The boardwalk is crowded with people as we walk, ice cream in hand, along the path parallel to the beach. The beaches are full of people on beach chairs, swimming in the water, and some choosing activities like parasailing, waterjets, and banana boats. Even though I am wearing a bikini under my clothes and the heat is sweltering this afternoon, me and Silas haven't gone swimming yet.

Instead, we've just been walking, and talking, for hours. We grabbed lunch about an hour ago and stopped for ice cream at a small shop near the beach. The wait was long, so I had time to practice my French before I ordered by myself without asking for Silas's help.

"So tell me more about your life in America," I tell Silas with a mouthful of coffee ice cream. I feel the refreshing ice cream melting on my tongue and cooling me down.

"Um, I don't know, there's not that much to tell. I was so young when I came here," he says with a shrug. "I remember my parents fighting a lot, and I liked to play Pokemon."

"Oh, I'm sorry, that must have been hard," I say sympathetically. He doesn't really talk about his parents very much. I know that his mom passed away and his dad still lives in the States, but that's about it. I hope I didn't upset him by bringing up a touchy subject.

"It's okay," he assures me. "It was a long time ago."

"Are you close to your dad?" He doesn't seem upset, so in a gentle voice, I ask him another question. I don't want to prod too much, but I also want to know more about him. I want to know everything about him.

"Not really," Silas shrugs. "I visit for Thanksgiving every year, but we don't really have that much in common."

"That sounds hard," I hear myself saying out loud. "I mean, my parents can be a pain, but at least I have them. I feel like kind of an asshole about complaining so much about them to you."

"I like that you complain to me," he says with a mouthful of ice cream. "I'm okay with how things have turned out. Plus, it's not like I'm alone, I have my mamé."

"Yeah," I say slowly, feeling surprised at how nonchalant he is about not having his parents around. My mom may be stubborn and sometimes too controlling, but I still know that she's there for me when I need somebody. And my dad will always pick me up when I'm down and wipe away my tears. I don't know how I could cope in a world without them.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Silas must have noticed the weird look on my face as he meets my gaze.

"You've just been through a lot, but you talk about it like it's no big deal," I admit to him why I feel a little weird. I know that people react to trauma differently, so I'm not judging him at all, it's just surprising.

"Yeah, I guess," he says, finishing his ice cream and tossing the plastic cup into a nearby trash can. "Do you want to go swimming? I'm getting pretty hot."

"Okay," I just go along with his plan, because I don't want to continue to question his feelings if it's not something that he wants to talk about. "Let's go swimming."

I follow Silas down to the beach and we find an open spot to put our stuff. We put all important things like phones and wallets into my bag and we hide it under our pile of clothes so that nobody tries to take our things.

"There's no sharks out there, right?" I ask Silas as we start to head toward the water.

"Only little ones," he says with a smile. "They won't kill you, might just take a limb or two."

"But I like my limbs," I complain as the water begins to lap at my ankles. In a bold move that I usually wouldn't make, I step behind Silas, grab his shoulders, and jump onto his back like a baby monkey. "Okay, now at least they'll eat you first."

"At least I'll die a hero," he jokes as he walks both of us farther into the water. "Sharks aren't really that scary though. It's the stingrays and jellyfish that you really have to watch out for, they can really sneak up on you."

"Well, it's a good thing you're the one in the water, so you're the one that needs to watch out," I remind him with a laugh. We get into the water deep enough to where my toes are starting to dip in. The water is cool, which is an incredible contrast from the blistering heat that we've been walking in all day.

"Oh, I'm the only one in the water?" Silas questions in a taunting voice. Before I can ask him what he means by that, he's falling onto his back and submerging both of us in the shallow waters. I fall in with a squeal, quickly finding my bearings so that I'm able to stand back up. The water stops at my hips, and I'm quickly firing splashes of water in Silas's direction to get revenge for tossing me into the water.

I get a few good splashes in before Silas gets close enough to wrap his arms around my midsection, lift me up, and then toss me back into the water. I'm not able to close my eyes fast enough before my head is completely submerged, and I get some saltwater in my eye.

It stings enough that when I resurface, I call a truce. "Okay, you win, I won't sacrifice you to ocean life again."

"That's all I ask," he smiles at me, kisses me quickly, and then sinks into the water so that he's sitting in the sand. "So what did those letters say? The ones you took home a few days ago."

"They were letters where he wrote about what kind of family he wanted to have," I answer Silas as I join him in the sand. As I talk, I run my fingers through the soft sand under water, picking out a few shells before inspecting them and then tossing them back into the water. "About how he had dreamed of them starting a family together, how he'd raise his kids and spoil his grandkids. It was surreal to read about him talking about me, without him actually knowing that he was talking about me."

"Oh, that must have been nice to read," he says.

"It was," I agree with him. "I mean, I know in the letters, he was talking about having a family with Audrine, but it still makes me happy knowing that he got the family that he wanted. He got the kids, the grandkids, everything that he wanted. Except for Audrine."

"On the bright side," Silas mentions, "If he did have a family with her, we would be related."

"Yeah, that would make things pretty weird," I agree with a laugh. "He'd always been such a family man, so it's not a surprise that even when he was my age, he was thinking about what kind of family he wanted. He was at every recital, swim meet, ceremony, on the sidelines cheering me on. He went to more events than either one of my parents did, because he always chose family over work."

"He sounds a lot like my mamé," he says. "She couldn't always choose me over work, but she always tried her hardest, and she did a good job of it. So did my mom, she was always at every event growing up."

"You don't talk about your mom very much," I state the obvious, hoping that I don't upset him when I do. He didn't seem to want to talk about it earlier, but he brought her up again so I'm wondering if maybe it is okay that I ask more about her.

"I know," he says vaguely. "It's kind of depressing to talk about."

"I think it can be cathartic," I suggest, finding a big spiral seashell in the sand that we're sitting in. It's all intact, no chips at all, and no living creature inside. It's so pretty that I tuck it into my bikini top to take it home with me. "I mean, I know that everybody handles grief differently, but it helps me to talk about my grandpa. Instead of being sad about his death, I like to talk and be happy about the good things."

"I'm not grieving anymore," Silas tells me, and it takes me by surprise so much that I don't even know how to respond. I know that he said his mom died when he was fifteen years old, but it's only been five years. I know that's a long time, but I feel like I'll be grieving for my grandpa for the rest of my life. Even when I do talk about him, remembering the great memories that I have with him, I still feel a little bit of sadness remembering that he's gone. And Silas says it so smoothly, like it's no big deal at all.

I get that people handle death differently, and I don't want to judge his way of dealing with his mom's death, but I also don't know how to handle it.

"I don't think I'll ever stop grieving," I say honestly. It has only been a few months since my grandpa's death though, so maybe it does get easier with time in a way that I can't imagine yet.

"I don't know, I guess we're all different," he says with a shrug. He then pulls his hand out of the water with a shell resting in his palm, a spiral one like the one that I found. Except, I can see a little crab poking his rust colored head out from the opening. "I found a hermit crab."

"He's so cute," I know that he's just trying to change the subject the same way that he did earlier when we were talking about his mom. I let him. We have only known each other for six weeks, so maybe he just doesn't want to talk about something so sensitive with me. "They don't pinch, do they?"

"Of course they do, he's a crab," Silas says with a laugh. "But he won't pinch unless you make him mad."

Just because I talk about my grandpa with him doesn't mean that I have a right to hear his story, and I know that, but the way he pushes the conversation under the rug makes me feel like he doesn't talk about his mom with anybody. Not because he just doesn't want to, but because he chooses to suppress that greif rather than accept it and deal with it. Maybe I'm psychoanalyzing him too much, and I should mind my own business.

"Is everything okay?" he interrupts my thoughts.

"Yeah," I snap out of it, watching as Silas releases the crab back into the water.

"Death is a bummer to talk about," he says, apparently sensing that I'm not actually that fine.

"It's important to talk about it though," I respond quickly.

"Not for me," he insists. "I'm fine."

"Are you?" I question him skeptically. I know that I should leave well enough alone and stop prodding, but it's so off putting how nonchalant he seems to be about the death of his mom and all of the hardships he's had early in his life.

Silas looks at me with his big eyes that are almost as blue as the water we're swimming in, but he doesn't answer me for a very long time. He just looks at me, and eventually he says, "I'm not good with talking about things like that."

"Why not?" I continue to ask him questions, hoping that he doesn't get upset for pushing a subject that he obviously doesn't want to talk about.

"I always had to be okay when I was younger," he finally starts to talk, his eyes downcast now, staring down at the small waves that move around us. "It was hard on me when my parents got divorced, but I had to be there for my mom and I pretty much just bottled it all up. And when my mom died, I had to be there for mamé, so I bottled it up. I always had to be the rock for somebody else, so I didn't have a choice. I always had to be okay."

Finally, the way that he's been acting makes a lot more sense. I understand why he's felt the need to not feel upset by these two very traumatic experiences in his life, and I feel absolutely devastated for him, that he feels like he can't open up about the pain that he must feel in dealing with the loss of his parents.

"I'm sorry that you've felt like you always have to be the strong one," I say in a soft voice, holding one of his hands under the water. "But it's okay to feel sad sometimes and to just not be okay. And like you told me, what we have involves me caring about you, and I'm here if you need anything."

"Thanks, Maisie," he forces an uncomfortable smile onto his face.

"Where did you see that hermit crab?" I change the subject now, because I can tell that he is clearly uncomfortable. I feel so guilty for even pushing him so much, but I'm glad that he finally opened up a little bit. "I want to see if he has a family."

"He went that way," he points to his right. It's hard to see the sandy floor, so it's pretty impossible to find any more hermit crabs, but I look anyway just to keep the conversation moving. The entire time I've known Silas, I've been convinced that he's so perfect- completely flawless. Hearing him open up about his struggle to express any real sadness or grief somehow makes him seem more human to me.

"Actually, I don't want to get pinched," I finally decide. "I'll just leave them alone."

"Yeah, you're too cute not to pinch," Silas says, and then I feel a soft pinch on my left hip that makes me shriek and jump out of the water, but when I look back down and see Silas laughing at me, I realize that it was Silas that pinched me and not an evil sea creature.

"You are unbelievable," I shake my head at him, and then leap toward him to push him under the water to get my revenge. Our second water battle of the day ensues, and it doesn't end until Silas gets water in his nose and has to get out of the water and call a truce.

I smile triumphantly, glad that I could at least win one of our battles. I know that he's taller and stronger than me, but I think that I was a little bit faster and sneakier.

I gloat about how I beat him in a water war as we build a small sand castle on the beach near our clothes. He seems to be in a good mood now, despite the sad conversation earlier, but I wonder if he actually is in a good mood or if he really is that good at hiding how he feels. I would give anything to know what was going on in his mind, what he's thinking, how he's feeling.

But I can't do that, so for now, we will build a kingdom made of sand and pretend like our problems don't exist.