Free Beach Trip by Cathy Holton Page A

in the shadows cast by the dancing fire, Sara knew his eyes were green, knew he had a small scar at the outside corner of his right eye, knew his lower lip was full and round, knew what it would feel like to kiss him. She had never, until this moment, believed in love at first sight.
    A low-lying band of fog drifted off the river. Stars twinkled above the ridgetops.
    “Your friend sure is quiet,” he said to Mel.
    The moon was low in the sky and the fire had burned to embers by the time they decided it was time to go. The crowd had gradually broken up, slipping through the trees like wraiths, and the clearing was filled now with a cold gray light. J.T nudged Mel with his shoulder. “Y’all better get back to the dorm before you get caught and put on restriction.”
    “Spoken like someone who knows how that works.”
    He laughed and jumped down from the bed of the truck, putting hisarms up to help them. He held Mel a few seconds longer, Sara noticed, and she smiled slyly up at him and said, “What’s your girlfriend going to say about you hanging out all night with a couple of strange women?”
    He let her go. “What girlfriend?” he said.
    Sara made a move to return his jacket to him but he said, “No, you keep it until we get back to the dorm. I’ll walk you home. Two pretty girls like you shouldn’t be out alone in the woods at night.” It was a corny thing to say, of course, and normally they would have protested. But neither one wanted to let him go so they said nothing and followed him across the clearing.
    “Where are you going?” Mel said, pointing at the sandy embankment they had run down. “We came this way.”
    “Next time take the trail,” he said, pointing, and they could see the dim outline of a narrow trail rising from the beach and crisscrossing the ridge, several hundred feet from the embankment. “You’re less likely to fall if you take the trail.”
    “Who says there’ll be a next time?” Mel asked.
    He stood there in the violet light, grinning at her. “Oh, I think you’ll be back,” he said.
    Sara led the way. The trail was steeper than it looked from the beach, and was covered in trailing vines that caught at their legs and feet. They were halfway up the ridge when Mel fell. Sara heard her go down like a sack of potatoes hitting a dirt floor. J.T. leaned over, picked Mel up, and set her on her feet, but she winced slightly and said, “Shit. I think I twisted my ankle.” He bent over to check her leg. In the sky above his shoulder, the faint rim of moon hung like a silver coin. He prodded her ankle gently with his fingers. Mel looked at Sara and grinned, her teeth gleaming in the darkness. “Ouch,” she said.
    It was a good thing J.T. stood between them, because if he hadn’t, Sara would have pitched Mel over the edge. All this over a boy. But not just any boy. As if to remind her of this he looked up, his face slightly luminous.
    “I’d better carry you,” he said to Mel and swooped her up in his arms. She made a faint squeak, like a small rodent being squeezed. Sara headed up the trail, trying not to hear Mel’s giggles and the soft grunting noises J.T. made as he climbed.
    “You’re a lot stronger than you look.”
    “You’re a lot heavier than you look.”
    Down on the beach someone was starting the vehicles. Headlightsclicked on, sweeping the beach. Sara picked her way up the trail, hearing Mel’s soft little cries like a knife turning beneath her heart. Almost to the crest, they stopped so J.T. could put her down and catch his breath. He stood there, tall and broad-shouldered against the fading stars, and quoted,
    “When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”
    Mel said, “I hope you’re not comparing me to a tiger. Because that’s not very flattering.”
    “Who says I’m comparing you to anything?” he said, grinning at her. “Who says it’s about you