Page 19 of The Magic of Sea Glass
“That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for. What’s up?”
Lauren took in a deep breath of warm, salty air. “It’s hard to assimilate into a new group of people. Most of the time, I can’t escape myself.”
“What do you mean?”
When she got to a flat spot, Lauren dropped her cooler into the sand and shook her blanket in the wind, the phone wedged between her ear and shoulder. “I thought I could start over and leave everything behind, but I can’t. My old life is with me anywhere I go. I’m still a mess inside.” She sat down on the blanket and brushed the sand off her cooler. “I think I’m damaged goods forever.”
“Have you considered seeing someone?” Andy asked, her voice gentle.
“Like a counselor?”
“Yeah. Someone who could help you think through it all.”
“I’ve already thought it through more than I’d like to. What more is there that anyone could tell me?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a professional. Maybe they could get to the root of it and offer some coping strategies.”
“The root of it is that I lost my entire life and I can’t seem to get it back. And I really doubt any amount of deep breathing or journaling about the positives will help.”
“It might be good to give it a chance before you write it off.”
She fought the wind to keep the blanket flat. “You know, I think Mason would encourage me to move on. He’d want me to be happy. And I want those things as well. But even if I could give myself permission to do that, I feel like I don’t even know who I am anymore. All I see is the shell of the life I was building with Mason that can no longer be.”
“Think back to before the accident. Can you remember what you enjoyed doing, outside of family and work?”
Lauren looked out at the sparkling sea; there were no remnants at all of the morning storm apart from a line of sea kelp that had washed ashore. “I can hardly remember.”
“Well, I can tell you whatIsaw. You were the dreamer of the two of us. You were the one with all the ideas. You saw answers where I couldn’t find any.”
A lump in her throat, Lauren lay back on the blanket, her knees up, her eyes closed to the blinding sun. A tear rolled down her temple and she wiped it away.
“You used to dance. In the kitchen of our apartment, before you moved out to live with Mason. You would have the music so loud that I couldn’t hear myself think. You’d spin in circles, singing the lyrics of whatever was playing. I always wondered how you could be so upbeat after a long day of work.”
With her eyes still closed, the bright sun warming her face, Lauren tried to connect to her former self, but she was coming up empty, her brain clouded with too much from the last year to summon anything that had transpired before. “I miss that person,” she admitted.
“She’s still there,” Andy said.
“I’m not so sure.” She sat up and cleared her throat so she didn’t roll onto her side and start sobbing. “I should probably go. I need to eat lunch and get back to work.”
“All right. You can call anytime; you know that.”
“I’ll call you back when I have a longer break. I’d love to hear how things are going on your end, and if I do have to plan this wedding, I’ll need to pick your brain on some ideas.”
“Okay,” her friend said.
They said their goodbyes and Lauren busied herself trying to stay in the moment and not drift back to her thoughts. She opened her cooler and took out a shrimp and cucumber salad that Mary had offered the guests for lunch. She stared out at the ocean, letting it calm her. A sandpiper ran across the flat sand where the waves had retreated, leaving its footprints before it flew away with the next swell, the foam washing over them, the tracks disappearing. She pierced a cucumber slice with her fork and took a bite, the cold salad refreshing in the heat.
“Hey there,” a familiar voice called in the distance.
She twisted around to find Brody walking toward her, holding a pair of flip-flops, his bare feet padding across the sand easily where she’d hopped as if it were a bed of fire.
“I came by to work on the porch and Mary said you were out here.” He dropped the shoes into the sand and plopped down beside her even though she hadn’t offered. She didn’t mind, though. Something about him felt so comfortable, as if she hadn’t just met him.
“You work in those?” She eyed his flip-flops.
“I’m just replacing railing spindles today, so my toes will be just fine.”
She smiled and then turned toward a seagull that had swooped down into the ocean in a nosedive.
