Reclaiming the Sand

by A. Meredith Walters

  Because I wasn’t sorry.

  It was better to break now than shatter later.

  -Flynn-

  Many years ago…

  I hated the snow.

  I hated the way it made my hair wet and fell into the collar of my shirt.

  My mom had given me a scarf but I wouldn’t wear it. It felt too tight on my neck. It made me itch.

  I walked home from school. I liked walking home. I looked at my watch and started to count. Five minutes until I came to the fork in the road. Three hundred seconds.

  I didn’t need the paper Mom had made for me anymore. I remembered the minutes and seconds without it. That made me happy.

  “Hey Freaky!” I knew that voice. It was the mean girl, Dania. I walked faster. Snow slushed into my sneakers. My toes were cold. Too cold. I needed to take off my shoes and socks.

  “Slow down! Where you goin’?” That was also a voice I knew. It was the mean boy Stu. He was worse than Dania. He would hit me in gym class. He locked me in a bathroom stall last week and I missed my classes.

  I cried and yelled but no one came to get me.

  No one found me until after school let out. My mom was mad. She went and spoke to the principal. The principal said he’d do something.

  Stu was still mean to me.

  Now he was worse.

  I was scared. I didn’t want them to walk with me.

  “Freaky Flyyynn,” another voice sing-songed and I stopped. Because that was the voice of my friend. Ellie. She liked me. She came to my house almost every day and we played with Marty and ate Mom’s banana bread.

  Mom told me she wasn’t a good friend. That if she was mean to me at school then she didn’t really like me. I got angry when Mom said that and broke the mirror in my bedroom. Mom started to cry and then I felt sad. I hated it when my mom cried.

  I turned around and was happy to see Ellie. She was smiling too but it looked weird. I didn’t like that smile.

  “Hi, Ellie,” I said. I pulled my gloves off and dropped them in the snow. I started rubbing my hands. Running my fingers along my skin. I didn’t like the cold. Up and down. Over and over again.

  “You didn’t answer my question, Freaky. Where ya headed?” Stu asked. He wasn’t wearing a coat. Wasn’t he cold?

  “Home,” I told him.

  “Home? Well why don’t we walk with you to make sure you get there safely. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to our good buddy Freaky on the way,” Dania said.

  That was nice of them. Maybe they wanted to be my friends now. Maybe they’d want to hang out like Ellie did. Maybe then she would talk to me in school and they’d let me eat my lunch.

  That made me happy so I nodded.

  “You can come to my house,” I said.

  Ellie was frowning. She looked mad.

  “Let’s go, guys. We’re supposed to meet Shane and Reggie at the diner,” Ellie said. Why didn’t she want to come to my house with Dania and Stu?

  “No, Ells, we’re going with Freaky. We have to escort him home. It’s our civic duty, ya know,” Dania smiled at me again and I smiled back.

  She was being nice. I liked it when she was nice.

  She put her arm around me and I shoved her back.

  “Whoa, what was that for?” she asked me and I knew I had done something wrong. She wasn’t smiling anymore. She didn’t look like she wanted to be my friend.

  “He doesn’t like to be touched, Dania. Everybody knows that,” Ellie said. I shook my head. That wasn’t true. I liked it when she touched me. Sometimes Ellie would hold my hand and that felt nice.

  Ellie was frowning again and that made my stomach hurt.

  Dania said something to Stu and then they were smiling again. “Come on, Freaky. Let’s go to your house. I won’t touch you. I promise,” Dania said.

  “My name isn’t Freaky. It’s Flynn,” I said as we started walking again.

  “Freaky Flynn. Yeah, I know,” Stu said. He was walking beside me.

  “No. Not Freaky Flynn. Just Flynn!” I told him. I hated that name. It made me mad when people called me that. I never wanted to hear it again.

  Stu patted my arm and I pulled away. He laughed. He was laughing at me. I wanted to hit him.

  “Stop laughing at him, Stu. Be nice,” Dania said, hitting his arm. I liked Dania. She was nice.

  My feet were really cold. I needed to take my socks off. My toes hurt. I couldn’t walk while my toes hurt.

  “Why did you stop?” Dania asked.

  “My socks are wet. I need to take them off,” I told her.

  “Let’s walk up to the bridge and you can take them off there. I’ll help you,” Dania said and I was smiling again. She would help me. She was my friend now.

  I looked at my watch. “We will be at the red barn in four minutes. That’s two hundred and forty seconds,” I told them, proud of myself for not needing the paper Mom had made for me. I could tell them without looking at it.

  “Two hundred and forty seconds, huh? Well that’s good to know,” Dania said.

  “Guys, seriously. We should be heading to the diner,” Ellie said from behind me.

  “I want them to come to my house, Ellie. Just like you do,” I said and she looked mad again. Dania started laughing. I laughed too because she was my friend.

  “Oh really? Like Ellie? She comes to your house?” she asked me.

  I started to nod but Ellie shoved me from behind and I stumbled forward.

  “Shut up, Freaky! You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” she yelled and it hurt my ears. Ellie hurt me and I wanted to cry. Why was she being so mean?

  “Stop being so nasty, Ells. You’re upsetting Flynn,” Dania said and she gave Ellie a mean look. Why was Ellie hurting me?

  “You’re a bitch,” I said to Ellie then Stu and Dania started laughing again. I never said bad words. I didn’t like them. But I knew what a bitch was and Ellie was being one.

  Ellie’s mouth was twisting in a strange way and I pointed at it.

  “You’re doing that thing with your mouth again. Why are you doing that?”

  Dania and Stu were still laughing.

  “Am I being funny?” I asked them.

  Stu hit my back and I moved away from him. He held his hands up. “You’re the funniest dude I’ve ever met, Freaky.” He covered his mouth with his hand. “I mean, Flynn,”

  Stu wasn’t being so scary right now. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt me anymore. That made me feel really happy.

  When we passed the barn I told them we had five minutes until we got to the bridge and then I could take my socks off. My toes were even colder. I hated the wet snow in my shoes.

  Dania and Stu were talking to me. It felt good. Ellie wasn’t talking to me and that didn’t feel good. Why wasn’t she talking to me? She always talked to me while we walked to my house.

  She usually smiled a lot and she was pretty when she laughed. Then she’d hold my hand for a while and that made my body feel weird in a good way.

  She wasn’t smiling now.

  “There’s the bridge,” I said, pointing to it. I was happy to see the bridge. I wanted to take my socks off. Dania said she’d help me. She was my friend.

  I bent over and started to untie my laces when someone shoved me. I fell over. It hurt. I was on the ground and it was cold. I hadn’t taken my socks off yet.

  I tried to stand up but Stu pushed me over again and this time I slid down the hill. Dania was laughing but it wasn’t a nice sound like Ellie’s. “Get him in the water!” she yelled and then Stu pushed me into the stream.

  I yelled. The water was in my shoes. My pants were wet. It was really cold!

  I tried to stand up but my foot caught on a rock and I fell down again. I started to cry. Dania and Stu were laughing.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Dania said and then they were gone.

  I was wet. I hated being wet.

  I sat there.

  I was sad.

  They weren’t my friends.


  They were mean.

  They hurt me.

  I was really cold. My fingers and toes were starting to ache.

  My pants and shoes were wet.

  I needed to take them off.

  I sat there.

  “Come on Flynn, let’s get you home.” Ellie had come back and she was pulling on my arm.

  My teeth were chattering and I couldn’t talk. I hurt badly. I was wet. I wanted to get out of my clothes.

  Ellie put her arm around me and it didn’t bother me when she did it. I liked when she touched me.

  But she had hurt me before. She had been mean. Now she was being nice.

  She was my friend again.

  “Stu pushed me into the water,” I said, my teeth banging together.

  “Yeah, he did. He’s a dick,” Ellie said and I tried to nod. But I couldn’t.

  I was wet.

  I was cold.

  Ellie got me home. My mom was upset when she saw me. She yelled at Ellie to leave. But I wanted Ellie to stay. She helped me.

  “No!” I yelled at my mom. Ellie was taking off my shoes and socks and wrapping them in a towel. She was touching me..

  “I want Ellie to stay!” I screamed. Ellie needed to stay! I wanted her there!

  My mom said okay but made Ellie leave while she got me changed.

  And then Ellie sat with me on the couch and we watched the A-Team. That was Ellie’s favorite show. I liked watching it with her. My toes and fingers were still cold. Mom said I could have gotten frostbite.

  “I’m so sorry, Flynn,” Ellie said.

  “You’re my friend, Ellie. You helped me,” I told her, not understanding why she was sorry. She had been mean but she had helped me. That was nice.

  “I shouldn’t have let Stu do that to you,” she said.

  “He’s mean. I don’t like him. I don’t like Dania either. They aren’t my friends,” I told her.

  Ellie moved closer to me and took my hand. She always put her fingers between mine and it felt good. I liked it when she did that.

  “No they aren’t. I don’t think they’re really mine either. You’re my only real friend, Flynn,” she said and then she put her head on my shoulder. And I liked that too.

  I was her only friend. That made me smile.

  I was happy.

  -Ellie-

  I was on campus finishing my homework. I was scheduled to have a meeting with Professor Au, my academic advisor to talk about possible class options for next semester. I had yet to make up my mind about what I was going to do.

  I seesawed back and forth between excitement at the possibility and total denial that I could do it at all.

  It had been a week since I had gone with Flynn to his house. I struggled with a glut of new feelings I hadn’t experienced since I was a child. I had felt more guilt in the past month than I had in the past fifteen years combined. Every interaction with Flynn brought with it wave after wave of emotion that threatened to rip me apart.

  I had made peace with Dania, though it had involved considerable groveling on my part. She had been furious. Nasty words were hurled and I took them like I always did.

  And even though I gave her the lip service that she expected, I was quickly growing tired of our vicious cycle.

  Watching her attempts to humiliate Flynn last week had wrenched something loose inside me. I had been reminded of that day in high school when Stu and Dania had pushed him into the freezing stream by his house.

  They had thought it was funny. I had gone along with it. I hadn’t stopped them.

  I remembered the look on his face. He thought they were being friendly. He didn’t understand the calculated cruelty that they had planned for him.

  I had played my part in it. I had been just as culpable.

  But that had been the first time I had truly felt bad for my behavior.

  By that point Flynn had become my friend. Sure, no one knew but us. I wasn’t willing to endure the wrath of my friends should it come out. But he had become someone important to me.

  He was the only person who had accepted me for who I was and liked me anyway. He didn’t expect me to be anything but Ellie McCallum. And I had been such a messed up kid that his simple, unconditional affection became the balm for my tormented heart.

  But my self-loathing was unstoppable. And it managed to destroy the only good relationship I had ever had in my life. It was my fate to push him away. To hurt him. To hurt myself.

  And I had done that in the most destructive way possible.

  But that day at the stream I had hated Dania and Stu for hurting Flynn. And it was my one moment of courage.

  I had run off with my so-called friends, leaving Flynn freezing in the stream. But the sudden over powering sense of shame had stopped me. Dania had asked what was wrong.

  I told her that we couldn’t leave Flynn like that. That’d he’d freeze to death. Stu had called me a fucking pussy. Then they started calling me a Freak Lover. And it had made me so incredibly angry. They had turned on me in an instant.

  For a brief moment, I hadn’t cared. I had turned around and gone back to help Flynn. Stu and Dania’s taunts ringing loudly in my ears. And that had felt good. It felt right. Because I cared about him.

  It was the last good day we had together. It was the last time I had spent with him unencumbered by my own shit.

  It was the last day I had been truly happy.

  So watching Dania’s passive threats had triggered inside me the instinct to fight and protect all over again.

  And just like all those years ago, I had paid for it afterwards.

  “I just keep running into you. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the universe was forcing us to be friends.”

  I looked up at the sudden invasion of my personal space and bit down on my frustrated sigh.

  At some point in the two weeks since I last saw her, Kara Baker had shaved her dreads. She was sporting a buzz cut so short that I could see her scalp. I wasn’t a big fan of the Sinead O’Conner look, but at least she had the head shape for it.

  “Or you could just have a thing for stalking,” I remarked dryly, already resigned to at least fifteen minutes of asinine chitchat.

  And honestly, Kara wasn’t too bad. She was chill and laid back, even if she was too damn nosy for her own good.

  “Nah. If I wanted to stalk someone, it wouldn’t be a bitch with a bad attitude,” she quipped and I had to smile at her comment. She could hold her own, that’s for sure. I had to respect that.

  “Fair enough,” I conceded and watched as she settled into the chair opposite me and pulled out a textbook.

  “Whatcha workin’ on?” she asked, poking her pencil at my English book. I flipped over the cover so she could see it.

  “Trying to write an essay on the fundamentals of personal liberty as found in the short stories of Kate Chopin,” I answered drolly.

  Kara arched a blonde eyebrow. “Whoa, heavy shit. And you like that stuff?” she asked and I realized that yeah, I did. I was really enjoying my class. It allowed me to flex my brain in a way that working at JAC’s would never provide.

  I didn’t have any opportunity in my everyday life to discuss the meaning of Byron’s poetry or to talk about the theme of greed in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. For the four hours a week I was in class, I didn’t feel like a useless failure. I felt competent and smart and Professor Smith seemed to think I actually knew what I was talking about.

  Sure I’d always had Julie in my corner cheering me on, trying to build up my shaky self-esteem but I had never internalized any of it.

  Until now.

  “Yeah, I do,” I answered.

  “More power to ya, I guess. I don’t have a head for that stuff. That’s why I’m going into political science. I much prefer the drama of lawmaking any day.”

  Kara was a talker but it wasn’t overly obnoxious, as I had first thought. Her uncomplicated conversation was nice.

  “So you’re going to be some Congressman�
�s bitch? That sounds like an HBO special waiting to happen,” I said, my lips curling into an awkward semblance of a smile. I didn’t get much practice at making small talk so I hoped I wasn’t rude or aggressive. My personality didn’t lend itself well to polite niceties.

  “No way, I’m going to be the one making the laws, darlin’.” I snorted and looked pointedly at her baldhead.

  “I can’t remember the last time I saw a female senator without hair and a tattoo up the side of her neck,” I observed.

  Kara rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You’ll see. You’ll be voting for me soon enough.”

  “You’d better have one hell of a platform if you expect my vote,” I said, looking back at my textbook, hoping to get back to my work. I had to meet my advisor soon.

  “Legalization of marijuana and lowered drinking age for all!” she said, pounding her fist on the table.

  I chuckled. “Well you’ll definitely get the pot head vote,” I muttered.

  Our conversation dwindled after that, both of us getting back to our assignments. But it was cool having her sit there. She’d make random comments about her reading and I’d tell her to shut up. We had established a workable dynamic.

  I looked up about halfway through writing my essay, my pencil poised over my paper. There was Flynn. He came into the library and spoke briefly with the young girl at the circulation desk.

  He was dressed in his usual uniform of khakis and button down shirt. It didn’t matter how hot it was, he never wore short sleeves.

  The girl was smiling at him and batting her eyelashes. Clearly for her, Flynn’s awkwardness didn’t overshadow his good looks. I felt a strange twisting in my gut as I watched her flip her hair and giggle. And even though Flynn wasn’t looking directly at her, I saw the soft curve of his smile. He seemed to like whatever she was saying to him.

  “Earth to Ellie!” Kara called out, snapping her fingers in front of my face. I scowled at her, annoyed to have been caught staring.

  She looked over her shoulder and gave me a coy grin. “Drooling over the hottie artist I see.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I growled, pulling my eyes away from Flynn who was now gathering up a pile of books and putting them in his book bag.

  “Don’t be defensive, then. You’re staring at that dude like you want to cut him up and eat him for dinner,” she purred and I clenched my fists in my lap so I wouldn’t smack her in the face.