Six ways in which the night on the beach happened, and six ways it didn’t.
This is how it starts:
You’re lying on the sand, hair a disarrayed mess stained with tiny white dots, arms carelessly splayed out, fingers drumming a restless beat on the ground next to you, and I can’t look away. I want to reach out and feel the rhythm beneath my palms. The beating of the earth. The pulse of your wrists.
“Stop it.”
You turn to look at me and I almost laugh at the sight of half your face covered in sand. “Stop what?”
“The drumming, it’s…it’s driving me insane.”
A smile, bright and sudden splits across your face.
“Make me.”
I loop a hand around your neck and pull you closer.
The drumming stops.
I fear you might open your eyes and catch me looking, hoping stupidly if you stare into my eyes you might see what I’m thinking but you never do. I doubt you’d even see me if you did, and I think that’s what scares me the most.
It’s just you and me on this beach, yet I feel so inadequate my breath catches in my throat more than once. There’s an invisible barrier separating us, and I’m not sure who put it there, or why. I don’t know how to touch you. I don’t know how to get to the place you’re at. Why won’t you take me there with you?
“What are you thinking about?”
I swallow my heart down and try to at least sound calm. “What it would be like to kiss you.”
Your startled blink tells me you weren’t expecting that. Also, the red on your cheeks is a total giveaway. “You, er…you want to find out?”
“Yeah I, yeah…”
And we move closer like a pair of polar opposite magnets.
The night couldn’t be more perfect. The waves create a peaceful hum and the sand is soft and comfortable underneath us. In the horizon a star dips into the ocean and I laugh in delight. It’s the first fallen star I’ve ever seen and I’m glad I shared it with you. You look at me for a split second with an amused smile, like I’m five and have just discovered invisible markers actually do work. I lie down again to look at the sky. Another star falls slowly behind the sea.
It looked so helpless falling into the pull of the ocean; like I’m falling into your eyes, your hands, your voice, and the magnetic pull of your soul.
“Make a wish.”
“Sorry?”
“We just saw a fallen star, you have to make a wish…it’ll come true.”
You take a deep breath and let it out slowly, closing your eyes and making funny concentration faces.
“Done!”
I raise an eyebrow and make a “Well?” gesture in your direction.
“If I tell you then it won’t come true.” You look smug, and that makes me want to push this even further.
“Come ooonnn tell mee! What did you wish for?”
You bite your lip thoughtfully for a minute and touch your hand to the base of your neck nervously. “Just, you know…this”
I sit there, confused, until the hand that used to be in your neck tangles in my hair and you kiss the confused right out of my lips.
We’re sitting in silence when Miko comes running along, carrying a stick and doing fast laps around us, barking like mad. I’ve never liked dogs but I’m kind of warming up to him, crazy little thing.
You’re so fond of him. I can tell by the way you cradle him between you legs when he starts trembling with cold and scratch behind his ears. I wish…it doesn’t even matter what I wish anymore.
Then Miko is off running again, and the quiet settles once more like a warm, thick blanket, covering the both of us.
I shiver a bit and wish I’d brought a sweater…or a long-sleeved blouse. Your mouth turns up a little as you ask me if I’m cold.
“I could use a hug.”
You get up from your spot and settle behind me, legs stretched out on either side of mine, arms securely wrapped around my waist.
“This is so, so cliché…just so you know” you say, but your smile is warmer than sunlight.
I lean my head back onto your shoulder and shrug. “Fuck cliché.”
When we laugh your hair tickles my temple, and I can’t think of a place I’d rather be than here, with you.
The music is always familiar. A little MGMT, The Subways, Interpol, and a lot of Kings of Leon. I know the words to most of them, and so do you. It’s comfortable, and I can admit I’m a little proud of myself for not having to pretend to like your music.
The moment is perfect, I think to myself, and make a silent promise that if strawberry blonde comes along next I’m going to kiss you, because it’s meant to be.
Of course when it does, I don’t do anything. It doesn’t feel like a sign anymore. It feels like destiny is mocking me, taunting me.
You said you would, didn’t you? Then do it.
You love that song. Your left foot is tapping along with it, and your head is moving from side to side, your whole body bursting into music.
I steel myself for it but when I turn around you’re still so far away, and our song is going to end, and I won’t be able to catch up with you before it does.
I can’t even sing, though I want to. I want you to know I love it too, that I listen to it and think of you every time, but my heart is lodged down my throat and all I can do is lay there and breathe.
The strumming guitar cuts sharply through our reverie, making me huff in amusement when I recognize the song. I don’t even think about it before the words come out of my mouth with reverence.
You’re the brass keyhole I fit into
You’re the wind and I am the weathervane
You’re the strawberry blonde and I’m the gray
Such boyish lyrics, romantic in a senseless, dirty-messy kind of way.
You’re the light and I am the firefly
You’re the star and I am the blackened sky
I open my eyes to find you staring at me with a sort of amazed wonder.
“You looked it up. I can’t believe you looked it up.”
“I said I liked it when we first listened to it, didn’t I?”
You’re smile is so surprised and pleased I just have to lean down and taste it.
When we part, the song is ending, and the stars are blinking away to the rhythm of our labored breaths.
Stroke by stroke you fill my empty soul with color…
When it’s time to say goodbye it finally feels like it was supposed to. We sit on a bench for longer than required and I can just tell I’m not the only one who doesn’t want to leave before getting what I came here for.
I see myself reaching out for you in a million different ways yet none of them come to be outside my head.
We can’t stay much longer; it’s too late already. Four turns into four thirty and counting.
I get up because I can see clearly now that nothing is going to happen. I give you an awkward kiss on the cheek that I planned to make a kiss kiss, but I didn’t. So there’s another chance missed. Another fallen star.
You open your mouth like you’re about to say something when Miko runs along to the other side of the parking lot and you give me an apologetic look before running after him.
I turn around and walk to my car without looking back once, and only when I’m inside and safe can I close my eyes and start to calm down.
And that’s how it ends.
“It’s getting late.”
I hum in agreement yet neither of us moves. It’s four am. It’s getting more early than late but I’m too content to do something about it.
My eyelids are drooping from drowsiness and my limbs feel numb with exhaustion.
You move closer to me and I burrow deeper into your shoulder.
“We should go.” I say, even as I almost purr from the way you’re stroking my hair.
“Yeah we should…we sh-should go. Oh, that’s…”
I giggle into your neck and keep suckling tiny red bites all along your collarbone. You turn your head then and catch my lips with your own.
I nip playfully at your lower lip and you gasp before letting out a breathy chuckle. You run a hand down my side and up my chest and I melt into you with a content sigh.
“I guess we could s-stay for a bit lo-oh-longer, right?”
“Yeah that’s...best idea ever.”
We lie in the sand kissing and playing until the sun comes up and your skin turns pink and your hair has gold in it, and nothing has ever been more beautiful.
