I'll Be Here

parents found some of my stash so they’re sending me away to a boarding school.”
    “Oh,” I muttered awkwardly.  Alex was looking at the small pile of ash and paper on the ground near his feet.  Clearly the remnants of Sam’s “stash.” 
    I sat down and let my feet dangle into the shadowed air of the hole.  “Is it safe?” I asked.
    “Sure, sure.”  Sam shrugged.  “Julian Mills showed me.  And his dad was a builder you know.  And this place is manmade so…” he said it like it was a qualification.  “It opens up down there just under those big rocks.”  He pointed to a spot about fifteen feet away.    
    “Look…  I’m sure it’s safe,” he continues.  “But I wouldn’t mention it to your parents because then you’ll get a bunch of people down here and that’s not what you want.”  He said it like he knew what Alex and I wanted.
    Standing beside me, Alex wasn’t saying much.  He just had his head cocked to the side like he always did when he was thinking.  He only asked one question.  “What’s the third thing?” 
    Sam looked confused for a minute. 
    “The third rule,” Alex clarified. 
    “Oh yeah.”  He smiled then.  Conspiratorially.  “No sex.”
    Tonight, I still blush remembering the look on Alex’s face.  I wonder if he can tell in the muted light thrown by the downturned flashlight.  There’s silence and the shuffle of our feet scraping the hardened earth.  “It looks like more people have been here,” he says pointing the beam of the flashlight at a small collection of candy wrappers. 
    “Yeah, last winter I showed it to some seventh graders that live at the end of Canary Landing.” 
    I almost fall over a raised rock and I have to catch myself against the wall.  Dirt falls through the spaces between my fingers.  Here the walls narrow.  I don’t like this part but I remind myself that I’m almost to the open air of the beach.  “It was probably a mistake but I was feeling generous that day.”
    Alex glances back over his shoulder as we emerge on the other side.  The stars shift and then come into focus.  “Seventh graders, huh?  So you ruined a perfectly good hiding space.  I’m sure that Dustin loved that.”
    I speak before I can think too hard.  “I told you that I haven’t been here.  I never brought him here.”
    Alex turns and looks at me. 
    I shiver. 
    The wind blows in over the sea grapes and the maze of snarled branches and ruffles my hair in my face.  I taste the salt on my tongue.  The sound of the waves beyond the rocks is a whisper. 
    We are quiet for two beats.  Two minutes.  Two hours.  Two years. 
    “Did you want to make him jealous tonight?  Is that why you asked me to go to that party with you?”  His jaw is clenched tight like he’s waiting for me to say something that he doesn’t want to hear.
    I nod.  I don’t want to admit it out loud.   
    Alex looks up at the sky and the crowded stars.  I try to think about how this would go if I were better at this sort of thing.  I try to think of the perfect line that a cool and clever girl would think of, but if that girl exists she is not me.
    As usual Alex surprises me.  The words that come out of his mouth aren’t the ones that I am expecting.  “Do you love him?”
    I look up and straight into his blue ocean eyes.  They are alive with the nighttime lights, almost glowing with their own bright intensity.  I don’t think that eyes like those should even exist in the real world. 
    Do I love Dustin?  
    That’s a very good question.  I’d told my mom that I did.  I’d been sure of it myself.  But, now when the words should come smoothly, I can’t find them. 
    “I don’t know,” I croak.  I clear my throat and cough.  “Maybe I loved him once and maybe I still do.  I don’t know anymore.”
    Alex takes a step closer and the breeze doesn’t cut against me so hard.  “But you want him back?”
    “I’m not sure,” I say quietly pushing loose strands of hair away from my face. 
    I know once I’ve said the words that it is the truth.  Maybe yesterday I thought I wanted Dustin back but suddenly I’m not so sure what I want.  Everything is swirling and I feel like I’m a kite being held by a taut string and at any moment a large gust of wind could come along and snap it.  
    My heart is beating furiously.  Love, college, family, art... the future.  These things dance along with my pulse and threaten to spill