sit down here on the sand and wait. Or I can take off my dress and go in. It feels like a pivotal moment in my life. Stop thinking so much, Claudine.
I wait till his head disappears under the water and pull off my dress. I drop it on top of his clothes, and now I’m in panties, no bra. I leave my bottoms on, cover up my chest with my hands, and half skip, half walk to the water before I can change my mind. I wade in until I’m up to my waist and then crouch down so that the ocean covers me.
Miah is a dark shadow in the distance, diving in and out of the waves like a dolphin. I crouch-walk a little farther and then remember Danny and the rip current and the fact that this is apparently a breeding ground for sharks. I stop and wait, heart pounding louder than the surf. A minute or two later Miah swims toward me. I crouch lower, trying to gather the water over me and around me. He comes up for air two feet away. In the light of the moon, he is glowing.
“See?” He grins. “Delayed effect.”
We tread water, eyes locked. For some reason, it feels momentous.
He says, “Jesus, you’re beautiful.” And kisses me.
And then he’s under the water again, and I swim after him until my feet can barely touch the bottom. The water is warm and gentle. The surface of it catches and holds the moon.
I think about the future being fluid like this ocean, and then I imagine myself part dolphin, part mermaid. I swim to Miah and wrap my legs around him, and even though I’m not naked, he is, and somehow this feels like the closest I’ve ever been to a boy. His arms are around me and we bob and float like this, my cheek to his, my chest to his, my heart to his, for a long time.
* * *
—
He walks naked all the way back to the pile we’ve left in the sand, and I can’t help but sneak peeks at him, lean and gold, wet skin glimmering in the moonlight. When we reach our things, I pull my dress back on, and it sticks to me like seaweed. He grabs a towel and offers it to me, and then grabs one for himself. And that’s when I let myself really look at him—all of him. And it’s very, very clear that our time together in the water has affected him.
So now I’m trying to look everywhere but at him.
“What’s going on, Captain?”
“Nothing. The moon is just so beautiful.”
He laughs and finally he pulls on his shorts. We sit down on the blanket he’s brought and drink the sodas he’s brought, and I don’t want the night to end. I think, I could stay here. I could live right here. And then for some reason I’m thinking about the Claude I was before this summer, the girl who didn’t know that people go away and love can change its mind. This is how I feel in this moment on this beach under the moon with this boy—like me again.
We sit side by side, arms touching, and we don’t say a word. We watch the water and wait. The waves are rolling in and out, and in the dark, in the black of the night, they sound ominous, like thunder. I shiver, and without a word he hands me his shirt. I pull it on, even though the night is so warm that my skin is damp from the air, not just the water, and my hair is sticking to my forehead.
We sit there for maybe an hour or longer. I lose track of time, and I like the fact that it could be midnight or it could be two a.m. Time doesn’t really matter here, no matter what my mom says.
We sit like this, both of us staring out at the ocean. My arms wrapped around my knees, his propping him up as he leans back, long legs stretched out in front of him. I’m filled with this feeling of apart but together. We are the only two people in the world sitting here in this spot on this island waiting for the turtles to emerge from the sea.
At some point, I think I see one down along the beach. I lean forward, and I know he sees it too because he sits up. Together we hold