FicWad

I never loved the beach until I met you. I’ve never liked the feeling of having sand between my toes, or the hot sun beating down on my back and scorching my skin. I grew up in an area known for its extreme humidity and heat, but I've never really gotten accustomed to it. You thrived in summer; I thrived in the winter.

You taught me to swim, do you remember that? I do. I remember being so terrified that I was shaking when you gently wrapped your arms around me and guided me into the water. You didn’t laugh at me as I shakily explained why I was terrified, and you squeezed my hand just before I got up the nerve to stick my head under the water. And when I came back up, I realized that you were right: it wasn’t nearly as scary as I had originally thought.

I have many memories of that day, memories that I will always hold close to me and cherish, but there is one memory in particular that stands out among them: when you kissed me on the boardwalk. I can still remember that day as clearly as if it were yesterday. I hadn’t been expecting a kiss from you, despite the fact that that date marked our one month anniversary. We had kissed before, but it had never been anything more than an innocent peck here or there.

Looking back, I’m not sure if that was due to my reservations about our relationship or not. Maybe you were trying to do what you felt was best by not kissing me that way until that moment. I don’t know, and I will likely never know. But what I do know is that, when your lips brushed over mine, innocent and light at first, before deepening into a more passionate, more overtly sexual kiss, I came alive. Colors and lights swirled behind my eyes, bright and vivid like when you turn a kaleidoscope, and I know that my knees buckled. It took every ounce of strength that I possessed to remain upright and not collapse in your arms.

It was the first real kiss I had ever received, and I wanted you to kiss me again. I became addicted to your kisses, and to you. You were the one bright spot in my life that summer, the one person I knew that I could count on in my life. When my innocence was essentially stolen from me, and I was devastated beyond belief, needing desperately to break down and let it all go, but unable to muster up the ability, you were right there, holding me close and letting me cry on your shoulder while you rubbed my back reassuringly and whispered soft, soothing words in my ear. I never thought that something I had craved for so long would be taken away from me.

I think about you way more than I should, but is that really such a bad thing? Maybe I should forget, but I can’t. Maybe it would be easier to deny to myself that you ever loved anyone, let alone me. But I can’t and would never deny that I loved you. That I still love you. I’m not sure what happened, or why you said goodbye to me that hot, sticky Southern summer afternoon. I couldn’t gauge a reaction by looking at you, and you never offered me any explanation as to why you were saying goodbye. I’ll never get an explanation as to why you left that night.

Sometimes, when I close my eyes and drift off to sleep, I can feel the soft brush of your lips on mine; can taste the cool peppermint of the gum you were chewing that night. And then I wake up, and I remember where I am and what happened. I was lucky to have six months with you, though they weren’t always perfect. God, even though I hated fighting with you at the time, I’d give anything to be able to fight with you again. To hold you again. To run my fingers through your silky, light brown hair that always, no matter how hot it was, smelled exactly of coconut shampoo, and hold you close.

But I can’t. And I’ll never be able to go to the beach again, because the very thing you loved almost more than life itself is the very thing that took you from me.