Chapter 201

I shut the front door and locked it before taking off my shoes. Casey was laying sprawled on the living room couch in her pajamas, covered by a layer of blanket. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, head resting on a pillow propped up against the armrest and hands holding a spoon and an ice cream tub. The TV was playing one of the episodes of 'Salvation' on Netflix.
When she heard me stroll into the living room, she raised her head and craned her neck to look at me. "You're home early," she commented, looking at the time displayed on her phone screen.
It was only 6 p.m. so technically it was early. After staying for a few hours in the park, watching the sunset together, I told Maddy what I was planning and she understandingly agreed without any objections or complaints. I was lucky to have a supportive and understanding girlfriend.
"Yeah, get ready. I'm taking you out." I snatched the ice cream tub and spoon from her, scooping a spoonful and shoving it into my mouth.
Casey's hands stayed outstretched and open, her mouth gaping at me as she watched me eat her dessert. She harrumphed and sat up, pausing the show on the TV and crossed her arms.
"Come on, we're going out." I repeated again, knowing well that she probably completely forgot about what I said once I took her ice cream tub from her, and I was right.
Her confused expression met my expectant one. "What? Where?"
I shrugged, walking away to the kitchen to put the tub back into the freezer. "Just make sure to wear something warm." I said over my shoulder as I walked.
As Casey went to her room to change into something more appropriate, I went to my own room and grabbed my jacket as well as a few blankets, in case we need the extra layers.
I waited for her in the car, knowing that she would be able to hear the sound of the engine coming to life from inside. When she got into the passenger seat, she asked the same question she was about to ask continuously for the entire drive, "Where are we going?"
I simply cranked up the radio volume to drown out her ceaseless questioning - not that it worked - and simply told her to wait until we get there or that she'll know where we're going once we get there.
It took us an hour drive to get to our destination but I knew it was worth it, just to get away from the city lights and the shrills from traffic, away from our worries and worldly problems.
Once I've parked the car, I got out with the blankets in hand and Casey followed suit. I got on the hood of the car and when Casey mimicked my actions, sitting on the empty space beside me, I handed her a blanket.
We sat shoulder to shoulder on the hood of the car, huddled together to keep warm, wrapped in jackets and the blankets I brought with us. I brought my knees up and tucked them into my chest, wrapping my hands around them.
I watched as the waves rolled towards the shore before crashing and dissolving into white foam, sinking into the sand. Sand trickled down the shoreline, dragged into the sea and settling down as part of the sea bed when the water that came in as the wave was pulled back into the sea.
Its roar filled my ears and washed over me as I rested my head on my arms and closed my eyes, breathing in the air that smelled like the ocean. It was such a strong and familiar scent, I felt like I could almost taste the saltiness in the air.
The stinging cold wind that blew against my face jarred my conscience wide awake and sent a shiver down my spine, causing me to wrap the blanket tighter around me.
"Why are we here?" Casey asked.
I shrugged, "I wanted to take you out. It's valentine's day, it's the least a brother can do for his single sister's ass."
Casey smiled, letting out air through her nose like she always would when she wants to acknowledge my bullshit but is too lazy to make a snarky remark.
I mirrored her smile before turning to the sea again, staring in to the dark horizon before us. I didn't know why I felt like bringing us here but if it wasn't for the cold air that I had anticipated when I packed blankets for us, I could've stayed like that until the sun rises.
There wasn't much to see since everything was dark. The moon was hidden behind some dark clouds and the absence of its light only made the sea look like dark ink, as if we were staring into an obsidian. The only thing that we could see was a few floating cones bobbing up and down with the waves in the middle of the sea. Its coating was a stark contrast to the darkness around it, making it stand out even more.
I didn't mind, though. The lack of vision only heightened my other senses. But a hollow feeling started to grow in my chest the longer that I stared into the dark murky waters in the far distance so I averted my vision and focused on the waves that were rolling onto the shore instead.
"Don't you pity the beach?" Casey sighed, tilting her head sideways and resting her cheek on her arms on top of her tucked knees.
I turned my head to look at her, "Hmm?"
"Everyday, for every few minutes the waves crash into it and when the water gets pulled back into the sea, its sand get scraped off, layer by layer, a part of it gets taken away from it." She spoke in a somber voice.
I turned to look at the beach and watched the waves roll in to take what Casey said into perspective while watching it happen.
"It kind of reminds me of life you know?" She said. "People's assertiveness are like waves, they attack you, force their opinions on you, put pressure on you. They affect you."
"And are we the beach?" I asked her.
She shrugged in response and spoke in her soft voice, "Sometimes we're the beach and sometimes we're the waves. We're human, after all. I don't think it's possible for you to not affect the people around you someway somehow, even if you don't mean to sometimes."
I subconsciously leaned closer to her to hear her better, not wanting to break the somber reverie she was in. I might not be able to become her shield this time, but the least I could do was be her shoulder to cry on and lend her my ear to listen to her thoughts; thoughts that were probably as loud and as deafening as the howling waves.
"It's just a matter of whether or not we will let them scrape off bits of us us continuously; take a chip out of us every once in a while, mold us into what they want us to be."
I stayed quiet, letting her words sink in. I felt it in my heart, in my core, the numbed pain, the wistfulness in her voice.
After a few seconds of turning her words over and over in my head, thinking about what she said as I kept my eyes glued to the motion of the waves and the water that sinks into the beach and the trickling sand that was getting pulled into the sea, a thought occurred to me and I felt it crawl its way to my heart before winding around it like a wild vine. But the constriction that I felt in my heart as the vine tightened its hold on it didn't make me feel claustrophobic or suffocated. Instead, it rather felt like a gentle squeeze that's keeping parts of my heart from shattering into a million of pieces. It felt like the vine was keeping me from falling apart.
"I see it differently." My voice was soft, drowned out by the sound of the waves thrashing in the sea. "The waves and the beach, I mean."
"The waves keep smashing against the beach, beating it, but the beach doesn't give way. It stays right there, where it is, unflinching."
I felt Casey turn to me in silence as I continued to speak my thoughts aloud, hoping to instill some spirit in her; hoping that whatever I'm saying right now helped her feel something, anything.
"After flooding the beach with its water, the sea demands parts of it with every pull, every tug, of the same water it used to strike the shore, and yet, the beach still gives. It holds no grudges, it stands its ground under the force of the crashing waves but still willingly gives parts of itself to build the sea bed."
I breathed out a shaky breath, my body starting to tremble underneath all the layers of cloth to keep me warm.
"I strive to be as imperishable and as giving as the shore." My breath came out as wisps of vapor as I spoke in the cold.
Whatever I was saying probably made no sense. I know if I was to listen to a recording of it, it probably wouldn't have made sense to my own ears.
But Casey didn't say anything, instead, she redirected her attention and fixated her eyes on the shore where the faint water mark between dry, untouched sand and damp, sloping sand lies.
"But how do you know that it's willingly giving its parts away and is not forced to?" She murmured in thought.
I faced the direction she was looking at and thoughtfully considered what she said. I felt myself turn earnest the more that I mulled over her question before finally answering her honestly. "I don't have any logical reasoning behind it, but I believe that when you're faced with ambiguities such as this, you should choose to assume the good. It gives you hope. We avoid thinking of the devastating possibilities like how the sea might have broken the shore by slapping and washing over it so much and had bent it to its will, forcing it to give bits of itself to build the sea bed. Because then, it would be too sad of a fate for us to even comprehend."
Like how I assumed that Casey was okay, that she wasn't threatening to break under the peer pressure she was facing; that I was okay; because thinking otherwise wouldn't help me move forward, it will only sink me into a bottomless hole of depression.
Casey didn't speak after that and we simply sat in silence, enjoying the quiet company we provided each other.
I wasn't going to ask my sister why she didn't tell me it was Sonia who had cornered her in that house party, I didn't tell her to open up about the pressure she was probably feeling, or about what other problems she has kept to herself so far, the emotions she was bottling up. I know that she didn't tell me everything for a reason and I didn't want to make her feel like her attempts at keeping the details from me to not make me worry was futile. I knew she's been thinking about the party, the girls that had pressured her into going. I knew she was tempted to break down and let it all go but the fact that she hasn't done so, that she's still trying to keep it together, it showed that she hasn't given up yet and I didn't want her to feel like she had gone through all this trouble of fighting to keep herself together and not break down in front of me for nothing.
But, if anything, I wanted to stop her from walking into that bottomless pit of depression. That's why I sent a silent prayer to God that whatever I said made sense to her.