And yet. The tide pulls back, the ocean retracts, empties out the brittle crab husks, leaves new wreckage on the shore. Their new friendship is a cocoon, a tight shell against the outside world, a warm blanket. She has just learned the dimensions of it, felt it fill in the space, quiet down the echoes. She is not ready for the tide to rush in, sweep her away. She doesn’t want to let it go, let it change, even as she feels the cocoon expanding, cracking under the pressure, even as she knows something beautiful will emerge, something different.

Ashley is afraid of anything with wings, such tender creatures, and the winds too fickle, cross-currents strong. She doesn’t want to see their friendship turned into yet another dried husk strewn across the shore, a broken thing for the wind to blow through.

And, yet… She feels it developing between them, straining against the walls of the cocoon they created for themselves, something bigger, something beautiful. She watches Spencer cross the schoolyard, walk towards her, she sees the girl smile. She feels herself smile in response. Feels the fragile stirrings of their new creation, its shape more distinct with every smile they share, feels it yearning for the sky. She will give it wings. She will let it fly. It will be beautiful.

Ashley loves the beach at night. She picks up a pebble, flings it into the ocean. It disappears with a quiet ‘plunk’, barely audible above the hum of the waves. It seems hungry, the ocean, a beast with a thousand mouths, each giving you wet, needy kisses, drawing you in. Each telling you tales, stories of kingdoms lost, loves betrayed. Ashley lays back down, looks at the moon, round again, a full cycle gone, lets the ocean serenade her. If her life were a story she could tell, Ashley thinks, Spencer would be her happy ending.

Ashley loves the beach at night. One of these nights, soon, she will take Spencer here, lay out the blanket, sit the golden-haired girl before the ocean. Ashley closes her eyes, feels the moonlight on her eyelids, smiles. One of these nights, soon, she will bring Spencer here, lie in the circle of her arms and they, together, will – touch by touch, sigh by sigh – refute every tale the ocean ever told her, every whispered lie. They will hold back the tide.

One of these nights, soon. Under the moon. She will tell her own fairytale. Soon.