Page 3 of All That Glitters

He nodded. “Just like old times. And no air-quotes around the beach.”

She smiled, looping her arm through his as they headed from the stadium.

The sun was setting over the Pacific by the time Tony and Debbie arrived, painting the horizon in strokes of purple and fiery orange. The only sounds were the gentle wash of waves onto the shore and the soft crunch of sand beneath their feet.

“I like your friends,” Debbie said, her voice soft in the growing darkness. “They’re funny.”

“You’re just saying that to be nice. They’re professional idiots.”

“No, I mean it,” she said, turning to him with a playful glint in her eye. She loved how easy this was, how they could slip back into their old rhythm without missing a beat. “They survived four years of college with you. That’s pretty heroic.”

He shot her a sideways glance, a genuine smile finally replacing the stressed-out mask he’d been wearing all day. “Hey. I survived fifteen years of you. What’s that make me?”

“Privileged,” she teased.

“You think so?”

She nodded. “I know so. But it also makes you my hero.”

This unexpected addition caught him completely by surprise. “I’m your hero?”

“You were the hero to the second grade me.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Remember how I was the new girl from out of state with the frizzy pigtails and glasses that were too big for my face? The girls always picked on me at recess, and I spent most of my time hiding by the tetherball pole.”

Tony’s expression softened as the memory dawned in his eyes. “I remember that,” he said, the softness in his voice matching hers. “We let you join our club.”

Debbie smiled and gave a soft nod. “The Club Fort Kids,” she said.

“You, Mark Henderson, and Kevin Peterson. You guys marched right over to me and invited me to join your club.” She turned back to him, her smile nostalgic and tender.

“You were my knights in shining armor, all three of you. I think I fell a little in love with you guys that summer.”

The confession hung between them, as innocent and pure as the memory itself. Tony looked a little taken aback, a flush creeping up his neck.

“Do you ever hear from them anymore?” she asked quietly. “Mark or Kevin?”

He shook his head as they started walking again.

“Not really. I mean, they both moved before we even got to eighth grade. We tried writing letters for a while, but…” He trailed off, the rest of the sentence unnecessary.

They’d been kids. Life had happened. “It’s just you and me now. We’re the last ones standing.”

The words landed gently, like a sacred vow. She was the one who had stayed. The one who had become permanent.

“You think our old tree house is still there?” she said.

“The one with the pirate flag and sign that said, ‘no girls allowed’?”

She smiled. “I always thought that was cool you guys made an exception for me.”

“Someone had to be our mascot,” he laughed.

She playfully swatted his arm. “I was a full-fledged member, with the secret password and everything. And don’t you forget it.”

“You won’t let me.”

She gave a big nod. “Darn right. You think it’s still there?”

Tony shook his head. “No. My parents had me take it down when they sold the house and moved to Tennessee.”

“When was this?”

“Sophomore year.”

“When you came home for Christmas?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

She shook her head. “That’s sad. It feels like a door to my childhood just closed.”

“Mine too.”

They walked on for a little while longer along the moist sand at the water’s edge, a comfortable silence settling between them.

It was something Debbie had always liked about the time she spent with Tony; there was never a need to fill the silence.

They got to be just there with each other in the moment.

As they walked, her eyes traced across the nearby seawall, with the lights blinking on in the cottages along the boardwalk. It stirred even more nostalgic memories of the times she shared with him.

“Remember when we used to ditch school and drive your dad’s Honda out here?” she said, a smile lighting her face at the memory.

Tony grinned. “You’re getting nostalgic about sleeping in a car?”

“Yeah,” she said, a soft smile touching her lips. “Kinda. It beat sitting through calculus.”

“Does that nostalgia extend to push-starting the car in the morning after you killed the battery playing that terrible Spice Girls cassette on repeat all night?”

“We don’t talk about that part,” she grinned. “And for the record, that was a classic album.”

“Or,” he continued, warming to the topic, “taping newspaper over the passenger-side window with duct tape because you tried to kill a moth with your shoe and put your foot clean through the glass?”

“Feel free to stop anytime, Harding,” she said, shoving him lightly. But she was laughing, a real and helpless laugh. “It happened to be a really big moth! And you were the one who bought the cheap duct tape that peeled off every time we went over sixty.”

He laughed again as they stopped walking and turned to watch the moonlight dancing across the waves. “I wouldn’t trade any of our misadventures for anything,” he said, his voice softer now. “They were uniquely us.”

Debbie looked at him for a moment, studying his expression. She wasn’t alone in this trip down memory lane; he had the same nostalgia for the memories they shared. She looped her arm through his.

They stood in comfortable silence for a moment, letting the memories wash over them — the smell of greasy french fries from gas stations, the feel of sandy car seats, the sound of terrible pop music from a crackling tape deck.

The shared secrets of a life lived just for themselves, six hours away from their parents and their responsibilities.

“I miss this,” Tony said, his voice suddenly quiet and serious. He wasn’t looking at the ocean anymore; he was looking at her. “Hanging out. It’s not the same without you.”

The playful energy between them shifted, becoming something more fragile and real. The distance between Phoenix and San Diego felt, in that moment, like an uncrossable chasm.

“I miss it too,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “We should do a toast to the Club Fort Kids and our tree house before I head home tomorrow afternoon.”

He nodded. “To our childhoods. And memories and friendships that last.”

A lump had built in her throat. She swallowed hard and nodded.

“It sucks you need to go home so soon,” he said.

“I know.”

He traced his foot in the sand. “You ever think about moving out here?”

Debbie’s heart gave a sudden, sharp lurch. Her breath caught in her throat. Every hour of every day, she wanted to say.

“You could pack up your stuff and move to San Diego,” he continued, a new, hopeful energy in his voice. “We could get a place. Or, you know, find you a roommate or something. It’d be like it used to be. Except, you know, with less illegal ditching of school.”

She took a small breath. “I wish it was that easy,” she said softly.

She could no longer meet his eyes. If she did, even in the soft moonlight, he would see everything. This longing in her heart that ached for quiet moments like this. With the boy who had always been there for her.

“Don’t you miss the simplicity of it all?” she said, leaning lightly into him, her arm still wrapped through his. “The way it was back then before life took over.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I really, really do.”