Short Story Assignment

Short Story Assignment

“Come on, Mark, let us see who will dive faster today!” I yelled at my friend and classmate, who was struggling to keep up with me. It was a warm summer afternoon, and we had decided to take a swim in the ocean. Like most of the summer vacations, my family and I had gone to spend the house at the beach house. Mark’s father also had a beach house, and since we were 3, we had always gone to the beach together. My dad preferred to spend his afternoons sitting under the shadow of a palm tree at the backyard, breathing in the sea breeze. My mother would sit next to him, and depending on her mood for the day, she would either be sewing or sipping wine. Mark’s father would mostly be playing golf at the beach club with other men whose children would be building the sandman.

“I bet I will beat you today!” mark yield back as he increased his speed, determined to get to the ocean before me. He was still sore from yesterday when I had dived faster into the water. Each afternoon we would compete in diving, and the loser had to buy the other whatever prize they set. Mostly it would just be toys. Mark rushed and almost beat me to the shore if I had not caught him from the corner of my eye and tripped him. He came flying, and before he knew it, he had fallen face flat on the sand. Him landing with a thud sent me on a laughing bout. We had a thing for pulling stunts on each other, and today I caught him real good. Even he could not deny that. “What the fudge man? Come on.” Mark cursed as he struggled to regain his composure.

Mark loved cursing. In school, he would get into problems all the time with the teachers. As he dusted himself, he tried to push me down to the ground, and it ended in a wrestling match, which, unsurprisingly, I won. Giggling and trying to outdo each other, we both dived into the ocean at the same time. The rush of the cold salty water against my skin made me shiver for a bit. I could feel the brackish water at the corner of my mouth, and my eyes stung. Mark went deep into the ocean, and I was tempted for a while to follow him. I am not a very good swimmer, and I always stuck to the shallow end of the swimming pool back in the city. But like Mark would say, “the sea is endless and limitless, and so should my reach for the water be.”.

We played in the water for a while. We would take turns holding our breath in the water. Being a Wednesday afternoon, not many people were at the beach, neither were we expecting to have company, so when we saw a tall brown skin guy walking towards us in nothing but a pair of white shorts, we were stunned for a while. “Who is it?” Mark whispered and almost startled me. He had been swimming a bit deeper in the ocean. I did not realize when he had moved nearer to the shore where I was. “I do not know. But I guess we are about to find out.” I replied as I fixed my eyes on the approaching figure, determined to make out who it was. From a distance, I could not tell more than the fact that it was a male person about our age.

As the figure approached, mark and I got a better view of who the person was. It was Adam. Mark slightly scoffed before attempting to make his way back into the deep of the ocean. “Be nice, Mark,” I warned him. Mark was not a huge fan of Adam. Adam’s family had moved back into our neighborhood in the city about a year ago and had bought a beach house next to ours. This was the second summer his family was spending at the beach since they came back. Adamand his family had moved out of the country about six years ago. Him, mark, and I had gone to the same kindergarten together back then, having known each other since when we were around three or four years old. It is not like Mark and Adam had any bad blood between them, but Mark was just finding a hard time accepting Adam back into our lives.

According to Mark, Adam had just got up one day and decided to cut all of us out of his life when his family moved abroad. I did not personally believe this and had spent a great deal of the past one year getting Mark to at least give Adam a chance to be the friend we had known as kids. “Why does he keep popping up all the time?” Mark whined. He was right, though. Adam had a thing about showing up everywhere Mark and I were. This morning Mark had spotted him at the other end of the supermarket ails when we had gone shopping for the toy he owed me from the diving challenge the day before. “Maybe he is just trying to find ways of reconnecting with us. You know, pick up from where we were as kids?” “Yeah, right. Whatever.” Mark rolled his eyes and dipped himself into the ocean.

“Hey, Steve!” Adam waved as he made a rush for the water. “Hi, Adam. I see you have come out for a swim too.” I answered back. He dived into the water and swum next to me. “Actually, I just wanted to hang out with you guys, particularly you, Steve.” He answered as he shook the water out of his hair. I loved how his hair swirled as he pushed it back. I felt flattered and honored that he would go through all the trouble just to reconnect. “You remember how we would go swimming at that pool behind your home when we were young?” I giggled as Adam laughed at the memories. I was always afraid of water, and both Adam and Mark would do everything to get me to swim. Thinking of Mark made me glance at the direction he was swimming. I caught him staring at us, and I could feel the pain from his eyes.

Mark had been my best friend for the last six years after Adam left, and I hated the thought that he felt like Adam had come back to take his place in my life. “I think we should go swim together, the three of us,” I suggested. “But you do not know how to swim, and it is deeper over there.” Adam responded. “well, I guess today is my day to take those swimming lessons.” I giggled as I made way to where Mark was, evidently bored. “I want you guys to teach me how to swim today,” I announced loud enough for the both of them. I did not really want the lesson, but I knew it was my best shot to get the two boys together. My plan worked. Although in the beginning things were a bit awkward, mark warmed up to Adam in a few minutes, and soon they were competing on who would outdo the other in diving at the deeper end.

As Adam and mark warmed up to each other, I again found myself alone at the shallow end of the ocean. The 35 minutes of training had not impacted my swimming abilities in any way. At the shores of the sea, I lazily swayed the inflated tires run and around to make a faint pattern of a circle. While I tried so hard to lose myself in random thoughts, I could hear Adam and Mark having fun, laughing, and cursing at each other as they did their races. The sound of their jovial mood at the back of my mind kept drawing me back to reality, and with each realization, mydesire to go over and play with them intensified.

When I could not take it anymore, I decided to join my friends. I gathered whatever I could remember from the lessons earlier and tried to swim towards where the two boys were. As I got a bit comfortable, I started losing a touch of the ocean floor, and I could feel myself floating. Suddenly a wave from the ocean hit me, sweeping me off balance, and before I knew it, I felt the salty water rush through my mouth, choking me in the process. I struggled for air, and the next I remembered was lying flat on a warm coarse surface. As my eyes opened, I saw the tow figures of Adam and mark hovering over me, and their faces painted black with fear and panic. “Man, what did you do?” Mark half yelled, half panicked as he paced up and down, trying to regain his cool.

“You gave us a scare Steve, what happened?” Adam asked as he bent forward till he was leaning over me. I tried to recollect my thoughts of what happened, and that is when it hit me. I drowned in the ocean. I tried getting up, but my head felt heavy and fuzzy. “And where do you think you are going? Lie down there till youfeel better.” Mark ordered as he regained his composure. He came over, and for the first time, I saw panic written all over his face. He seemed scared. “why would you do that, man? Why did you not call me? I would have come and gotten you.” He continued. “Relax, dad. I am fine.” I finally gathered the strength to respond and tried to break the air. But I failed miserably. Mark could not stop blaming himself. If he had only spent the time with me instead of getting carried away. Things would have been different.

From a young age, Mark had always taken the deliberate responsibilityto look out for me. He was only three months older than me, but he was still the big brother I never had. During school fights, he had always protected me, taken up fights on my behalf. What could I do without him? “I cannot believe I will leave you alone. Who will take care of you?” before he realized the tension he had created, Mark had let the cat out of the bag. He looked at Adam and me in disbelief after the realization hit him. “I… I……I….” he struggled to make sense of his stammering. “I have to tell you something Stee, my family is moving to a different state come winter. I did not know how to tell you.” There. There it was. Now it made sense why mark had always wanted us to spend more time together in the last three months. He knew he was going away.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and my cheeks fell warm before I realized I was crying. I was about to lose my best friend, and I did not know how to react. When I summoned enough strength, I ran as fast as I could, and only stopped when I realized I had run straight to the gate of the beach club. What would I do without my best friend? We had always been together through all seasons for the last six years, taken all our vacations together. What would I do? It was dark and cold when I started walking back home along the quiet and deserted path. I was shivering, not out of the cold, but of the loneliness and pain of losing my best friend. I felt a warm cloth wrap up around my shoulders, and as I looked up, my eyes met Adam’s who only smiled as if to say, “I am here for you now, Steve.”