Treading Water
"Sometimes rescue comes to you. It just shows up, and you do nothing. Maybe you deserve it, maybe you don’t. But be ready, when it comes, to decide if you will take the outstretched hand and let it pull you ashore."
The lighthouse had guided me so close to harbor, but I was still terrified to actually go ashore. So long in the water makes you aware of everything. No matter how cold it is in the water, the air is always colder. My body was pruned, showing every flaw, every insecurity, but for some reason I was still swimming into the captivity of the harbor. How long could I stay here before I was noticed? How long until someone forced me out? Was it too late to just go to the lighthouse and find some shelter there until at least my skin returned to normal and I could take my time in adjusting again?
And then..... in just one glance I knew I had to get out. Not immediately. But he would try to make me. He sat on the dock and talked to me while I was in the water. He’d been in the ocean before too- he understood. Or did he? Maybe not. He’d experienced the waves, but he got out of the water. So maybe he didn’t. I still wouldn’t get out of the water. We kept talking, sometimes for a while and other times not so long. In time he became the most incredible person I had ever known. Not even the constant rocking of the waves could console your mind as well as his confident composure. His warm smile and welcoming eyes encouraged me and somewhere in the depths of my chest I felt a tugging as my heart made room for him.
But the tugging hurt me. Even in the saltwater, my wounds hadn’t fully healed and the pulling stretched the scars… the traces of him. And so I held back all feeling, finding some reason to leave when I felt I couldn’t hold back much longer. A bad wave, some memory swimming past me that brushed my leg, anything to help me hold back. But every time I glimpsed him at the dock, he was there. Sometimes with other girls talking to him, but he always seemed to be looking around. Could he be looking for me? Waiting for me? Surely not.
What he was to me consumed my mind, and I attempted turning it off. I ignored everything that resembled the slightest feeling of love for him. I was smart. You can’t get let down if you have no expectations, you can’t get hurt if you don’t care- at least not as badly. We still talked, though not as much. Then one day he asked me “do you think about me when I’m not around.” I didn’t know what to say. Why did he want to know? What was it to him if I did or didn’t? But I answered half-honestly. I said yes. What I should have said was so cliché, “if you only knew how much,” or “I can’t get you out of my head,” or, even more honest, “I think I love you, but I’m trying to forget that because I’m a weak and scared idiot who can’t accept that maybe you’re different and maybe you could be everything I’d ever want.” But I’m not sure how aware of that fact I was. I just knew I did and I didn’t want to.
But that question, it changed everything. I kept thinking about it. I found the logical answers to my questions “why does he want to know?” If I was right, then he did like me- and maybe, if I could be so lucky, a part of him was waiting for me. But he wouldn’t wait forever, I didn’t want him to. I began to want to be ready; I was running out of reasons to withstand my feelings.
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The last time I was in the water looking up at him, I was tired of it. Tired of my gross skin, of the people coming and going while I stayed in place treading water, but mostly I was tired of feeling so far away from him. I was ready. I wasn’t nervous when I climbed out. He pulled me into his embrace, holding me close. It was what was right, what should have happened so long before. I knew it then, I felt it then. We both felt it. We smiled. We danced.