We run down to the coast, kissing as we go, laughing as we run. We hold hands, declaring our love to the world as loudly and openly as possible, both of us relishing in a feeling of ecstasy, relishing at our newly found freedom. As the rhyme goes, when the cat’s away, the mice will play. But we don’t feel like mice anymore, we’re strong and invincible, forever happy when we’re together. The time we spend apart just seems to make that time we spend together all the more sweet. All the more beautiful.

 

We collapse on the beach, the only ones crazy enough to set our alarms for bang on five o’clock, when the tide first ebbs out and leaves the beach pleasantly damp, the perfect sand for making a sandcastle. The beach smells fresh and clean, that unmistakable salty smell that characterizes the coast making me feel reckless and free. We lay side by side on a blanket in the middle of the sand, gazing up at the emerging sun and watching the floating clouds drift past us on the breeze. Jack takes hold of my hand, sending electric pulses up my arm and making me grin to myself, a cheesy grin, one I would be ashamed of in front of anyone else. But I could never be ashamed with Jack.

​

We don’t say anything, just lay there, content in each another’s embrace. Words would be pointless, wasted. After months of being apart we are happy just to be together – alone – on this beautiful expanse of beach, with no staring eyes, no judging glances, except those of the seagulls that perch on the cliff, who are interested in nothing more than what food we may have stashed in our rucksacks. Here, on the edge of the country, my parents are miles away and cannot touch us with their judgemental comments and hateful looks. Even as Jack leans down now, kissing my nose in a way that makes a giggle come out of my mouth, I think of them. My parents.

 

Of the many conversations we have about my life and its ‘disappointing’ route. “Please, Elizabeth,” it would start, the opening of many a conversation. “It’s time to settle down- get married, find some sort of security. You’ve been to university and – despite what you might say – that embarrassing phase of your life is over now. Time to move on and start living your life properly.” From the way my parents talk, you’d think it was the 1890s, not the 1990s. This – me and Jack, our love – is my life. It was never just a phase, never just some ‘embarrassing’ section of my life that I can forget about and move on from. It is my life. All this time I’ve been living my life, they just can’t see that.

​

I try to blot them out of my mind, focussing instead on Jack’s face, a face I know as well as my own, a face that is ingrained within my memory, that I think about everyday we’re apart – and everyday we’re together. I look up and remind myself of its contours and curves, the way it smiles and dimples appear on either side of its cheeks. The curls that reach its shoulders and that I grab every now and then, teasing the face underneath them, prompting those dimples to appear. This is the face I want to see every morning when I wake up, every night when I drift into sleep.

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We sleep side by side now, on the blanket, until holiday makers arrive on the beach, interrupting our rest. Children in swimming costumes with giant inflatable sharks come screaming past us, while families spread on thick layers of sun cream. It’s turned out to be a beautiful Cornish morning. In Spain, where my parents have taken a two week holiday, it’ll be warmer that here already, approaching the heat of midday. They may even be preparing for a midday siesta in their flashy, sterile, airless hotel room, while we lay here, comfortable amongst the sand and seaweed.

 

I’m acting against my parents’ wishes in a way they would never have guessed of me. For years I’ve let myself believe their lies, that I’m just going through a stage in my life, that this phase will soon end and soon I’ll fall in love with a suitable, handsome young lawyer from Oxford like they want me to. All my life I’ve let them rule me. I did a law degree on their recommendation, simply to be on a male-dominated course. I shamelessly threw myself at posh, arrogant men I knew I had no interest in, only trying to believe, as they did, that I would soon move on from this ‘phase’ in my life.

 

But now I have stood up and I will no longer be controlled, be subjected to their ideas of happiness. I am the lion now and they are the mice. While my parents lounge on white sun loungers and go brown from the sun, they think I’m with my cousins in London, a city I have lived in all my life and that stifles and traps me. London is like a cage for me, a busy city I have no place in and all my life I’ve wanted to escape it, I’ve wanted to be free. Completely, shamelessly, unbelievably free.

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But forget about them, they don’t matter anymore. Their scorn, their ridiculing, no longer matters. What matters is us. We’re here, in Cornwall, a place that is as beautiful and mesmerizing in real life as in the picture books. A place that has no constraints, no barriers. A place we can be truly free. We’re never going back. As childish as it sounds – a pair of 23-year-olds running away – that’s what we’ve done. And as I look up into Jack’s eyes, crinkling with joy, at the joy of relishing in our love and freedom, I know we’ve done the right thing. We can walk through the streets hand in hand, we can kiss, and we can wake up and go to sleep together every morning and every night. We can be free.

​

I grab her hand and she runs beside me, laughing, as we charge together into the freezing cold waves.