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flower petals, but with an intensity behind them. I take it slow,
let each moment pour into the next. Feel her skin, her breath.
Taste the condensation of our contact, linger in the heat of it.
Her eyes are closed and mine are open. I want to remember
this as more than a single sensation. I want to remember this
whole.
We do nothing more than kiss. We do nothing less than
kiss. At times, she moves to take it further, but I don’t need
that. I trace her shoulders as she traces my back. I kiss her
neck. She kisses beneath my ear. The times we stop, we smile
at each other. Giddy disbelief, giddy belief. She should be in
English class. I should be in bio. We weren’t supposed to come
anywhere near the ocean today. We have defied the day as it
was set out for us.
We walk hand in hand down the beach as the sun dips in
the sky. I am not thinking about the past. I am not thinking
about the future. I am full of such gratitude for the sun, the
water, the way my feet sink into the sand, the way my hand
feels holding hers.
“We should do this every Monday,” she says. “And Tuesday.
And Wednesday. And Thursday. And Friday.”
“We’d only get tired of it,” I tell her. “It’s best to have it
just once.”
“Never again?” She doesn’t like the sound of that.
“Well, never say never.”
“I’d never say never,” she tells me.
There are a few more people on the beach now, mostly
older men and women taking an afternoon walk. They nod
to us as we pass, and sometimes they say hello. We nod back,
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