An Open Sky

Chapter Sixteen ~Alexa~

Jay was sitting on the beach below me. He had on black and gray plaid swim trunks and a white t-shirt. The sleeves on the shirt were cut off, exposing his upper arms and sides. I silently slipped off my blue flip flops and dropped them in the sand next to him. He jumped and turned his head up at me, smiling.

                “Hey, stranger,” I said, climbing down onto the sand next to him. “I didn’t keep you waiting too long, did I?”

                “Not at all,” he said, standing. He came over closer to me and grabbed my elbows, pulling me into him. “You ready?”

                I nodded and unzipped my sweatshirt exposing my skin to the cool air. I slipped out of my shorts and tossed them on the beach with my sweatshirt. Sand in my clothes was the last of my worries at the moment. He smiled, looking me over. It reminded me of Aidan, how he looked me up and down. I wondered what he was doing, if he was still in the house…

I grabbed Jay’s hand in mine and pulled him to the quiet, gray water. The breeze pushed it up closer to us, pulling us with the water as it retreated back to the lake. It lapped up against the rocks, angrier than the first time I’d visited. My heart raced as my feet sunk into the chilling wet sand below me, just before the water’s edge.  

                “Slow down,” he said, pulling his hand out of mine. He reached over his head and pulled off his shirt, exposing the muscles that I’d imagined before, always slightly visible underneath his skin-tight t-shirts. He smiled, watching me watch him, and took off running at me.

                I ran from him, not really trying too hard to get away, and let him wrap his arms around my waist and pick me up off of the ground. A mixture of laughter and screaming escaped my lips, just like the sound that would be created with my friends back in Melrose when we’d skip school and go to the beach for a day. We would run and jump into the water; we’d let it take us, sweep us out deeper until the rest of our friends had to rescue us. It was dangerous, but the rush was worth it. Jay carried me all the way to the water’s edge.

                “Ready?” he whispered into my neck.

                “Ready for what?”

                “To go in the water; that’s kind of what swimming is,” he taunted. My toes hit the chilling water below us. I watched it lap against Jay’s legs, feeling the goose bumps rise on his arms.

                “No duh,” I said, casting a smile at him. Without warning, I was thrown into the water. It felt like ice, penetrating my skin. It swirled around me, numbing each cell in my body. I could feel the rush of Jay jumping in next to me. In no time, his hands were wrapped around me again, pulling me up into the once-cool air. It felt warm now. I came up gasping for air, but it felt good. He pulled me close. His skin was smooth and cool from the water, but the longer I was against him, the warmer his skin felt against mine.

                I started to shiver. He pulled me closer, wrapping his arms around me. “Let’s go,” he said, pulling me out onto the beach again. We ran back to our clothes. I pulled my sweatshirt out of the sand. “Wait,” he said handing me a dark blue beach towel. I smiled and took it from him, wrapping myself in the warm fabric.

                He walked over and pulled me into his chest, moving his hands back and forth over my back to keep me warm. His fingers stopped at my shoulder, toying with the straps of my swimsuit. “I-if I go h-hypothermic and d-die i-it’s all your f-fault,” I stuttered, smiling at him.

                He grinned and shook his head. “I won’t let that happen,” he said, resting his forehead on mine. A drop of water dripped off of his nose onto my chest. I could feel it run down all the way to my stomach and then soak into the towel. “Will you come home with me?” He whispered in my ear.

                I pulled my head back to look into his dark eyes. I could only nod. Even as he smiled and pulled me up the embankment, my thoughts were anywhere but on him. My thoughts were abruptly flooded by the image of Aidan leaning in to kiss me. I suddenly wished he would have.

                A strange scar on Jay’s back interrupted my thoughts. He lead me through the trees again, his shirt and my clothes in hand, moving branches out of my way just like before. But this time I could see his back. It wasn’t a tattoo. I knew that. But as I looked closer, I noticed that it was a very detailed mark of a snake wrapping itself around a gun with the barely legible number 786 underneath it. As I stepped closer to him I could make out the letters SNE within the snake. It was located on the top of his left shoulder blade. It was almost as if he was branded.

                He turned back around to let me step onto the road first. I wasn’t going to confront him. I walked past him; trying to ignore the mark and tell myself it was nothing, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about it. There was something he wasn’t telling me.