High Dock (non fiction "flash")
I had never seen water so calm. It was far past lights out, and I heard only the occasional splash of water along the dark shores of my summertime escape. My presence, and that of the five girls around me, was unnatural; a disturbance to the simple solitude of the night.
Yet we relished in the peacefulness of the black mirror. This is where we belonged. We lied on the refurbished dock, admiring the timeless beauty of the stars and their reflection. For a long while we sat in silence, gazing up at the endless sea of white dots (merely a creek back home). In other moments we chatted quietly, reminiscing and trying to predict what the remaining weeks would bring. Our voices dipped to a low whisper as to not awaken the adults, whose footsteps I swore I could hear every few minutes (even though they lied in their beds, way at the top of the tree-lined hill).
The night is dark in the middle of the wilderness, miles from real society. I could just barely make out the faces of my companions between the shadows of the moonlight. But I didn’t need to see their faces to feel it.
Friendship was a familiar sensation, but sisterhood was something that God chose not to bestow upon me. Until then. My fellow Counselors in Training had conquered a twenty-eight mile hiking trip with me. They encouraged me when I couldn’t muster up any confidence for myself. They sang silly songs with me, and did ridiculous dance moves in front of a hundred chuckling little girls. They reminded me that I’m beautiful, and capable.
They loved me and always will.
And so on our last night together, we stayed close, taking the leap from campers to counselors; hand in hand.
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