Golden by Jessi Kirby

up. Meet my eyes. And smile like he remembered every detail of that first night the way I did. I watched a moment too long before deciding I should turn around, but by then it was too late. That was all it took.
    He glanced up, and a smile hovered at the corners of his mouth, but he didn’t seem surprised to see me there. “Hi,” he said.
    It was so casual the way he said it, and he was so out of place I had to laugh. “Hi?”
    â€œYeah. That’s typically what I say to people I know when I see them. Don’t you?”
    â€œWho says you know me?”
    â€œWho says I don’t?” He set his pencil down and smiled. It was quiet a moment. “So either you’re following me or I was right about the whole fate thing.”
    â€œOr maybe this is just a small town, where people run into each other all the time.”
    â€œAt deserted lakes?” He looked around to make his point.
    â€œI promise I wasn’t following you. You somehow found your way to the one spot I didn’t think I would see anyone.”
    â€œCoincidence, then.”
    The word lingered between us, and I thought of how many times I’d hoped for a coincidence like this since the night we met. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
    He held up the pad in explanation, then set it on the log. “Drawing. Enjoying the day. Thinking of going for a swim. You?”
    â€œI just . . . wanted to get out for a little while, and so I came here and . . .” And there he was, and the sight of himsitting there was almost enough to make me believe maybe there was a reason. He smiled again, and the warm brown of his eyes tempted me to sit down next to him and forget everything else. I looked at the ground. “I should go,” I said, but I didn’t mean it.
    â€œI can leave if you want.” He stood, but he didn’t mean it either.
    â€œNo, you were here first. You should . . .” I paused, unsure of what I wanted to say. “You should stay.”
    â€œThen you should too.” His eyes tried to catch mine, but I looked away again at the water, the mountains, the sky. Anywhere but at him, because I was afraid of what he might be able to see. Because all of a sudden it didn’t feel like we were standing on the beach anymore. It felt like we were balanced on a thin, thin line. That fragile one that divides the invisible space between something and nothing, or before and after.
    I stop there to reread the last sentence, and I know exactly what she means. And I can see it’s really happening. She’s really falling for him, and he is for her, and on the one hand I know it’s wrong, because she has Shane and they love each other and they’re perfect for each other. But the way she writes it, I think I might’ve fallen for Orion too.
    If I were her, I maybe even would have thought it wasmeant to be somehow. Despite the fact that it was wrong. Whatever it is there between them seems like the kind of thing that happens in life only if you’re lucky. But she might have actually had it with him. That connection or pull that’s there is sweet and romantic, and the sap in me wants to soak it up and see where it goes. I check my phone and flip a few pages to see how much more of this entry there is. I probably have just enough time to finish it.
    We didn’t cross that line today. He sat, picked up his notebook, and went back to sketching. I found a place close, but not too close, on the grainy white beach to sit and take off my shoes so I could dip my toes in the icy water. I lay back on my elbows and watched the sun sparkle on the surface of it. Let the warmth and the quiet soak in. And for a while we balanced there on the line like that, not saying anything, though more than once I thought I felt his eyes on me.
    â€œWhat are you drawing?” I asked him.
    â€œThe trees.” He pointed with his pencil at a group close to