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I took in the magnificence, the waters fading to inky black under the darkening storm clouds rolling in, the warm colors of the setting sun behind me only highlighting the edges of each cloud.
It was at that very moment that I remembered something. A moment I had nearly forgotten after all this time. “Hey, do you remember during our senior year, we dared each other to watch the sunrise over the cemetery just outside the campus?”
“God, I almost forgot,” he breathed. “I remember it was in the spring semester, sometime in March or April.”
“Close to graduation, I think. Before that night.”
“You were freezing,” he laughed.
“So were you! And if I remember rightly, I was the one smart enough to bring a blanket.”
“Yes, but not smart enough to bring more than one.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault you didn’t think of yourself. To be honest, it may have been my subconscious trying any excuse to be close to you.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and stared out over the ocean with me. “We had to curl under that tiny blanket on the steps of a little mausoleum. It was creepy at that time of day. I’m not ashamed to admit, I was wearing my roommate’s cross necklace and had a pocket knife on me for protection.”
“A cross necklace? Really? Did you have a clove of garlic as well?”
“We were kids back then. What do you want from me?”
I sighed, breathing in the ocean air, his scent, reminiscing. “You still would have those things if we did it today, wouldn’t you?”
“Definitely,” he replied without a breath. “God. If you could go back, what would you say to the younger you? What would you do differently?”
I thought back to that night, the two of us sharing each other’s warmth on a marble step perched on a hill looking over the entire campus, guzzling sugary energy drinks to keep from passing out. I remembered his friendship throughout the four years we shared in that establishment, helping me out with my articles for the newspaper until I could be creative, sharing notes in our classes once we started scheduling them together. And I wondered, what would I do if I knew then what I know now?
“I would have kissed you,” I said. “Right there, at the mausoleum, I would have cuddled up close and planted one on your cheek, at least.”
“We were both in relationships then,” he said.
“And how is that really so different from now? At that time, Annie was about to break up with you, and I was maybe a month or two from being totally fed up with whatever his name was. I don’t know what would have happened in the long run, but maybe we both could have avoided the last decade with the wrong people. So, if I had to relive that night with my current knowledge, I would have kissed you. Even if you were with Annie.”
He was quiet for a moment, still holding me close. “So much wasted time,” he said finally.
“I’ve been waiting all this time for Fred to treat me like you always treated me, and we weren’t even dating. Your friendship was the one thing I compared them all to.”
He turned me to face him, the shadows casting his face into a more serious expression than I was used to seeing from him. “No more wasted moments,” he said. “No more hidden feelings. I want this to be real.”
Perhaps it was the humidity in the air, but I was suddenly covered in a thin layer of sweat, my skin sticky in the heat between us. The steady pulse throbbing between my thighs, though, was purely a result of staring into his burning eyes, my desire to tear his clothes from him in an instant, of coming together until the world around us slipped away.
“Being here doesn’t seem real, does it?” I said. “It’s a fantasy. Like a dream we’re having between episodes of real life. Until we really say it to them, really end it for good, that’s all it will be, isn’t it?”
“So we agree?”
I was sure. I had never been so certain of anything other than my choice of career at a very young age. I felt the same conviction fill me as I surrendered to his gaze.
I nodded. “Blow shit up so we can rebuild together.”
Amusement pierced through his seriousness. “You’re horrible,” he jested. He pulled the phone from his pocket. “No time to detonate but the present.”
“You’re calling her now?”
“Aren’t you?”
Embarrassed, I said, “I left my phone back in the cabin. Plus, isn’t it kind of late in Connecticut?”
I watched him do the time zone math on his fingers and then grimace. “It’s after midnight. But you know what? She’s usually up late, and it’s pretty clear to me that she’s moved on herself, so I’m not waiting anymore.”
