Tangled

I run down the broken steps, grazing the bottoms of my feet, and tumble onto the sand. I hear that he is behind me the whole way but his footsteps are silent now on the grains of sand. I glance up, panting, to see where he is.

Turns out he’s stood right over me.

“Move it, you. You’re blocking out the sunset.”

“Oh, I’m far prettier than any sunset you’ve ever seen.” He retorts with a wink. I roll my eyes. “Don’t even deny it!” He laughs.

I laugh too. How could I help it? He is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t possibly deny it.

But I wasn’t about to let him know that.

I jump up and ruffle his hair, messing it up entirely, and leg it. He runs after me, no doubt seeking revenge for ruining his perfectly crafted hairstyle. And it is perfect, usually. He keeps it swept back, exposing his forehead and letting it fall over his ears. Now, it cascades everywhere, falling over his eyes and face.

Guilty.

I keep running even though I have no hope of escape. He’s definitely the more athletic of the two of us.

The sun is really setting now. Great long beams of orange and red paint the choppy surface of the sea. I consider how fortunate we are to live this close to the beach. Little walks like this with him beside me keep me sane amongst the madness of my family. Hearing the beat and the whisper of the waves calms me and the feeling of the grains of sand between my toes soothes the soreness of being on my feet all day.

What I wouldn’t give to stay here forever.

I feel a pair of arms wrap around my waist and he drags me down for a second time. Tangled limbs accompany yet more giggles. We don’t stop laughing. We never do. The laughs don’t stop when we’re in one another’s company, especially when it's just us.

When it’s just us…

If I had my way, it would always be just us. Just me and him, and maybe my sister. I think he would feel the same. Apart from my step-sister, we both have no one. The three of us make a dream team. We’re the understudies to the three musketeers who were far more popular than we would ever be and consequently prioritized over us. We only have each other, have eyes for each other. No one else could possibly matter because, to them, we don’t matter.

To each other, we are the world.

And to me, he is the universe.

I don’t think he has a clue how much I am in love with him.

He jokes about it, god does he joke about it! He’s constantly teasing me for checking out many of the guys we come across and he includes himself among them. But whether he actually knows, or even suspects, I am clueless.

Forever, he has been the only thing I had. Even my sister only came into my life recently. He has been here forever. We’ve grown up together. We’ve been each other's place of comfort and solace. He has given me the kind of love and attention I’ve never had elsewhere because, unlike my father, his love for me is unconditional… even if it may be platonic.

As we tumble around now, though, legs entwined and rolling over and over, I begin to think to myself: What if he does know? He couldn’t possibly be comfortable with closeness like this if I was his friend. This is what lovers do. This is how lovers play. They fall over each other and hold each other, the sand getting into places where sand should not be. These private laughs could not be the jokes of friends. There must be something more there.

His eyes catch mine and my breath leaves my chest in a wave. There’s an intensity in them which even my low self-esteem couldn’t deny.

He wants the same thing I do.

Rolling on top of him, I lean forward and kiss him.

And he kisses me.

And where he has pulled up the hem of my shirt, and on the soles of my feet and the backs of my hands, the heat of the beating sun is divine. The feeling of the breeze blowing strands of hair across my cheeks and into his eyes. His hands and my hands are everywhere and, as a pact between friends, an unspoken agreement between partners, like the vows made between lovers...

We become each other.

And it's slow and it's deep and it's everything I had hoped it would be. It's the thing I had fallen asleep every night thinking about and the thing I washed away, down the shower drain, every morning before I would see him again. It’s two boys, so alike. It's two people, one introverted and one extroverted and both, otherwise, exactly the same. Its hands and hands and lips and lips and everything and everything. It's hariath finally cured. It's the sun setting. It's finishing a long and punishing day, before coming home.

His fingers are in my hair, brushing my collar, creeping beneath my shirt. My arms and the heels of my hands are growing tired from holding me above him but he wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me down, pressing our bodies together. I can’t breathe. I don’t want to breathe. I want him. The way he makes my heart speed up. The way he makes my mind quiet in a way it's never been. The way all my thoughts hone in on him and the way nothing is left except a deep and contented sigh. Oh.

And now we are tangled in other ways. Ways I would never dream of voicing out loud. Ways I would keep to myself until my dying day. Ways that make the beach and the sky and the sea disappear; simply melting away by the warmth of his touch, his body.

Him.

Finally, I have found him. Finally, he has found me. It had taken us both long enough.

And now he knows I have been here for him all along.