Barefoot Island

I had never gone more than a few miles out of town. Not that I could remember. The idea of everything beyond the city limit felt overwhelming. But they told me I had been to the island before. When I was 11 years old, apparently, I had visited during spring break. By 13, I had forgotten that trip, but it didn’t matter.

“What are you doing?”

I looked up and found my cousin standing in the deep blue doorway, looking back at me. Had I done something wrong again?

“Putting on my shoes,” I said before he explained, “leave them here unless you want them stolen.”

The island town of Croockman was a long way away from my hometown—beaches, sun, people walking around, always ready for a swim. At the age of 15, it was new to me again. I appreciated seeing another part of the world, but I had no other choice.

I had to move. CPS had caught on to what was happening and wouldn’t leave me to live alone anymore. They wouldn’t let me struggle to survive anymore. Though, at the time, I wished they had.

“You want me to leave my shoes?” I asked, puzzled by my older cousin’s blunt reasoning.

“Half the island is sand and grass. You won’t need them,” Ralph added.

I had already gone outside my comfort zone, leaving our shared room without so much as a shirt. As much as I didn’t want to rock the boat, I couldn’t imagine walking around town barefoot all day.

“I’ll take my chances,” I said, to which my cousin shrugged his shoulders.

It was my first day, my first official day, after having moved halfway around the world. It would have been nice had I been there on vacation, but it was the middle of the school year. There were worse places to start over freshman year of high school. At least I wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. That island town in the middle of the ocean could have been a paradise.

However, we were running late.

Ironically, finding the perfect first-day outfit had taken so much time because I was told to pick less to wear. A pair of shorts, a book bag, and a waterproof watch. Nothing more. Did people on the island honestly go to school like that? Or was it a bad joke I was too naïve to fight? I didn’t want to be the only guy to show up shirtless. But it would have been worse being the only kid fully dressed, like showing up to a fast food place wearing a suit and tie.

Stepping out of the beach house with my cousin, I quickly realized how seriously everyone took the island dress code. Bikinis and swim shorts were much the norm. I hadn’t seen a pair of jeans or a jacket anywhere.

Had I left my shoes behind, I could have walked nude and avoided half the glances I got that morning. My cousin was right. Sand and grass covered most of the island.

There were hardly any paved roads or asphalt to be seen. Then again, we weren’t on the tourist side of the island. Locals made the beach destination a legitimate get away for foreigners and city folk, but for themselves, they lived a hurricane away from being third world or worse. At least, that’s how I saw it. Ralph and his mom were better off than most islanders, but even their house felt like a step down from what I had grown up with. Nice, sure, but dated and so inconvenient. I couldn’t complain, though.

The awe-inspiring view from any part of the Island made it easy to overlook the small inconveniences, even if I had to walk everywhere.

My cousin didn’t bring the subject of my shoes up again. He couldn’t help but to grin when I stopped our walk to take off my sand-covered kicks and hide them in my bag, but he didn’t say a word. Sure, maybe some people wore sandals and other open-toed shoes, but my flashy sneakers were an anomaly. I couldn’t spend the entire day having people call me a rich kid or spoiled.

The look my cousin gave me when I eventually packed my designer sneakers into a school locker was smug and know-it-all. It would have been easier had he just said, “I told you so,” but I had learned the lesson quickly.

He was too nice for that. Maybe he was too big a dick.

Regardless, I was about to go my own way when he asked, “How’s your mom doing?”

No one had said a word about Mom, not since I arrived. My aunt was hardly around after she had picked me up from the airport. In my four days on the island, I might have talked to her five times in total. Three of those conversations had happened at the dinner table. The only times Aunt Kai, Ralph, and I were in the same room for more than a few minutes were breakfast and dinner.

Ralph had avoided talking about my mom almost entirely. I honestly thought he was in the dark about my situation. His mom had probably told him not to bring up my mother. Either way, he must have had questions. One day, he was an only child; the next, I showed up. Suddenly, he had to share a bedroom, show me around, and basically became my babysitter.

We weren’t actual cousins since our families had been divorced for years. Naturaly, Ralph was under no obligation to treat me like family, but he did.

“Your mom. You were on the phone with her doctors last night, weren’t you?” he said.

“She’s fine,” I answered dismissively.

Maybe it was because we were late, but I didn’t think that was the right time to talk.

“So you’ll be back home in no time?”

He tried to be optimistic for me, but it was painful.

“Yeah,” I said, but my eyes couldn’t look into his.

I forced a grin as best I could. Mom hadn’t gotten any worse, but she hadn’t improved in the past three months, either. How did I end up living on a tropical island while the person I cared about was stuck in a hospital bed? It wasn’t fair.

It didn’t make sense.

But I had to look on the bright side. Sitting and sulking wasn’t what my mom would have wanted for me.

Ralph rested a hand on my shoulder, and I couldn’t avoid giving him my attention.

“I’m in class D. If you need me for anything, I mean anything,” he said.

My cousin was a good guy. The island was beautiful. I didn’t have to steal food anymore. No matter how good things were on that side of the world, my insides were always moments away from being pulled to the floor, drawn to what I had run away from.

I couldn’t move on, but I had to keep moving. Sand was soft, but my footsteps were always heavy.