Beachside Bunnies «RECOMMENDED»

Because that’s what beachside bunnies do. They wait. They endure. They remind you that even after the worst storm, something soft and stubborn and alive will always come hopping back.

Eloise discovered them the summer her mother stopped getting out of bed. beachside bunnies

A brown-and-white rabbit sat on a piece of driftwood shaped like a whale’s rib. It didn’t hop away. It just looked at her with one eye, then the other, then went back to nibbling a clover sprouting from a crack in the wood. Because that’s what beachside bunnies do

She was twelve, small for her age, with a pocketknife she wasn’t allowed to use and a notebook full of drawings no one asked to see. Her father had rented a cottage called Sea Spray —white clapboard, blue shutters, a porch that sagged like an old man’s shoulders. He said the salt air would help. He said give it time . They remind you that even after the worst

He was huddled under a collapsed section of the boardwalk, soaked, shivering, one hind leg dragging. His white eye patch was matted with mud. When he saw Eloise, he didn’t run. He just blinked, slow and exhausted.

“Eloise—”

“We can’t keep him,” her father said.