I never got to see horse island. Well, technically it was called Assateague Island, but when I was younger I knew it as horse island. An island filled with wild horses, who wouldn’t want to go?

 I was in Ocean City when I was thirteen with my best friend Maya and our mothers, celebrating her mom’s birthday. We spent the week on the beach during the day and watching rom-coms at night. On our last day of the trip, our mothers asked if we wanted to go to horse island before we drove back to New Jersey. Of course the answer was an ecstatic yes. 

We were so excited, sitting in the back of a Volkswagen, our faces bright and warm. So much so, that we didn’t mind when someone pointed out the sky turning dark, the winds picking up, and the clouds seeming to dance like the shadows of flickering candles. Until we were in the dark, the clouds blocking out the sun, the winds throwing signs and clutter around. We realized we were driving through a tornado.

My mom slammed on the brakes. I watched the clutter waving around in the air, sitting in the backseat looking outside the window. I watched as a stop sign flew at the front of the car, taking out a tail light but then away with the wind again, just as I was supposed to be watching the horses.

It was maybe another minute of winds and debris flying around, hitting the car. I was thinking about the horses. I wondered what they were doing, what they were seeing. The winds died down and we pulled into a Starbucks to wait for the adrenaline to stop pumping. Nothing calms you more than a six dollar coffee of course. So our last day on vacation was spent sitting in a Starbucks, watching a storm rather than the horses.