How Far I'll Go

[Maraoone]

((Diego Larrosa continues from before the day is done, my prince is gonna come))

The ocean found Diego more than he found it. A journey provoked by a restless failure at sleep brought him away from Stephanie and, inevitably, it brought him here. She would be fine. They had settled behind a bush, some way away from the dirt path in the woods, and he would find his way back, and Stephanie would be safe while he came out here. And this was true, and he knew it to be true, because if anything more happened to Diego tonight, if he had to deal with any more trauma, any more permanent memories, he would drown himself in the ocean.

That wasn't just hyperbole speaking.

In the distance, something bobbed in the ocean. And if he drew a straight line from the thing to the shoreline, he would find a series of dark blotches, small circles lining up from the shore to one big circle.

Is that how Chris looked like now?

The image caused him less panic than expected. He did not feel the terror, the adrenaline that had ripped and clawed at his throat like it had at the pier. Merely a slight quickening of the heart as he regarded the object— person floating. Mostly because the thing, whatever, whoever it was, was far away, indistinct, a vague shape in the middle of the ocean. He was sure it wasn't Chris because there was no pier in sight, thank God. But a part of him whispered that maybe it was because he had already become inured to the sight of violence, that the Diego he had been the previous sunrise was different from the Diego of a few hours later. And he had no reply ready to this part of him.

The matter of his innocence also wasn't what had brought him here. It had been, as always, the ocean, this mass his mother told him he was supposedly connected to. This mass that had taken him 18 whole years to personally witness. It lapped slowly, languidly at the beach, inviting him in, as if a friend, asking him to come with. As if it hadn't tried to envelop him when he was in the midst of sleep and waking, as if it hadn't mocked him, grabbed at him at the pier.

You could make a metaphor out of anything if you tried, and the ocean had a million metaphors attached to it. His mother usually called the ocean a new horizon, a new future. The future Diego was supposed to have after his graduation, a new start in a new nation. In older times, she had described the flight she had taken to get to America, how she had spent fifteen hours over the Pacific, over a never-ending blue. In a brief ten-minute prelude, before the months spent on the founding and early years of America, Mr. McClellan had briefly discussed how humans had colonized the entire world, how early humans had set out on boats to colonize Oceania, crossing entire oceans to do so. It had been the one time in the entire school year Mr. McClellan's class had actually interested Diego.

What his mother, his history teacher, the books never stressed was exactly how it was to cross those oceans. Days, weeks spent in the midst of blue, spent floating in nothingness, starving, thirsty, sunburnt, unsure of whether or not they would even end up anywhere. There was every chance this shot in the dark would be just that, a shot into the void, sent astray by currents until those involved would waste away.

And that's what it was to Diego. The ocean was his future, and it was the mass, the expanse, the never-ending, immeasurable, impassable blue separating him from that future. And this, he realized, was the ocean's invitation. Not an attempt to swallow, but an invite to overcome. The ocean could still be that new future.

If he worked towards it.

Maybe not now. He didn't want it to be now. But if a few hours had been enough to numb him, then maybe, given a few days, he would be prepared for what was to come.

He removed his socks and shoes, setting them aside from all the other shoes scattered across the beach. And then, he stepped into the ocean, slowly, feeling with his feet for any rocks in his path. It felt nice. Like an actual, physical embrace. He waded up until his chest, and then stood still for a while. His gaze all the while was either to the side or down below, never in front, never where he could catch a glimpse of whoever it was floating. He stood there, enjoying the feeling, and then he found his way out. He wished to linger, but he didn't want to risk his companion waking up without him, wandering off in search of him. He had to go.

In the morning, the two would wake, Stephanie more well-rested than Diego. The former would ask about the salty scent, the slight dampness on the latter's clothes, and the latter would reply to pay it no mind. And then they would depart, hopefully to never see the ocean again.

((Diego Larrosa continues in Gimme, Gimme Shelter, or I'm Gonna Fade Away))