Page 62 of Be My Compass

She picks up her phone. Bites on her bottom lip.

I nod my understanding. Climb down the ladder. Hit the ground with my shoes.

I’m back in reality.

The ocean has an end.

Eternity lasts forever.

I tip my chin to the sky. Watch the stars swirl. Feel the wind cool my heated skin. Try to adjust my pants. Try to make reality feel real again when my world just shifted.

From the background, I hear Kaelyn’s quiet conversation. “I’m with Kastle. No. Yes. I’m okay.”

Feeling restless, I check the time on my cell phone and wait for Kaelyn to come down.

Her voice trickles back to me. “No, I don’t want to see my therapist. Because I’m fine.” There’s frustration in her tone. The snap of denial. Of a plea to be normal. “Mom.”

My eyes squeeze shut. I didn’t have to leave her up there alone.

She wasn’t asking me to.

That look she shot me before answering her mother was an apology. An I have to take this, but I wish I didn’t. I wish I could drown in you all night.

I think.

I’m pretty sure that’s what she said. With her eyes. With her stilted breath.

But I could be projecting.

My own desires could be plotting an extravagant story because I’ve wanted this for so long.

Needed it.

And now I have a taste and it’s not nearly enough.

That’s why I left.

If I didn’t…

If I stayed, I would have waited for that call to end. And then I would have knocked the cell phone out of her hands. I would have unbuttoned her jeans and dragged it to her ankles.

I’d have desecrated the innocent memories we’d made as kids with our sweat and our lips and our bodies.

I would have stained the air with her moans.

Let her lips drip sweeter whimpers.

I would have tasted her.

Invaded her.

Lit the slide on fire with the rhythm of our desperate caress.

But I can’t.

I won’t.

Because wanting to dive deep into Kaelyn is dangerous. Like a crazy adventurer trying to jump off a cliff that he knows will kill him.

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