There was the thrill of summer – on the beach, splayed across a blanket, sausages smoking on a bucket grill, the faint smell of coconut, cheese sliced on driftwood. An average summer day.
You sat diagonally across, shaded eyes fixed on the distance, gently taking in the water as I gently took you in – hair in a tight knot, wisps flying back, a gold (pink?) hair tie soldiering in the wind. The slope of a shoulder, freckled in pigment and sand, trickling down to a single nail coated in pink (gold?).
A short exchange of words morphed into a quiet walk away from a knowing crowd, directionless but always right on the edge of the waves. We carved a path along the right.
We passed a man: “the darkest, most beautiful I’ve ever seen – almost blue."
I watched the faint curl in your upper lip as you spoke, the hint of a smile that broke out into a full bodied laugh and had to disagree. A tiny heart and key rested on your throat, and perhaps within mine. There was the thrill of summer.