Saltlight

My brother and I
throw a football
into the wind.

Sand gives under our heels.
The ocean keeps time.

That’s when I see them—
two girls
pretending not to watch.

We ask once.
They say yes.

The ball arcs higher after that.
Laughter travels faster.

Four becomes five
when another boy wanders over,
sunburned and curious.

Just like that,
we are something.

—

The week opens.

Afternoons blur into salt
and shoulder bumps
and names repeated
until they stick.

One night
we sit cross-legged on carpet
in a high-rise condo,
listening to her play guitar.

She says she’ll audition
for American Idol someday.

Her voice is bigger
than the room.

We believe her.

—

Another night—
Italian food,
paper plates,
parents laughing in the kitchen
like we’ve always known each other.

I explain tornadoes—
green skies,
sirens,
fields that don’t end—

their eyes wide
at the idea of wind
that can lift a house.

They tell me they’ve never seen
land that flat.

We trade worlds
like souvenirs.

—

On the beach
we stack ourselves
into a crooked pyramid—

someone’s phone balanced in the sand,
counting down
from ten.

At zero
we freeze—
sunburned, grinning,
eternal for a second.

—

The last night
we lie shoulder to shoulder,
staring up.

We talk about weddings.
Funerals.
Future cities.

We promise
to show up
for all of it.

Time stretches thin
at the beach.

Days feel borrowed.
Friendship feels easy—
as if salt makes it stick faster.

—

The tide does what it does.

Morning comes
without ceremony.

Suitcases zip.
Phones buzz.
Parents call from balconies.

We hug like we mean it—
like we understand
this is the only version
of us that will exist.

No one says
we might never meet again.

We don’t have that language yet.

—

Years later
I still think of them—

the girl with the guitar,
the boy with sand in his hair,
the way our names sounded
in each other’s mouths.

They were the quickest friends
I’ve ever made.

A week of possibility
that felt like a lifetime.

I left taller somehow—
braver,
less afraid to begin.

—

I know now:

Some people are saltlight—
bright,
brief,
gone when you wipe your eyes.

You don’t keep them.

You carry the glow.

And sometimes,
when the wind smells like ocean,
I can almost hear a countdown—

three,
two,
one—

and we are still there,
stacked against the horizon,
certain
we’ll see each other again.