It could be a simple quiet life.  It could be a lovely life.  And I tell Ethan all this, with the hasty add-on that it's just something I'm thinking about, there's no hidden intent behind it.  And he just looks at me.  And smiles.  And stays quiet.   

I would get mad that he's reverting back but the ocean's calling me. There's some sort of…what do you call it, reef?  Sand bar?  Big rock thing? We spotted it past a fence as we were driving on the road and you can see people swimming back and forth to it.  And it's close enough to swim to, far enough that once you get there, you really feel like you're on your own in the water.  Well, that's where's we gotta go, obviously. Obviously.

We change into our swimsuits, and Ethan looks impossibly studly in a pair of ripped-up shorts, and I'm depressed, so I don't care what I look like in this black one-piece, we jump the fence and start out for the rock.  It occurs to me halfway out that this would be some subliminal test of the relationship, seeing as how neither one of us asked the other one if we could swim, and how embarrassing would it be if one of us couldn't, but was putting up a brave face for the other one, but we reach the rock, out of breath and exhausted, but still there.  Clamber up to the top and throw ourselves down.  Staring at the sun, the water.  And it's just a glittering carpet of waves.  And again that urge to just leap out.  To just walk towards the sun, on top of all these light-encrusted waves of ocean, just to keep going until you're completely consumed by the sun and the light.  Never looking back cause there's nothing you'd be missing.

Further down and all around the ledges in the rock are other swimmers, all resting where they can, all with their faces toward the sun.