“So, shall we start the excursion?”she commanded enthusiastically.
I answered with a smile and turned on the car.
Chapter 19
Ella
October 11th, 1998
Sunday
I dropped my bottle of SPF 50, and it rolled to Miles’s feet.He bent down to grab it, and I noticed something on his lower back, right above the waistband of his swimsuit.I was staring at his body.Probably shouldn’t.But when he held his shirt and took it off, my eyes went back there.
“Here.”He turned to me, tossed the T-shirt onto the rocks where our backpacks were, and handed me my sunscreen.
“Thank you!”I said.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, standing there, all tall and illuminated by the rays of morning sunshine.“This place is… wow.It feels like we’re living in a movie once again,” he said.
I laid my towel and stood up.The sea was flat, like glass.No wind interrupted its stillness; no boats disturbed it.The waves spoke in whispers as they broke on the sand, and our feet tread on tiny shells as we approached the cold of the gentle waves.It was the calmest morning.
This beach was one of my favorite corners in the world.The warm sand would melt my anxiety away on the bad days.The crystal-blue water would fill my soul with gratitude every time I stood there, floating in it.
I was happy to share it with Miles.He was… a good guy.I had invited him on a sudden impulse.He had never been here before.It made me wonder how he and his mother could have moved to a coastal town without ever exploring its beaches.
Miles came out of the water saying it was freezing, and I shouted back that he just had to warm up.He laughed and asked how, and I answered, “Jumping, running, or walking around in circles,” as I spun in place to demonstrate.
Ten minutes later, we were back in the freezing water, swimming with the diving goggles I had brought.It felt like we were just two kids, having too much fun, excited about the underwater world.
It was a while before we returned to our towels.
I opened my backpack and took out the camera Miss Amara had lent me.Peering through the viewfinder with one eye, I turned this beautiful Sunday into a memory.
“I like the tattoo,” I said playfully, pointing at his lower back.He leaned over, unsure of what I was referring to.
“Ah!”He chuckled, playing along with the joke.“I got it seventeen years ago.”
“So characteristic,” I complimented.
“Well, thank you,” he replied, running the towel through his hair, you know, the way you do when you don’t have to worry about creating a rat’s nest in your head.
“I noticed you have one too,” he added.
I looked down at my leg.My birthmark was large but barely visible, and shapeless.But the birthmark on his lower back was noticeable, darker, intense, eye-catching, and shaped perfectly like a triangle, with tiny irregularities that made it look like someone had hand-drawn a tiny Egyptian pyramid in there.
“It’s funny,” I said.“All my siblings have one somewhere too.Are birthmarks a genetic thing?”I wondered aloud.
Miles didn’t reply to my question.My eyes lifted to his, and he was standing still, meditating on something on the horizon that I searched for but couldn’t find.
“I think they can be, yeah,” he said.
I stood there, watching him.It felt like he was about to continue his train of thought.
“My mom never spoke much about my dad,” he said finally.“But once, she told me he had one just like mine.Same shape.Right on his lower back too.”
We hadn’t really talked about his dad before.I knew Miles had moved to Evermere with his mother.But the only other thing he’d shared about that part of his life was that his dad hadn’t been present for a long time.
“Do you miss him?”
