Tell It To The Waves

Prologue

The sea breeze, salt air, and the sound of waves will always beckon me back to the place I had my first crush, heartbreak, and downfall…

Driftwood Bay. Population four hundred in the off-season.

I had spent every summer in this small coastal town since I was two years old, but now I’m lured back to the place I haven’t stepped foot on since I was twenty-two, letting my tears fall into the ocean while watching the one person I thought would love me forever slowly become a mirage as the ferry drifted away.

I sit in my car, trying not to look at the shoreline as it gets closer with every heartbeat that pounds behind my ribcage. The seashell that sits in my hand has been polished by my constant rubbing over the last eight years, my one remembrance of him that I kept.

Tossing it into the cup holder before pulling down my glasses, I hear the captain over the loudspeaker instruct us to make our way back to our vehicles or get back inside the ferry for our arrival at Driftwood Bay.

Everything in me wants to take the thirty-five-minute ferry ride back to civilization and say fuck it, but I can’t. I have to get this done. And once it’s over, I won’t have to set foot back here ever again.

Summer is still a month away, so the traffic getting off the ferry is easy and smooth. Before I know it, I’m winding down the two-lane streets, trying to make my eyes stay focused on the road ahead of me, but a small part wants to see if we see him or anyone we used to know

My hands slip on the steering wheel, not from heat but from my anxiety-induced sweating. Anxiety about everything this town will bring back to the surface.