I remember falling the most. I don't think I understood what falling meant at the time. For me, I was a bird, and this is what birds felt when they dove for the ocean to catch their prey. I think I believed, up until the point where I felt the hit from the land that stood beneath those shallow waters, that there would be a moment when the air would catch me, and I'd glide into flight, on my way towards the horizon or maybe just back towards the top of the cliff. I didn't have time to decide.

"There are a million tiny rocks hidden in the waters in front of that boulder. I went unconscious right after hitting them. I think this was just from shock. My mother told me there had been a lot of blood, but all of my cuts were superficial. I don't even have the scars anymore."

Saxa stares back at me with complete attentiveness. She's turned towards me, the seat belt she still wears falling off the side of her shoulder. Her eyes seem wider, glossier, and her top and bottom lips are somewhat parted from each other. I look only for a second, then turn my head down to stare at the hands I've intertwined and placed in my lap. I don't know if I should continue or let her comment.

"Should we get out of the car now?" I ask.

She ignores my question. "What happened next?"

I force a breath of air out my lungs. "I don't really remember. My mother was pretty mad at me. She doesn't let me go to the beach anymore. I just remember waking up at the hospital, and her telling me she was disappointed." All her friends had been there, she said. She was worried that I would become the talk of the town. It's not good press. "I really shouldn't have been so careless."

"You were a kid, Jaime. She wasn't watching you. It's not your fault."

But Saxa doesn't understand. "No, I wasn't being responsible ... We all have responsibilities and I was being careless with mine." This is exactly why my mother didn't want to people to talk. Because they'll form opinions that won't be the right ones. I hurt those around me because I was being selfish. I wanted to be different from them, to be taller than them, to look down on them. "They closed the beach for a week. I ruined everyone's day."

I hurt my family. The stress my mother must have felt peeling me up from the rocks, the shouts of the townsfolk deafening as the circle they formed around us grew smaller and smaller. My father, who had been having a tranquil Sunday at home, had to come meet us. Joy, crying the whole time, from the beach to the ambulance to the hospital.

"You're wrong," is all Saxa says, and before I can respond, she's unbuckling herself from the seat and exiting the car. I'm not upset. All the better she can't hear whatever defense I'll have concocted next.

The car shakes as she slams the door behind her. I watch her enter the house from my seat, the toes of her bare feet dancing daintily across the coarse cement of her driveway then disappearing up her front steps. I am left alone then, hands still clasped in my lap and eyes fixated on the entryway doors through with she escapes.

Those doors, they are just as intimidating as they have always been. Even from a distance, I can feel them towering over me. They stare at me, through the eyes of the lions cast in iron as knockers. They smile at me, light glistening off they glossy lacquer like the shine of freshly brushed teeth. Behind them, in the belly of the home, is all of the Morstads and all that they own. Just one more country I've always wanted to visit, and here I stand, at the customs desk, passport and visa in hand, and all I have left to do is pass through the gate, and my instinct is to stay where I am, succumb to a cowardly comfort I find here. Instead, I take one last look around, a farewell to the vessel that brought me.

The cigarette boxes, the socks, the panties, they'll all stay here even after I'm gone. Probably for months, as for months they've probably already been here. How nice it must be to be one of them. It hurts to think of leaving them behind when I'll exit the car. I want to take one, as a souvenir to remind myself that I was ever here.

A box of cigarettes, probably; maybe an empty bottle of liquor. I doubt either of these will be missed, but then again, what if Jeff or June were to find it? I reach down to pick up a sock from the pile but quickly put it back. I flip through the pages of one of the magazines. It's dated from three years ago, and I'm fairly confident in my decision to take it when I notice the underwear in the compartment of the passenger door as if it were a snake hiding rather poorly in some low grass.

I couldn't, I think, and yet, before I recognize what I'm doing, I pick them up and stuff them into my bag, but before I part, I decide to leave something of my own (karma and all), and I think maybe this could be a small reminder for Saxa of me and my existence here and the clumsy words of mine that once occupied this air.

I reach into the front pocket of my bag, searching for something expendable that I can give her. A sheet of paper, a piece of gum, a binder clip – no, I know just the thing.

I place consciously on the mat at my feet, pressed between a torn-off magazine cover and the back side of the pile of socks so that it won't roll immediately under the passenger seat, a black ballpoint pen advertising Atwood Realty in bright green capital letters. I take this mental picture: a bit of me trapped inside her world, and it makes me smile. All that's left is to collect myself and my things and leave the scene.

The sound of the car door closing must be heard by someone inside, because as I turn around, I see the front door to the Morstads' home being opened, inviting me to step through it.

Welcome, it says.