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Sometimes they even tricked themselves into believing it worked. That the ocean wasn’ t the only thing that kept the blood pumping through those veins. If it had been too long since they had been there they would slip into this funk, not knowing what was missing from their lives.
But the moment those brown haired goons crossed that bridge it was giggles and deep breaths. The singing from the radio got a little louder, they let their hair down, they kicked off their shoes, and the worries quickly drained from their faces.
They would stare as they passed the run down hotels in the run down beach town that they’ d passed a million times with the love of seeing a long lost friend— a long lost part of themselves. That part of themselves that could only bloom with sandy feet and salt soaked skin. The part of them that the rest of the world would never understand. The weight off of their shoulders after leaving reality in the smog of the city they sped away from. Across that bridge anything was possible and they could be anyone.
They smiled more, laughed more, loved more, dreamed more. This place did something to them. They were the goons of summer. They longed everyday for the 5 am drives to Assateague with the boards and boys in the back. They lived for sunset bike rides, piers, drunken nights, and ocean baptisms. When you saw them across this bridge you ceased to even imagine them in any other world. Their energy was intoxicatingly infectious. It was unfair to think that they couldn’ t always be this way. That they couldn’ t bottle up the ocean air and let it loose into their other lives. These children born of the ocean.
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