I will forever remember that moment.

I was with my friends. Friends that offered the distraction of amusement so I could just drink momentarily forgetting about the static of the day. You walked in with your own group of personal entertainers and, by some force, immediately drew my attention.

The bar was crowded but not enough to shield me from making eye contact with you. That look in your eyes, one of bashful innocence. Like a woman showing up to her first day at a new job, trying to fit in or maybe just trying not to be a target.

God, you were gorgeous.

I knew there was more. I knew what was hidden behind that cute facade of purity. It’s the same look I see staring back at me in the mirror. A mask for pain, and the shamefulness of foolishly falling in love more times than anyone has fallen for me. A hiding place for the empty feeling of laying in an open field, alone. Gazing up into the cold, starry night sky and wondering, like a child, who else I share it with.

No, looking in isn’t always an easy place to go.

By calculated chance I ended up next to you and we exchanged nervous banter. We played the games lovers play. Lame pickup lines and ‘What’s your sign?’ to break the awkward ice. Eventually, the stones I had piled around my heart began to roll back, and I knew you would see the scars.

I smiled clumsily and offered you a shot of bourbon, to calm you, dull the edge so to speak. You swallowed it back and returned the smile. I watched it slowly fade from your lips as you leaned in heavily. We kissed. I felt the warm burn of your whiskey-laden tongue trace over my scars, like you were trying to coax them into revealing the stories they hid.

I pulled back. You pressed forward.

You whispered something into my ear to silence the voices. Voices that screamed like the howling shrill of wolves stalking prey in the cold, dark wood. Voices that haunted you too and only when we meshed them together would they cancel each other out.

So, I leaned heavily back into you.

I smelled the subtleness of your perfume. It elegantly mixed with hints of smoke and stale beer that clung to the fabric of the drunks surrounding us. It charged me. Electricity bounced off my skin igniting the stimulating throbs of want that engorged my nipples and clit. I could tell you felt it too.

The words we would exchange that night were meaningful by necessity, yet meaningless in their essence. We both knew it wasn’t the time, nor the place to delve into the deep fleshy pit where we keep our skeletons and regrets from fucked up childhoods. But, I won’t ever forget the look in your eye. That inviting look told me everything I needed to know.

I wanted so badly to leave.

I wanted to take you back to my place and strip off the clothes that cloaked our vulnerabilities. Lay next to you on the bed so our hands could discover what each of our bodies were for. Fit our pornographic fantasies together like puzzle pieces until our eyes rolled back in orgasmic perpetuity.

Somehow, you were able to touch those visions in my head. You grabbed my hand and pulled me outside, leading me away from the noise of the bar, to a beach across the street.

The sun had long said goodnight to our half of the world letting the moon have her time to play. It was a cloudless night so the light was just enough for us to see. Our whiskey buzz, mixed with the unstable sand, made us stumble as we strolled. I remember falling into your arms and laughing.

You held me.

The laughter quickly trailed and we began to sway, as if we both heard the same beat. The ocean offered an accompaniment of percussion as she crashed her fury into the sand then retreated with a gentle 'woosh'.

We danced to the music in our hearts on the backs of crushed shells.

You would tell me how often you ask that tide to carry away your ‘What-if’s?’ and ‘Someday’s’. I knew then that just like me, you were stuck. A couple of lost souls caught somewhere between night and morn.

I dragged you down into the cool, damp sand. You interlaced your fingers with mine and, through the connection, I felt myself starting to absorb into you like water entering water. We laid there in silence. Two starfish staring up into the same starry night sky. There was a certain subtlety to that moment. For the first time, my childish wonder was replaced by the ability to see the wonderment that sky has to offer.

I felt a firm, lingering squeeze of your hand and I knew, you saw it too.