, like Rosa Parks, then sure. If it’s someone like John Wilkes Booth, maybe not.”
“Not legacy.” My hands began to sweat as I considered my words. “Like, for real. Eternal life, as you are right now?”
“Hmmm…” She tapped her finger on her chin. “Would you be there?”
I grinned and wrapped my arms around her small frame. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
I gripped her hand and pulled her back to the bridge. “Scout, I have something I need to tell you.”
And then suddenly, she collapsed.
