The Rocky Alcove(The chapter that follows: I Give Full Credit to the Hobos of Venice Beach)

I sit there, on the giant rock, surrounded by the stony walls of the cliffs. I can’t believe I never found this place I think, marveling at the charcoaly-purple color of the alcove. The rock we sit on is surrounded on three sides by the cliffs, like an inverted peninsula. The open side faces the west with the tide leaping higher and higher into the alcove with each crash, through the opening. “You know how you said I’m a dolphin?” I break the comfortable silence. “A carefree spirit,” the mysterious girl, who introduced herself to me as Amanda, replies with a slight, knowing, smile. “How do you know? Like why a dolphin and not an, I don’t know sand crab, or something?” She laughs aloud at this. “You, a sand crab?” she exhales, a slight chuckle hinting her breath, “You are definitely a dolphin. I was actually having a hard time deciding… you can come across as a tigress in some ways, I guess. You’re a leader. But you’re not serious or as ‘straight up’” she graces her words with air quotes, “-as one.” She finishes. “You’re funny” she turns her head from the sky she’d been staring at for the past hour to look at me. finally I think, I swear it’s as though she was watching the sky like a TV! An amused expression plays across her face. “People typically aren’t as hard to understand as you, especially people as easy to read as you are.” I bite my lip. What? Is she calling me an oxymoron I don’t know why, but I take it as a compliment. “I learn things from the sky, anyone can… if they know how.” She is getting really mysterious now. Before I can ask her what kind of stuff, exactly, does the sky teach her, a cold shock runs along my arm. I investigate and lift my arm. The ocean has somehow snuck into the alcove and crawled up to the rock, as it rushes up in its silent assault once more, it tickles my side. I sit up. Amanda is already at the top of the cliffs. how the heck did she do that so silently I wonder… whatever I brush it off and follow suit, climbing up to join her, easily enough. We watch the ocean swallow the rock for a moment and then start across the sand. She stops and turns at me, “I still don’t get how you aren’t my guide.” She chews her lip and looks at the sky again. “I was so sure of it…” she trails off as a shooting star graces the blackness. “Let’s get back to the party.” She suggests. I dance across the sand in the direction of the music in reply.