See Dot Smile

Commencement: Part 1

Bud: Are you awake?

Dot: Yes. You okay?

Bud: Can't sleep. Graduation anxiety maybe.

Dot: Me too.

Bud: I was going to watch the sunrise on the beach. Join me?

Dot: Yep. What time should I come over?

Bud: I'll come get you. 5:30.

Dot: I should come to you. You LIVE at the beach. 😊

Bud: I know. But I need practice driving my house.

Dot: LOL. Okay. I'll see you soon.

Bud: Cream and two sugars?

Dot: Yes, please.

Bud picks me up right on time. The pre-dawn air is thick with humidity, but still carries the chill of nighttime. I hurry into the passenger seat to get out of the mist, and Bud gives me a cup of coffee and a sleep deprived smile. His skin is flushed, and his eyes are a little puffy, and I wonder if he's been crying. I hold his hand as much as possible on the ride back to the beach, only letting it drift away when he needs to signal a turn. But after a while I start doing that for him, so I don't have to let go of his hand anymore.

The first sign of dawn is already creeping over the sea wall when we arrive at the coast. A golden glow that washes all the gray, blue, green, and beige of the beach landscape in amber warmth. Bud leads me by the hand to the wall and hoists me effortlessly up onto the cool concrete. I offer my hand to help him, but he waves me off and springs up in a practiced maneuver that has him seated beside me in less than three seconds.

He opens his knees and puts his hand out to me. I read the silent invitation to sit in front of him so he can wrap me up and block the last of the morning cold from my skin. I lean back against him, and he sighs contentedly.

It's now I realize, we haven't said one word to each other since he pulled into my driveway.

I guess we didn't have to.

The sun rises like it did yesterday and the day before. The way it will tomorrow and the next day. But it feels different today. It feels special.

"Ask me again," Bud says, his voice drifting past my ear as his chin rests on my shoulder.

"Ask you what?"

"If I've ever been in love."

My heart jumps, and my skin starts to tingle, but it doesn't scare me. Bud will always find sneaky ways of poking into the innermost layers of my heart, looking for a cozy spot to take a quick nap. He'll never stop surprising me. And I'm okay with that.

"Have you ever been in love?" I ask.

"Yes," he says. "I'm in love with this. All of this. And you, Dot."

My stomach drops and I turn to him with heart broken tears in my eyes.

"It's not sad," he says, smiling at me. "I'm not sad, I promise."

"But... I am," I cry.

He leans over and kisses a tear from my cheek. I shudder and resist my selfish urge to kiss him on the lips. Now that I know what my recklessness did to his heart. And to mine.

"Don't be." He grins and turns his face toward the sunrise. "This is good. I know what being in love feels like for me now. Because I don't think it's the same for everybody. I used to think it must be, but I don't think that now."

"Did I hurt you?" I sob, running my fingers over his cheek like I'm looking for injuries.

"No," he says. "You helped me figure it out. This is what I want someday, with somebody. I want to watch the sunrise with them, and eat late night pancakes with them, and let them pick out my clothes, and dance with them, and kiss them. That's being in love ... for me. That's what I want. And I know that now because of you."

"But I want that, too," I sniffle. A sudden shot of blind certainty that I've unraveled the mysteries of the universe courses through me. "Will you marry me?"

He throws his head back laughing and it's a much-needed slap in the face. "No, Dot. I won't marry you," he says. "We're eighteen, you're in love with someone else, and you don't want to marry me. Not really."

"Why not? I could be so happy living with you in your enormous house, sleeping in your Ebenezer Scrooge bed and feeding you chocolate covered strawberries for the rest of my life."

"No, you couldn't. You'd be missing out on some important stuff in that scenario."

"What? Sex?" I scoff. "Fuck sex. What's sex ever done for me?"

"I think it's more about what you're going to do for sex," he grins. "When the time comes."

"Whatever," I grumble. "I'll suck at it the first time like everyone else."

"There is no way you're going to suck at it," he says. "You care way too much. You're going to be crazy good at it. Like, put a guy in the hospital good."

"Shut up," I blush. "You're only saying nice things to me because you turned down my perfectly legit marriage proposal."

"No. I'm saying nice things to you because they're true."

"Okay fine," I say, leaning my head on his warm shoulder. He tilts his head to rest against mine. I don't know who the hell I think I am, or what I think suggesting the impossible is going to accomplish, but I'm going to ask him anyway. "Are you sure you don't want to try it once... with me?" He's already laughing silently. "To be absolutely sure."

"Oh my God, Dot," he says into my hair. "There is nothing I've ever wanted to want more in my life. But I'm already sure. Absolutely."

I let it sink in the way it should have weeks ago. That this is where Bud and I stop moving forward. But we don't have to stop moving all together. There's plenty of room to swim around in all the good stuff we have already.

"Are you going to kiss me or what?" he asks.

I could engage him in a brief battle of wits about this, but the truth is I'm dying to kiss him. So, I do. And even though I'm certain it's not the last time we're going to do this, I treat it like it is. I let it take me to all the places it shouldn't. And let my heart and body feel all the things they want to, even though I know he's not feeling the same things. And I put my hands in his hair before he can stop me because it tickles. And when his laughter threatens to break the kiss, I put my hands back where they belong. In his.

And I let him draw little circles in my palms with his thumbs.

It's the longest kiss we've ever shared. And I know that because it's broad daylight when we finally come up for air.

"I guess we should probably go graduate or whatever," he says.

"Yeah," I say. "I guess."

But I'm not all that eager to graduate.

Maybe because it feels like we just did. 

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