Chapter Text
I met her when I was 10. It was the summer. I was at the beach, watching the waves almost reach my feet while my family rested up on the sand. The sun began to hit the ocean in a way that blinded me, so I turned back to my family and saw another family setting up their spot near ours. It was a mother, father, and their daughter. She looked to be about the same age as me, her light blonde hair contrasting with mine. What I noticed most, though, was that we were wearing the same bathing dress. I wasn’t yet at an age where wearing the same thing as another girl was embarrassing. It actually made me really happy. I watched her help her parents set up their chairs and start relaxing. The father immediately pulled out a newspaper (which is something I never understood, why go to the beach just to read the news?), and the mother sent the daughter off with a wave to go play in the water.
I was a pretty introverted girl; I had a lot of thoughts always running around in my head but I rarely voiced them, and I was very nervous about talking to strangers. Yet I felt… drawn, to this girl, in a way. I was figuring out whether I would say something to her or not when she made eye contact with me and I watched her light up. She came towards me with a friendly smile on her face.
“Your outfit is absotively amazing!”
“...Thank you.”
She beamed at me and tugged on her dress. “I’m wearing the same one!”
“You look cute,” I muttered.
“Thanks! I just got this dress and I’ve been so excited all week to come to the beach.”
I was too nervous to hold eye contact any longer so I gazed at my feet instead. I didn’t have many friends, and I really wanted to talk to her. But I just could not “come out of my shell”, as my mother constantly called it. It was more difficult for me than she thought. I was worried the girl would take this the wrong way; maybe she would think this is my way of showing that I want to be left alone. But I don’t.
“Um, do you… want to go in the water with me?” She asked, somewhat hesitantly, although I could still hear the shine in her voice.
I tilted my head back up and stared at her for a moment. Usually the kid talking to me would have left by now. What 10 year old wants to talk to a peer who can barely respond and seems very disconnected? Kids normally do not have the emotional intelligence to deal with a person like that.
This time, the shine in her voice was no longer there. “If you want to play by yourself, that’s fine, sorry.” She said the “sorry” almost reflexively, which I thought was weird because kids were not usually that polite. At least, not to me. I wanted to have a happy expression on my face, because I was happy. I thought I would have gone to the beach and played by myself, and now suddenly I’m being invited to play. But I remembered that my emotions do not often show on my face, no matter how strong they are. It makes it harder to read me. It draws people away from me.
“No, I want to play in the water. With you,” I hurriedly spoke.
Watching her face light up again like it initially was put me at ease to a degree. I usually only got those reactions from my parents.
“Oh, yay!” Butterflies flitted around in my chest as I saw her eyes slightly wrinkle up from her smile. “Come on!”
She waded into the water, far enough that it nipped at her thighs each time a wave went by. I followed after her, albeit a little slower than she had been. She reached down to put her fingers in the ocean and move them back and forth before she started talking again.
“Don’t you just love the water? I come here all the time, especially during the summer. Sometimes my brother plays with me but he’s with his friends right now. My parents always just sit up there on the sand and read or nap but I’m too excited to relax!” Her last word was punctuated with a loud splash she made.
She talked so much so fast that it overwhelmed me a little. But honestly, I was too happy to care.
“I like the water too. But this is the first time I’ve gone to the beach.”
Her mouth fell open and she turned to me. “Really?! I can’t imagine never going in the water. It makes me so relaxed, like it’s my home. Sometimes I think I’m like a mermaid.” She waded a little further into the water, and I followed again. The sun was beaming down on us so intensely that it hid from me the warm feeling I got when talking to the girl.
“How are we going to play?” I wondered, unsure of what she had really meant by that.
“Oh, I don’t know… maybe,” she took a pause and I watched her gain a mischievous glint in her eye, “like this!” She splashed a bunch of water on me and laughed. It was loud, and the water felt invasive on my skin in places it had not been before, but the fact that it was with somebody my age being nice to me (a friend?) made me enjoy it regardless. Like a breath of fresh… water?
I recovered from the flinch my body did after her assault and got ready to counterattack. I quickly splash water on her the same as she had to me, making her giggle even harder.
It went on like that, back and forth for a while. Over the next few hours we talked and played and ran around like we had been friends for a long time. When her parents called her back it was around sundown. Normally my family didn’t stay out this late, but I think they were glad I made a friend. Yes, I had made a friend.
I looked at her face, framed by her beige, wavy straw hat with a pink ribbon around it tied up into a bow on the front. Her features were slightly shadowed because she was standing with the sun behind her. The soft oranges and light pinks of the sunset, her shoulder-length blonde hair waving picturesquely in the wind, the dimples that her smile made—when I looked at her, it was like she had come out of a painting. I was entranced.
Her eyes glanced over to her mom beckoning for her before returning to my gaze. “Oh, I think I have to go now. I had fun!”
My eyes softened and my face showed a content smile. “I did too.”
“Will you come to the beach again?” She looked a little nervous as she spoke, her hands slightly fidgeting. But of course I already knew my answer.
“Yes,” I responded quickly, “I will.”
“Yay!” She did a few little claps and turned to the side, seemingly to start walking back, before something on the ground caught her attention and she crouched down. “Wow!” She said, amazed.
I leaned over to look at it. “What is it?”
She held it up to me. It was a seashell that looked as if it had been crafted by some higher power. We both got lost in the lines of its shapes and curves for a few seconds until her mother called her again.
She brushed the sand off of her knees. “Okay, I really have to go now. I’ll see you some time!”
I felt a little bit… sad, as she walked off. Then I realized I had, we both had, forgotten something so basic.
“Wait!” I raised my voice just a smidge, more than enough to catch her attention again. “My name is Mary. What’s your name?”
“Oh, right!” The sun shined on her skin, making her face bright in real life as well as in spirit. She smiled again at me—a wide, genuine smile that made me feel special—and said, “I’m Amelie."