I cuff my pants one, no, two times, to make them short enough to wade in the rushing water. Pillows of sand deflate beneath my feet, leaving footprints at the base of the stream. I wonder if there are ghosts of your footprints swimming with the current, from your younger days, back when you played in the forgotten castle, now buried behind us in the ivy and the trees.
“Join me,” I say, extending a hand in your direction.
You shake your head, looking at your shoes.
I raise an eyebrow, keeping an emerald fixed on your soul. I hope you can feel my disappointment.
“Are you afraid of a little water?” I query.
You shake your head. Now I’ve wounded your pride, and you kick your shoes off and roll the bottoms of your jeans, exposing a patch of dark, curly hairs. Those leg hairs are so foreign, always hidden beneath a pair of pants, a direct contrast to my smooth, pale calves.
“Absolutely not,” you state, stepping off of the footbridge and into the stream. Your back faces me, and I’m tempted to reach out and touch the line running between your shoulder blades, feel the warmth of blood beneath your skin. I’m tempted to take a step closer to you, wrap my arms around your chest, and press my breast to your back, to breathe as one.
I stay where I am; I stay where I am and watch the wind subtly rustle your clothes, watch the current sweep past those hundreds of little, waving leg hairs. Fingertips ache to touch the calluses on the insides of your fingers, to lace through all five of them.
I don’t know what it is about you; I can’t put my finger on a single thing I value above another. You don’t speak much, and I don’t know your likes and dislikes, or if you have them at all. Yet I have an inexorable desire to curl up against your chest and listen to your heart, warm and beating.
I think about pushing you over, wetting all of your clothes. I might fall with you, and we will result in a delicious entanglement of soaked clothing and laughter. I will take the opportunity to close the gap between us with an innocent peck on the lips.
But I don’t do any of these things. I watch as you step back onto the rocks, shake the water from your feet. My heart sinks into the bed of sand beneath my feet and runs away with your footprints.