Our first kiss was on one of those bright blue lawn chairs on the beach. I had never seen so many stars in my life. Even up at my cottage, where the sky goes pitch black and million of them twinkle down at you… not even that sky could compare to that night.

The waves crashed against the beach, lapping at the sand and sliding back into the ocean. Their gentle rushing and tumbling inhabited the stretch of sand, the only sound. The rest of the resort seemed to have fallen asleep. I felt like we were the only people in the world, the only people who belonged there. I liked it.

We were sitting close enough that I could almost hear his breathing, or maybe I just imagined it. We were still holding hands.

There’s something about the feel of someone’s fingers locked with mine, the gentle stirring of movement of their thumb against mine, the steady warmth of their palm, that is so much more intimate then a kiss could ever be. I think you can tell if a person is right for you by how their hands fits with yours.

The last day of grade eight was the first time I held Brandon’s hand. We were in a dark movie threatre, and I heard him take a deep breath, and wind his fingers through mine. His arm felt weird pressed against mine, like it didn’t belong there. My fingers felt like they were slipping from his, like my hand was drowning in his. But when I looked, his hands weren’t big at all. Simply, they just didn’t fit.

Caleb’s fit, as well as my own would. It’s like he was a part of me, right from the start. I didn’t know then just how big of a part of me he was going to become. I wish I knew. I wish I spent every single second of that trip by his side, in his arms.

There’s a lot of things I wish. I wish I was hearing his voice right now, or his heart beat. I wish I was in his arms, feeling his skin against mine. I wish I never had to be away from him. I wish I could tell him in person all the things I have so often typed, that I am writing this because of him, for him. Because there is nothing left to do. Because I’m scared I might forget all the things, all the details that we began on, all the details I depend on to keep me going. I don’t think he realizes how much I cling to those two nights we spent together. Whenever I feel that cloud of doubt starting to come over me, I just close my eyes and look back to those nights. Those two nights reassure me I can wait, that all these months of being apart are eventually going to pay off. All I have to do is close my eyes, and let the picture play in my head. Let the colours fly by in mind. The blackness of the night, the lurid blue of the lawn chairs, the green of the neatly trimmed lawns. The beige of the sand, spilling over my feet and falling through my fingers like the loss of time in an hourglass.