When I was 16 years old my best friend and I hitch-hiked up and down the cape, two girls in summer dresses on the sandy side of the road.
There was this boy named Chandler, he’d walked to Provincetown all the way from some other place that was far away. Like a spiritual kind of journey even though nobody knew why he really did it.
One night a few of us went to the ocean and swam naked in the bioluminescence, the water lit up green around our pale teenage bodies. The next morning we waded in the low tide and Chandler showed me a starfish he had found, placed it carefully in the palm of my hand.
When I got back home to my suburban town I had this dream that maybe Chandler would come and find me. There was a low skylight above my bed and for awhile every night I’d lean outside and watch the corner of my road, half expecting him to show up in the street light. He was the kind of boy who walked thirty miles to a seaside town for no good reason, who knows what kind of crazy thing he’d do for love.
Chandler was just a 17 year old kid who showed me a starfish and never thought of me again. And I’m 42 years old, but some nights I find myself still holding my breath, waiting for an irresponsible kind of love to appear outside my bedroom window. Trying to go to sleep without my heart pounding, still trying to convince myself: the kid is never going to come.