How I ran on the day I was lost—and the reason I never truly was.
I put my hand over my heart and begged it to stop rattling against my rib cage. Rain hammered my bare skin. The trees were suffocating me, and I was locked within them. If I stopped now, they would become my tomb. Strands of wet red hair clung to my face where salty tears mingled with the sky’s runoff. I was going to die.
Thorns and branches clawed at every inch of me, tearing tiny trenches that bled in beads. Wobbly legs carried me toward a break in the trees where I spotted an empty shoreline. Thunder rolled in the distance. Waves collided with the sand, frothing and swirling with rage. The last time I’d been here, sunlight kissed my cherry cheeks and a pink popsicle melted over my fingertips. My cousins laughed. My mom handed me napkins with a smile. This time, I was alone.
I gagged on sobs and sand, my breath clawing to escape. My mom was probably being told no one could locate me. I pictured her voice breaking as she screamed my name—fists clenched around the silence, unanswered. I imagined her describing the dress I wore. It had been beautiful this morning, delicate cornflower blossoms on white cotton. Now, it wouldn’t be recognizable. I’d used it to wipe away streaks of mud that painted my legs. I raked my hands across the hem, trying to scrape the grime from beneath my nails.
Earlier, I had twirled my way to the campground showers like a princess. But the longer I waited for my cousins to get ready, the more impatient I became. I ventured off toward camp alone—one trail led to another. Had I turned left? Right? Or gone straight? If I could just get higher… maybe I’d see a landmark, something to guide me.
I climbed a dune near the tide-worn slope, knowing full well my mom would be furious. It was against the rules to be out here by myself. But I made an exception—for life or death, rules bend. Even as the sand burned blisters into the soles of my feet, I refused to step into the waves. The climb was brutal. My legs finally gave out, surrendering to the pull of gravity and grit.
A jagged piece of driftwood sliced through my arch, staining the bark crimson. I screamed in frustration, my foot throbbing. I collapsed into the sand, letting the tears fall hot and fierce. Maybe some hiker would find my missing shoe, the one that got sucked into a mud pit. Or the other—the one I threw after failing to retrieve it. Maybe they’d find my body sometime after that.
Somewhere between the tears and the tide, I came unstitched from myself. The tiny speck of cotton and floral print among rolling dunes gave herself permission to cry—but not to quit. When the sun cracked through the clouds, she shaded her eyes with her fingers like a visor. There it was: a boardwalk stretching toward the woods. Relief escaped, wild and breathless. She still didn’t know how to get home, but she might find help.
She sprinted. The muddy dress flared behind her, torn and tangled. When she reached the planks, her stomach knotted tighter. She’d barely eaten breakfast. It was nearing lunchtime. The boardwalk snaked through an eerie marsh of stumps and skeletal limbs, but she forced her mind to stay focused. She laughed when a frog’s tongue shot out to catch a fly—and stuck to his own eyeball instead. He blinked, confused. She cackled harder.
Overhead, a seagull tucked its wings and dove through a seam in the clouds. It danced with the breeze and pierced the sky like a dart.
I bet he could see the way home… I wish I had wings like his.
I turned a corner—and froze. I wasn’t alone anymore. A man appeared on the path. Relief bloomed, then wilted. Something in his posture unnerved me. He tried to smile, but his pale eyes looked sharp.
“Where’s your mom?” he asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” I replied. Scrambling for words I could hurl like stones.
His body crept over mine, a position making my hair prickle.
“Catching up,” I said, pointing behind me.
My gut told me to run. So I did.
I ran until my chest felt full of splinters. I remembered how his eyes had lit up when he thought I was alone—and how they darkened when I hinted I wasn’t. That image gave me a second wind. I ran harder.
The boardwalk ended at a three-way dirt fork in the road, and no forestry signs to guide my next move. My stomach howled. Breakfast had been missed. The sky had dulled again, the path even more challenging to follow. I was out of energy. Hope was cracking under the weight of exhaustion.
Then I heard it. The roar of an engine.
A park ranger skidded to a stop on a four-wheeler. Relief poured over his face as he grabbed his walkie-talkie.
“I found her! I found her! Tell her mom I’m bringing her back!”
The static buzzed like a lifeline.
Through tears, I explained about the lost shoes, the beach, the mud. He patched up my feet while I talked. As he placed a sunshine-yellow sticker over the cut, he was the one who winced.
“The beach was cleared,” he said gently. “A boy your age drowned. Pulled under by the current. We tried to find him, but it was too late.”
He paused.
“When your mom heard the rumor that a child had washed ashore, she thought it might’ve been you. She was praying it wasn’t… even as she ran through camp trying to find you. We didn’t stop looking.“
He scooted forward and I climbed on behind him, arms wrapped around his waist. My legs dangled off the side, my fingers clenched tight. I rested my head on his back as we roared through the trees.
My hair waved goodbye to the marsh. The dunes. And the girl who wasn’t left behind with the ghosts of the sea.
*You may remember this one, you may not. As I improve my skills, I go over my work to see if my voice is stronger *
Everpine & Petal 