The sand felt warm between your toes. This might be the first time in your life that you’ve felt it. The lake in town is surrounded by rocks and grass. Hardly comfortable. You run your hands through it, liking the way it feels. You take some in your hand and sprinkle it on her bronze stomach.
Some of the sand slides off her sides, her stomach hard and flat. You feel a twinge of desire at the base of your stomach. You have always liked licking those smooth planes, feeling the muscles twitch beneath your tongue.
You use your finger to move the sand around on the top, trying to make a heart.
“Are you bored?” she asks. You can’t see her eyes behind her tinted sunglasses and even if she wasn’t wearing them, her face is angled downwards to read her magazines. She flips through it casually.
“No, why? Are you?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “I just don’t know why you’re doing that.”
You stop touching her. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s not that. It feels… nice. I usually hate sand on me but maybe it’s because you’re doing it that it doesn’t feel so bad,” she responds.
You feel a smile form on your face, “that’s always the case with me, isn’t it?”
She tilts her head up, “that must make you feel really special. Only you can vanquish the cold-hearted bitch.”
You frown. “I don’t like when you say those things about yourself. You’re not that cold, if people only got to know you they would see it.”
Nia snorts, “why would I ever want anyone to see it? People don’t have the right to know everything about someone.”
You brush the sand off her stomach and lay your chin on her forehead. “That’s true. But I’m not asking you to do that. What’s so good about closing yourself off anyway?”
She closes her magazine and lays her hand on your arm. “I don’t like expectations. I can handle them from you and from my father but why should I have to from those idiots at school?”
You press your lips to her forehead, it’s hot. The sun has been beating down on both of you. You can’t say you’re used to it. Nia’s skin glistens with the sunscreen. You enjoyed running your hands along her thighs as you helped her apply it.
“You can’t avoid people expecting things from you. That’s unfortunately the con of being a person in the world. Your parents expect things from you, your siblings, your friends, your peers,” you sigh.
She squeezes your arm, “are we only talking about me, Birdie?”
You smile, “you know I used to think it was crazy that you wanted to be my friend.”
“Because you’re a loser who repels people like cow shit?” she asks, a small smile creeping on her face.
You scoff and sprinkle sand on her face which she bats away playfully. “Nooo. It’s because you’ve always been so cool and pretty and mysterious and alluring and cool–”
“You already said that–”
“And I thought that I wasn’t good enough. So when you kept being my friend all through middle school and now most of high school I still can’t believe it,” you confess. “I feel like I’m going to wake up one day and not have you here.” You touch your chest.
You can’t make out the expression on Nia’s face. She sits up, moving to sit shoulder to shoulder with you. You brush the sand off her back, admiring the way the depressions of lines sink into her skin.
She looks around. You do too. The beach is nearly abandoned. When Nia suggested you come here for Valentine’s Day you bristled. You didn’t want to be somewhere where you had to rub shoulders with running kids and noisy parents.
But the only people you’ve seen so far are a couple walking their dog. It’s isolated and near the water — so Nia. In a way, it’s kind of you too.
“I’m not good with words. Not like Imre. I could watch a doctor tell a patient that their loved one has died without showing any emotion. I know one day I’ll be able to deliver that news. But with you… words are always so hard to find. It’s like I become so fucking stupid, like I’ve never spoken English before and it annoys me that you do this to me,” she says, although her voice holds no irritation.
Your smile widens, “are you saying I turn you into a lovesick fool?”
She rolls her eyes but reaches out to take your hand and lay it against her own chest. You almost get distracted by having your hand so close to her swelling breasts. You shake your head, Jesus you turn into the fool too. It doesn’t help that Nia’s bikini is a bit small on her.
But then you feel her heart. You feel how it thumps heavily under your fingers. If she wasn’t so calm you actually might think she’s about to have a heart attack. She isn’t looking at you, her face stoic as she watches the water come onto the sand.
“I can watch scary movies, I can see people die, I can watch documentaries showing live surgeries and my BPM is stable. You don’t even have to kiss me to make me feel like this,” she admits. “Now, how could I ever let something like this go?”
You press your teeth together. You want to cry because how else could you respond to that? Nia has never told you in so many words what she feels. She likes showing it and you know the depth of her love. But the fact that she tries to tell you when you know she hates talking about feelings and love just makes your own heart beat as quickly as hers.
You plant a kiss on her narrow shoulder, gently biting it. “And you say you’re not good with words? You’re practically romantic.”
She shoves you away, not aggressively but enough to make you land on your back. You’re about to protest when you feel her warm body lay itself across yours. You can still feel sand on her stomach, it’s being trapped between your two overheated bodies.
“It’s a rite of passage to fuck on the beach on Valentine’s Day,” she asserts.
“Is it?” you nip playfully at her lips.
“Definitely,” she sticks her tongue in your mouth.
ps: lowkey this conversation is something I would like to add to the game — just reworked