Moonglass

There’s no way I could stay and look out at the place where my whole family died right in front of me.”
    My chest squeezed hard, forcing the air out of me slowly. I had. For nine years. I’d stared straight out at cold, black water, apologizing for whatever it was I’d done and willing her to come back, wondering what I could have done differently.
    Tyler turned to me. “You okay? You wanna get outta here?”
    “Yeah. I … I need some fresh air, I think.” He looked at me for a long moment, trying to decipher what had changed. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to sound normal. “Let’s go.” I ushered him in front of me and tentatively put my hand on his shoulder as we made our way back out to the door.
    It was lighter than I expected it to be when we stepped onto the porch of the Carter Cottage. The tang of the salt air, coupled with the smack of a wave, opened my chest up and I breathed in deeply. Tyler was looking at me, his flashlight pointed at our feet. I raised my eyes to meet his and hoped that he couldn’t see what I had felt.
    “You get a little spooked in there?”
    “Yeah. Sorry. That was …”
    “It’s okay. I don’t blame you.” We were quiet a moment, and he smiled. “Although I did warn you it was creepy.” A stray strand of my hair rose with the breeze, and I shivered, then tucked it away behind my ear.
    “You cold?” Tyler unzipped his hoodie and took a step closer, offering it. It was, of course, a nice gesture. In a different moment I might have thought of it as cliché, maybe even laughed it off or teased him a little. Now, though, it felt like a prelude to a moment of possibility, and the thought made me tingly with anticipation.
    “Thanks.” Smiling, I slid my arms into the too-big sleeves that were still warm, and pulled it tight around me.
    “Wanna walk a little?”
    I nodded, and we stepped off the porch and back over the fence onto the sand. The fog had risen to form a hazy white ceiling above us, and the few nearby lights reflected off it, creating a pale glow. We walked in the wet sand at a slow, meandering pace with no destination other than, in my mind, the moment we had missed out on more than once before. I glanced over at Tyler, who picked up a pebble and rubbed the sand from its surface with his thumb. He stopped abruptly, then raised his eyes to mine and opened his mouth like he was going to say something. I waited. Breathlessly would be only a slight exaggeration. Then he turned and chucked the pebble into the water, where it skipped over the surface twice before disappearing. “So is your curiosity satisfied now?” Tyler asked, taking a step to keep going.
    I wanted to be bold. tell him no, it wasn’t. Stop him, turn, and lean in close—so close, he couldn’t mistake it for anything else.
    “Maybe,” I managed. “I might want to see some of the other ones, though, another time.” Not quite as bold as I’d imagined, but it still left an opening. We walked side by side.
    A smile, not a smirk, spread over his face, and he looked over at me, our footsteps slowing. “I think that could be arranged.” In the pale light reflected off the water and the clouds, I could just make out his eyes, looking at me intently, and I knew we were close. All it would take was a step forward, a tilt of the head, a tiny risk. The seconds stretched out between us.
    I stopped walking and turned to face him. “Good. Because I … You …”
    I saw his head tilt slightly as he leaned in, and before I had time to think about it, his hand was warm on my cheek. And he kissed me. A slow, sweet kiss that was confident and gentle at the same time, that tasted like salt, and mint gum, and perfection, and that seemed to ask a question he already knew the answer to. I melted into it entirely, and in that moment nothing else existed. We lingered there after, our foreheads tilted together, not sure what to say.
    Then Tyler whipped his head back abruptly.
    “Shit.” He was looking past me, down the beach. “Headlights.”
    I spun around. “That’s my dad.” We watched the beams rise and fall over the sand at the south end of the beach, definitely coming our direction. “He’s going to my house. Dinner.”
    Tyler was taking off his shoes. “Run. You need to run home. Now. Go.”
    I burst out laughing and slid my sandals off. “Are you serious ?”
    “Yeah, I’m serious. What do you think he’s gonna do if he gets home and you’re not there? Go.” He was