Remember

I wrote this when I was seventeen. It reeks of that age.

Do you remember? That day on the beach. You must remember. Me, leading you down to the water. It was cold that day. You looked at me when I said I wanted go to the beach, you looked at me and I could see the worry in your eyes. You shouldn’t have been worried though.
You remember don’t you? Driving us down there. I didn’t talk much, even though I knew it would upset you. The intent of my silence was not to sadden you. I just wanted to look at the leaves changing colors in the trees and you know you wanted to look too. I tried to show you, remember? When I leaned down and picked the leaf off the ground. It was my favorite kind, the ones that turn vibrant red. I picked it up and handed it to you and you nodded and dropped it back onto the ground.
And remember? When I took off my shoes and dipped my toes in the water. I told you to take off your shoes as well and join me and you said no; that you didn’t want to get your feet sandy. I laughed at you and pretended that I didn’t care, but I wanted to show you. I wanted you to feel the chilly water rushing against the nerves in your toes. There are a lot of nerves in toes you know, and when the water crescendos and swiftly recedes, you can feel it. The cold sneaks up through your legs and stomach and your body shivers instinctively, and then the cold evaporates, coming out as a tickle in the nose.
Do you remember when I kissed you? I think it surprised you when I just ran up and kissed you like that. The sand was cold underneath my feet. You watched as I made shapes in it with my fingers. I told you to help me. That we could build a sand castle. You said no, the sand was cold and wet and dirty. So I made a castle by myself and watched it until the waves overcame it.
I made you stand with me by the water’s edge. I held your hand, even though I could feel it shifting uncomfortably. I wanted to feel you. I wanted the shocks to move from your hand to mine and I wanted us, for one moment, to have serenity.
The wind was sharp that day and when it blew through me, I wondered if I was hollow. If all of the bone marrow had been sucked out of my bones and I was as frail as a toothpick statue.
Do you remember when I picked up a seashell and put it in my pocket. You asked me why I wanted an ordinary seashell. I told you to look, to examine the flawless ivory surface. You tried to feign interest and then you handed it back to me, without saying a word.
Do you remember how our silence feels? How it wraps around us in all of its uncertainties. Do you remember? When I told you that if the sun froze at that moment, that we would be stuck, holding hands along the water, and when they world warmed again, they would find us like that. You laughed and told me that I was weird, that you didn’t know how I thought up such things. But it is not like I spent several days or even hours or minutes thinking about it. It just occurred to me, that they would find us like that and they would believe it to be perfection. I just wanted to show you.