Picking up the sea glass.. that was his summer. Brief pauses for cliff adventures and occasional trips into town or pity meals at the station aside, it's him on the dock, reading or watching the ocean or picking his way over tidepools. He needs time. That's what the doctors said, in so many words. There are worse ways to live with this unspeakable burden. Instead of feeling smooth waves against his chest--ones that rock softly against his heart--he feels rocks, shards of glass weighing him down and it slows his breathing, and his life. He's had this "illness" as it's called for years, and it took its toll over the simplest things that are supposed to make life beautiful. But the sea.. that was the one thing he could never tire of, or come to despise through sharp mood swings. 

But, for the briefest moment of anger as he picked up the pebbles on the deck, Keith wondered what would happen if he tore off the necklace his mother had left him with before she was gone at sea, scale and all, and gave it back to the waves—but even as he wonders he knows he wouldn't. It’s the most foolish sentiment, but he can’t imagine he won’t live the rest of his days with it. And maybe it’s all right to want someone that much, to miss someone that much. He had his fair share of mourning and he came out of it relatively unscathed. 

His mother is long gone now. No reason to remember that all over again. 

He almost doesn’t pick up the last stone, but then he realizes he’s being ridiculous and grabs it before he jumps back from the water with reasonable speed, not at all scared. Not at all.
It’s the only one that’s white. It looks like a little shard of ice, frosted and glittering. He turns it back and forth in the dimly lit night, watching the soft reflected light play against his hand. It made him smile, the delicate color it gave off, and he'd already begun to imagine. Setting them on the windowsill in the kitchen, the one that faces the ocean and gets the most sun inside the small shack in the long afternoons. The stone casting a little rainbow over the floor at dawn as he falls asleep tracing it with his eyes.

But amidst the tranquility, reality began to set in, and Keith could feel his body blaring its alarms as a feeble attempt to alert him. He could sense a presence uncomfortably nearby, and his breath hitched. He'd almost wanted to put the stones back, take them out of his makeshift bucket, and run far away. His legs didn't move though, and neither did his head. He just froze, nerves beginning to settle in, even if there was no solid evidence that anything was around. It could have been all in his head, but he latched on to the many times when his gut feeling didn't turn out to be wrong, and he felt goosebumps on his cold arms.

He tried closing his eyes, desperately gripping onto his sense of hearing. Nothing but silence, and then almost imperceptibly, there’s a sound contrary to the waves, the splash of something slipping into water. Under the dock, he thinks and falls to his knees so fast they scrape against the rough wood of the dock. He braces himself on the edge and ducks his head under. The sense of being watched rushes back in full and hits like primal terror. What could be waiting for him down there?