When me and my best friend Lilly were little, we would always go to Short Sands beach in York, ME. This beach was like 5 minutes away from our houses – we were neighbors. I lived on 2nd ave and she lived on 4th ave. One day we were playing catch in the water and Lilly’s mom wanted to join us. I threw the ball to her mom and when she threw it back the ball went soaring over the water and into the rocks that went along the edge of the beach. “Sorry girls” her mom said, “I’ll buy you a new ball tomorrow.” Then her mom walked back off to the towels and rest of the family. “Let’s go get it.” Lilly said. I agreed and I followed her. Our parents were always terrified of us climbing the rocks when we were younger, but we literally lived on the ocean and we had always climbed rocks, they were basically in our backyard, so we were never scared of them. Off we went, climbing over rocks double our size.We kept walking getting further away from the beach, but the water wasn’t getting deeper.  Half way down the rocks that lined the road where the houses were, we saw it. We found the ball. Lilly grabbed the ball and showed it to me. I looked around and noticed we were really close to the stairs, that’s more like a ladder, that the people from the houses on the road used to climb down – I still never see anyone on that ladder but I think that’s what it’s for. “Lets just climb up the ladder and walk back to the beach on the sidewalk.” I said, Lilly agreed and we went to head to the ladder and then we realized something. We were on sand. This was when we found our secret beach. It was a small spot of 6 feet of sand that was surrounded by rocks. We deemed this place our own secret beach. We stayed there for a few more minutes, mostly talking about how cool we were for finding our own ‘secret’ beach. We didn’t want anyone to find it so before our parents realized we were gone, we climbed the ladder and went back to the beach.The next day we went back to the beach and we “accidentally” threw the new ball towards the same direction. This time we were with my dad, and he’s a little more relaxed than my parents, so we weren’t as worried about being looked for as quickly as our moms would look for us. So off to our private beach we went. This place became our favorite spot ever. We tried to spend as much time there as we could. We would say we were going to the bath house, or get ice cream, or anything just to go play there. One day our moms were both at the beach with us and we thought we had this whole complex, bullet proof house plan of how to get there. And it worked, until we went back to our parents without ice cream. For the rest of the summer our parents didn’t let us wander and we couldn’t go to our secret beach. We were devastated. We thought we’d never see it again. Next summer, our parents gave us our freedom back, and gave us even more freedom. So off to our secret beach we went.We would be there all day, and our parents never asked where we were. In all honesty, our parents found our beach and realized they could see us if they walked a little. But we didn’t care. We felt so cool and special having our own place. As we grew older we kept going there. We would go there and hang out just the two of us. There were so many reasons we would go there; if we needed a break from our parents or anyone, we would meet there. We would sometimes sneak out at night and go there just because we were bored. We never went here with anyone else. And yes, we knew other people went to this spot because it wasn’t as hidden as we thought it was when we were little, but it still was really meaningful to us. As we kept going there, all one of us had to do was text a beach emoji – I think it has a palm tree or little island on it – and we would say when we could meet there. We thought about showing our friends, but we knew they wouldn’t understand how special it was to us. So to this day it continues to be our special place, and the memories we have there I will never forget.