It had been fourty-five seconds.Fourty-six infinite seconds of a silence much louder than the unspoken words on their faces. There was a high-pitched sob from the nameless crowd around me. As I searched for its source,the sobs started sounding more like glass being broken.

Alice.

Tears slithered down her porcelain cheeks. Each sleazy drop sliced through my artificial nonchalance, like a knife through butter. She was the only one who looked me in the eyes and it made me feel like a helpless child. I could feel my pained expression mirroring hers and my sanity would falter soon. So, like my nosy admirers, I looked down.

Grinning a little, I thought about how humiliated most teenage boys would be in my place. I'd been publicly pantsed and happened to be wearing the boxers my sister got me as a joke. They're a shade of pink that's probably a primary cause of diabetes, covered in leopard prints and, to 'highlight' my backside, they'd added the words "party animal" in dark blue glitter.

The whole thing is vomit inducing at its best, but I wear them sometimes to remember the last Christmas before Mom was admitted, and eventually, discharged from the hospital. Before my Dad started drinking and sister had to raise me herself.

It was all too much and she'd had to repeat her senior year, but she was gone now. She studied hard and got herself a scholarship to Columbia. With her absence, my father added smoking to his daily activities and something changed in him.

One night I came home later than usual and he snapped, he grabbed a whiskey bottle from the recently growing pile and threw it at my skull. His drunken aim was usually off, but now and then the bottles would bruise my calves or their shards would catch my knees. Some nights he wasn't satisfied with my punishment though. On these occasions, he'd take off my shirt and use my back as an ashtray.

Fifty-seven seconds of an icy stillness I couldn't bear. People stared openly at my gruesome scars, probably waiting for them to disappear so I could go back to being Seth, the guy whose mom died two years ago.

I wasn't mad at my friends, they'd pranked me because they didn't know any better. They just didn't want me to miss out on the fun at the beach. I wasn't going to come in the first place. I hadn't swum since I started concealing most of my body every time I was in public, but anything was better than staying at home.

In that minute and three seconds, I realized that I was tiered of hiding. I wasn't ashamed of my scars.

Before I could over-analyze the damage my actions would cause, I took off my shirt and revealed the extension of my scars. I had no secrets anymore. I took my shoes and in my sexy pink boxers, I took a moment to repay every person's lost gaze. Alice now wore a wide smile and once again I felt myself mirroring it.

She knew what I was doing. Suddenly, I did too.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes. Like most of my classmates, I'd rarely taken the drive to Lanier Beach. We came once with Mom, but my family doesn't do those types of things anymore. The fresh sea air cleared my head, but – I noticed something – it was quieter. I don't know how it could possibly get more quiet, but open eyed, I followed the audiences gaze to Alice.

Standing next to me, she'd taken off her wetsuit top. Though her one-piece was decent, by exposing her arms, she'd revealed something much more intimate.

She always wore long-sleeves because she was 'prone to sunburns'. Even today, on our outing to the beach, she covered her arms. Now we knew the real reason why.

Her scars were similar to mine, but their symmetry and eerie neatness were signs of self-infliction. My bruises were each unique in color; black, blue, purple, green and red. All equally painful, whilst the scars were placed in drunk, vicious motions and each one reflected my emotional instability.

Hers did the same. Her physical pain was her interpretation of what she felt inside.

“Nice undies.”, she said coyly.

I laughed, then felt a familiar fabric thrust into my hands.

An extremely sad David mumbled, “I'm sorry.” his voice dripping with regret.

I clutched my Levi's affectionately. “No,” I whispered, “I'm free now.”

It took me one minute, thirty-two seconds to change the way I saw things. One minute and thirty-three seconds to break out of the domestic hell which held me hostage for a year and a few torturous months. One minute and thirty-four seconds to find a source of comfort and companionship.

I found myself within one minute, thirty-five seconds.

But Alice had been there from the start.


She held my hand and we walked ceremoniously to the end of a life in hiding, but to the start of the sea. Gently, the waves licked at our toes, this was just a taste of the future promised by the water. Venturing deeper into our infinite ocean, it felt like my past wounds were finally healing. There were was a tall, vicious wave about to crash into us, but we weren't scared...

It consumed us, stripping away all the unnecessary, physical things which held us back from living our lives. All that remained was essence, our two damaged souls had taken a journey and on return we had an understanding of each other's realities. One thing was made clear though, whatever comes next we wouldn't face it alone.