Come on Violet, you’ve seen the ocean before.
She shakes her head, laughing. It doesn’t matter, it’s always a delight.
Her comment sparks something in me, and for a second I find myself wishing that we didn’t live so far apart.
We pull into the car park and I park the Jeep in a made-up spot, since there are no lines or pylons, only a wide expanse of empty gravel. We’re overlooking the rolling cliffside, the beach now fully visible at the bottom of the hill. Once you get past some initial rocks, it looks like there’s bright, white sand along the shoreline.
I get out of the car and take in the view.
Well, this is far better than pretending to go back in time, I say to Violet, grinning, as I reach in to grab the towels we brought out of the back seat.
So gentlemanly of you, she says, gesturing to my armload of towels. I bow and she snorts in reply. See, I think to myself, but directed at the universe in general and maybe also at Gemma. I can be a good boyfriend.
Not a good fit. Fuck, it still stings, but I’m dead set on proving her wrong.
We make our way down to the shoreline. The wind whips at us as we get closer to the water. It definitely wasn’t this windy at the fortress.
On the left of the beach, a group of kids are playing in what looks like an adjoining river of some kind, the water running down a hill and meeting with the ocean. There’s a smattering of families littered across the sandy beach, which is even more gorgeous from down here. I breathe in deeply, inhaling the smell of the sea.
Violet and I walk until we find an empty patch of white sand, agreeing this is the spot to claim our territory. We lay out our towels down, Violet peeling off her dress in one fluid movement. All morning, the straps of her yellow swimming costume were visible underneath the straps of her dress, and seeing it fully, I notice that it’s covered in polka dots. Lovely, lovely Violet.
I’m counting the patchwork of tiny tattoos across her arms when she catches me, a little deer in headlights. I give her my most wolfish grin.
Tell me about your tattoos, I say, my eyes darting to her arms and back to her eyes. I’ve been admiring them since we met, not wanting to ogle her at every opportunity, but wanting to put them all in my memory: a hummingbird, a clothespin, an oyster with a pearl, a fancy drinking glass, a girl whose head is literally a cloud.
Do you have any?
Aye, just the one. I pull up the black pair of swimming trunks on my left thigh, to reveal the small sword hidden there. Had to get it somewhere discreet, Mum still doesn’t know about that. Billie and I got those during our first year of uni.
She blinks up at me, tearing her eyes away from my leg. I smirk, rolling the shorts back down.
Why a sword? Is it just me or does she sound a little breathless? I try not to let it go straight to my head.
I think of all the films we used to watch as kids, and the make-believe games we would play pretending to save Scotland from some foe or another.
I guess it was just about acknowledging our kinship, I shrug, then press her again. Your turn, Violet.
Still blinking, she shakes her head before she gestures down to a butterfly near her elbow. This was the first one, I got that when I was fifteen.
Fifteen? I ask, a little taken aback. Violet only laughs.
My parents are… she pauses, mulling over how to describe them. Very encouraging of me expressing myself creatively. My mom came with me, signed the form and was probably more excited than I was that I was showing some bodily autonomy.
And why a butterfly? I chuckle, wondering if it was simply because she was so young. She gets almost shy at this, smiling down at her arm.
During recess, I used to run around the field behind our school trying to find them. Butterflies I mean, real ones. And I’d be so lost in my own little world that I wouldn’t hear the bell, wouldn’t go inside, and some teacher or even the principal would have to come and drag me back to class. She looks up at me again, her big eyes heavy with something else I can’t quite place. I didn’t really have a lot of friends as a kid, but I was good at distracting myself. Too good.
She laughs, but it’s not really a happy laugh, and then gestures to a four-leaf clover on her wrist. This one was next, when I needed some luck.
I can’t help myself, I reach forward and take her wrist in my hand, running my thumb once across the black outline of a four-leaf clover. All of her tattoos are black and white, no colour anywhere.
Did it work?
She looks at me a little bit dazed. Did what work?
I smirk and rub my thumb over the spot again and ask quietly, Did it bring you luck?
She snaps out of the daze. Oh, yes. It did. She clears her throat, moving through some of the others: the letter R for her family’s last name, a wave for the ocean waters of the West coast, a crescent moon for no reason at all.
