Worthy

“I am?” Samantha breathed in, doubtful of the message she just received. She sat still, blanketed by pearl colored California sand, as she etched her name slowly across the surface. Icy Pacific waves crashed into her feet as numbness shifted into awareness upon realizing the tide was rising as was her confidence.

“I AM,” she stated, firmly pushing her hands into the earth, allowing herself to stand as she watched her name vanish. She remembered what Thomas had spoken to her that one evening as they danced across the night, a binge that seemed to last a lifetime.

She remembered his once blue, now feverishly gray, hollowed eyes as he watched the word “Happiness” drift away.

“Write your one true desire in the sand,” he bellowed over the crashing evening waves of Redondo, “only one, and if the waves don’t erase what you write, you’ll get what you desire.”

Samantha had decided to write “love” like a hopeless school-girl optimistic of meeting her one and only, laughing foolishly as the frigid waves caught up to her toes before she could finish writing the letter “e.”

Thomas turned stoic, intentional with his decision to write his true desire as far away from the waves as possible, nearly touching the dunes. Though it was as if Fate herself heard his finger carving “Happiness” into the earth and cast a wave strong enough to push further than usual, and Thomas turned to return to his lavish condo on Redondo Beach, knowing Fate would prevent that desire from ever manifesting.

Samantha could see him sigh in defeat as he trailed ahead of her, what would turn into two years of pacing ahead without taking a moment to glance behind to ensure her safety. Doomed from the start, she stomped her way through the sand to meet him at his fortress, where they would indulge in countless nights of crystal clouds and shadowed realities.

She was determined though to find his happiness, to be his love, firmly set on burying those two fleeting words in her mind.

Samantha was never the type to lose herself in another person – or at least that’s what her friends and family believed. It wasn’t until that spur of the moment one way ticket to LAX that they realized her spontaneous character could lead her to a life of destruction. She dove headfirst into chaos as she stepped off the plane that March evening.

As the sun began to set burning neon candied colors in the sky, Samantha accepted she may not return the same version of herself when the man who met her at the baggage claim was of Russian descent and looked nothing as Thomas had presented himself online.

Samantha shrugged and approached the man tucking his phone back into his pocket after explaining where she was waiting for him.

“You must be Georgia!” he shouted. She could smell the vodka on his breath as he hugged her tightly and welcomed her to California.

Georgia had become her nickname as she had been studying Sociology in Georgia and decided this trip would be a fantastic spring break getaway, especially considering her friends and family were disappointed in her recent behaviors due to partying more than studying.

As they found their way across the airport, walking towards the parking lot, Samantha had slowly accepted she had been catfished and decided it could be worse. She ducked her head and slid across the back seat into Thomas’s silver BMW to find a man with golden hair sunken into the black leather seat behind the driver’s side.

To her surprise it was Thomas. He turned to hug her and laughed intensely as she released a massive sigh and confessed her error.

“Oh no, Georgia! I wouldn’t do that to you! I just wanted to have fun, so I asked my good friend here to drive me,” Thomas explained, though two years would go by without ever seeing that “friend” again.

The engine seemed to roar and as the wheels turned, Samantha felt a sensation drift over her. A feeling of surrender as she put every ounce of trust into these middle-aged men, who had just picked up a naive blonde haired, blue-eyed twenty-two-year-old girl on a quest for adventure. Thomas requested the music be increased and handed her what he would call “G juice.”

“Well, technically it’s a date rape drug, but it’s a great way to relax and feels incredible for women!” Thomas stated as he poured the clear juice into a water bottle capsule, explaining “but be sure to only take a tiny bit at a time or else it could kill you.”

Bored of her old life and driven by a deep depression, Samantha tossed a capsule back as they rode into the night.

__________________________

“I AM!” Samantha shouted loud with tears streaming down her face, laughing in between breaths. She finally believed the message. After two years of following a hollow man, whose addiction to crystal meth clouds, fleeting moments, and would-be black-eyed battered brides, she finally knew; “I am worthy.”

Samantha smiled at the candied sky that she remembered from her first night in California and thanked Fate for helping her receive her one true desire, of which she finally gave herself, her one and only – love.