A young boy and girl twirl hand in hand, no music but the whisper of air and the brush of sea, no light but the few stars that shine and the white calm of a full moon. Their eyes do not see each other’s, for their eyes choose not to. Around Her neck is the silver stone of a cross, a testament to where she was born and by whom she was raised. Around His there is nothing but bare skin and the stubs of hair that grow there, hinting to the world that some day he will be a man, but as of now not yet. As of now he is still a boy, and she is still a girl.
“I believe in Him,” she says. On the cliff where they spin there is a large lurching tree, glowing blue under the moon’s gaze. She looks at it instead of the boy’s eyes, and she watches its leaves lift under a gentle wind.
“I don’t.” His voice still holds the last of youth to it, but still, his voice is deep, the last of those old boyish cheers fading. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t.” Down the slope of the hill they have climbed he can see the church, white and tall, and he watches as the first few lights of its windows go out. He rocks her back and forth, his forehead nestled into her hair, his chin at an angle near hers, and he thinks of what they are. He laughs then.
She stops and looks at him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s so funny?”
“This.” He shrugs his shoulders, raises his eyebrows at her, then nods to himself. “Us.”
Her eyes do a dance from left to right, searching his, and then her brows furrow. “If it’s funny then we can stop, jackass”--
“Pretty little Catholic girls shouldn’t say such shitty things."
Her face flashes red. She is a girl, and he is still a young boy. There are things you don’t say, tones you don’t fall in to, but youths pride has held him from learning this yet. He smirks. “Isn’t shooting the barrel going to send you off to hell? I mean, I’m already going and all but”—
“Shut up.”
She turns and begins down the hill, the grass poking her ankles. He puts his hands in his pockets, rolls his tongue inside his cheek, and watches her go. She is halfway down when he decides he doesn’t want her to go just yet. He glides down after her, swings around front, and restrains a smile when she jumps.
“I’m sorry. Look.” He makes an effort to sigh, tucks his head down, and slows forward. Had she truly been mad, she would have left right then. But she isn’t. She’s just as eager for a fight as him, but just as eager to stay hand in hand. “I’m being dumb, I got it. I’ll be good, promise. Let’s just avoid the religious stuff, alright? You know I’m not good with that shi—stuff.”
She doesn’t answer. Sinners or not, she’s still friends with the girls at school, and the consensus is that you let the boys make the move. When he offers his hand, she takes it. When he walks back up, she follows; and he is cute, and she is happy. He is nervous, and so is she, but neither show what they feel. One feigns confidence, one feigns anger. Inside both, butterflies swirl.
They return to the top of the crest. Instead of dancing, they sit down, beneath a swaying shadow birthed from bundles of leaves. Their legs dangle over the cliff, above spires that rise like teeth from the shoreline below. The ocean holds its breath then crashes into the rocks, and between them both it is the only sound. A wind lifts both their hair and the moon shines in both their eyes.
“So,” he says. He gropes for anything. He gets nothing. “Yeah.”
She smoothes out the bottom of her dress, swipes her banes out of her eyes, and concentrates on the small lift and dip of waves while watching him out of the corner of sight. He stares intently at the moon, and she believes with reticent cheer that he is spying on her just in the fashion she is him. But, of course, she is a girl and he is a boy. The moon holds his attention, and though sixteen and already close to being a man, he wonders what it would be like to see that moon from the head of a pirate ship. Not until the girl picks her bosom up and scoots closer to him does he remember his mind should be focused on other matters.
“Why are you in that, anyway?” he asks.
“In what?”
He flicks a thumb over his shoulder, down the hill, down to the church. “That. What’s the point of it?”
“You said you didn’t want to talk about it.”
He shrugs. “Nothing else to talk about.”
Yes There Is, she thinks but doesn’t say. “The Lord and the Holy Spirit will lead everyone who is faithful into salvation.” It is something that around family and friends she can say with confidence. Around him, the tone is flat.
“Right.” He refrains from snorting. “Sorry, but how can you prove that?”
“You don’t need to prove faith.” Her face is hot, and she thanks the white of the moon for hiding this. “You just know.”
“How can you know what you can’t see, then? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Wind’s real. You can’t see wind.”
“Yes you can.”
She lifts a small eyebrow, looks at him. “How?”
“Like this.”
He digs his fingers into the soil. He pulls. The grass tears and rips loose. Crumbs of earth fall as he smothers the black clumps of them in his fist. He massages the last of grain off, and holds the green strands up to where she can see them, bright emerald under the moon. “Watch,” he says, and his lips smooth into a smile. She stares at them and imagines a soft touch. For a moment she forgets what he is trying to prove. Then she turns scarlet and forces her eyes back to his hands. He does not see this.
Three seconds pass. The waves break up against the rocks. A low wind brushes the leaves and the grass in his palm whisper forth an inch, but no more. He looks at her. His smile becomes a grin. It takes everything in her not to look at his lips.
"Told’ya,” he says. “They moved. That’s the wind.”
"You couldn’t see it.”
A stronger gust prods from behind them, and both their clothes and hair whip forward in lashes. He throws the grass into the air. The gale carries them into a spiral. They wink and glitter in the full of the moon. The wind ends. The blades of green rock themselves to sleep as they drift down to the surface of the ocean. They land in the sleepy blue. They wade from right to left until the ocean engulfs them.
"There,” he says. “What was that?”
She stares down the wall of the cliff. She shrugs. “It doesn’t mean God isn’t real.”
He yawns and leans back. He folds his arms behind his head. He stares at the cloud of leaves feet from his face. “I guess. But I’m just saying. You need to prove something to believe it.”
She doesn’t answer.
He takes his first step to manhood. “Well, for me at least. Like, you know, I just can’t get into that. If you dig it, fine, but it’s just not me. Sorry."
“Yeah,” she says, and lay down, mimicking his posture as she throws her arms behind her mop of hair. “Let’s not talk about it, then.
A stray leaf breaks from the group above and falls towards them. He catches it between fingers and holds it close to his nose. He studies the lines and individual pigment seen only when one takes time to brood. She looks at it as well.
“But…” she stops.
He drops the leaf, looks over, and raises an eyebrow, a look he has unknowingly taken from her. “But what?”
She grabs the verdant vagrant from the space he has dropped it between them. She runs her fingers over the dark lines, the skeleton of the stem as it shoots through the contour of the leaf like an expanding vein. She looks at the bumps that rise from its face like hills on a map. She looks at it the way a voyager would a map to the lost treasure of the world. Her eyes shine and her face glows.
“But how can He not be real? Look.” She sticks the leaf closer to his nose than he held it originally. His eyes cross as he focuses on the nuances of its intricate construction. “Thousands of these, all of them so unique and complex. That has to mean something, you know it does. He
is real. He
has to be. There’s no other way for such…such…”
“Art?”
“Yeah! We can’t just be living here because science says so. It’s too beautiful.” She looks directly at the moon for the first time, studying the face of the man who smiles down on them, and she thinks of the gap between her and it, all the little wonders hidden between her and the moon. “I mean, just look.”
And she looks at him. He looks back. Their eyes finally hold. “You really think this is all just here for the sake of it?”
He stares at her. Wind brushes both their banes. He sits up. She does too. They look at the ocean, and all its girth, and all its beauty, and all its secrets, and all its meanings, hidden beneath the waves. He stands up and stretches, and she watches him as he does this.
He puts his hands in his pockets. “If you want to, you can. But I can’t believe in him. I think it’s beautiful just cause. That’s all.” He shrugs, embarrassed at using the B word. “Maybe there is something. I don’t know. But let’s avoid it. Come on.”
He offers her his hand, and she takes it. He pulls her up, and they stand together, just as they were before, barefoot and calm under the white of the moon and cool in the brush of the sea. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
“I thought you were leaving tomorrow?”
He smiles. “I am. That makes it better.”
She purses her lips and raises her eyebrows, a half-smile, half-smirk he has come to adore. “Ok.”
“Sorry about earlier. I mean, me being a jerk and all, but you know I’m not good with that shit. Religion and all, just”—
“Shh,” she says. “Be quiet.”
She places her head onto his chest, and he is warm. He pulls her close, holds her, and then, after a slow moment that to them both could have been forever, spins with her in stride. They twirl under the moon. They spin until the moon descends and the first blankets of morning pink over the horizon. They sit once more along the cliff, and neither of them has spoken.
Two blades of grass, seemingly from nowhere, pass between them, and they both watch as the two blades rush out into the weightless air and as they fall to the ocean sea. Neither of them felt a wind.
They both turn to see where the grass could have come from, but see nothing. As they turn back, they catch the others eyes, fully, a second time. Neither of them speaks. Their eyes dive into the irises of each others. And then, before either can say anything, he leans forward and places his lips on hers. She closes her eyes, and he closes his, and the blades of grass have yet to reach the ocean.
He places a hand on her cheek, runs it up past her ear, and gently strokes the length of her hair. He wears no cross, and she wears a testament to her church. In that moment, one that belongs to no one and nothing, the world and all its taunts matter not, for the what-ifs and what-if-nots cease to take space within either of them. It is only that moment, that quick second between them. They will not stay together, they will never marry, and when he leaves from the village he will not return, and though both of them will pain, both of them will move on. Such is life. In that moment, a man who is still a boy sees a woman blind, and a woman who is still a girl sees a man lost. But they find each other for only a second, and all differences press aside.
The two wings of grass then touch waters surface. One lands with its ends pointing north and south. The second lands east to west, just above the halfway mark of the first. The green cross wades once left. Once right. For a moment it is there. A wave takes it under. Then it is gone.
The End
