When Josh agreed to hang out, I told him I’d come to Windenburg. He already knew my world; now I wanted to see his. I heard panic in his voice—stutters, octave jumps, the whole show—and pictured how cute he looked trying to play it cool. It didn’t take him long to recover, though. “Meet me at The Bluffs,” he said.
After a quick search online, I bolted out the door so fast my parents barely got in a goodbye. The Bluffs was a massive cliff that dropped straight into the ocean, with a natural pool shimmering up top like a hidden gem. By the time I arrived, the night air felt cooler and cleaner than San Sequoia’s—sharp in my lungs in a good way. Josh was already there, sitting near the pool’s edge with his sneakers half-buried in tall grass. He turned when he heard me, smiling like he’d been waiting for hours.
“This place looks totally different in person,” I said. “Way bigger. And way more … green.” I nodded toward the pool. “Do people actually swim in that?”
“Some do. Mostly tourists. Locals know better.”
I laughed. “Good, because that water looks like it would fight back.”
He grinned, that calm, quiet energy of his somehow slowing down everything around him.
“So,” I said, sitting beside him, “what’s the deal with this place?”
He shrugged. “I like the view. And it’s quiet up here. No noise. No people most of the time. Just … peace.”
“Peace,” I echoed, nodding. “Yeah, that checks out for you.”
He smiled like he took that as a compliment.
We talked for a while about graduation, what it felt like to be free, and how weird it would be not seeing each other between classes anymore. He joked that I’d forget about him once I became “a full-time adult,” which made me snort.
“Yeah, because I’m so grown now,” I said sarcastically.
He grinned. “I gotta catch up with you.”
“Bro, we’re literally the same age!”
“And yet you’re still miles ahead.”
I swatted at him. “Whatever.” The weight of everything hit me all at once, and I tried to exhale it the way Daddy always did. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do with all this extra time.”
“Maybe you’re supposed to just enjoy it,” he said.
“Maybe. But I don’t really know what that looks like yet.”
He looked over at me, steady but thoughtful. “I think you’re already doing it.”
That shut me up for a while. Luckily, he stood up and nodded toward the stone path circling the pool.
“You ever stargaze?”
“Never,” I admitted, following him. “Lead the way, tour guide.”
He laughed, then lay back on the stone, folding his arms behind his head. I joined him, staring up at a sky so bright it didn’t even look real. The city lights at home always drowned this out; I’d never realized how many stars there actually were.
“Wow,” I whispered. “Okay, this is insane.”
“Told you,” he said, still watching the sky.
We stayed like that for a while, listening to the waves crashing far below and the wind sweeping across the cliffs. Every so often, he’d point out a constellation, and I’d pretend I could see it. He caught on fast, and we both cracked up. When the ground got too cold, we brushed ourselves off and went back to the stone wall to sit. The ocean air drifted up to us, cool and salty. He looked calm. I felt … definitely not calm.
“Hey,” I said, twisting a piece of hair around my finger.
“Yeah?”
“Will you be my boyfriend?”
He blinked, then laughed. “I thought I already was.”
“Okay, yeah,” I said, grinning. “But I wanted to make it, like … official-official.”
He tilted his head, pretending to think it over. “Official-official, huh? Sounds serious.”
“Super serious,” I said, giving him a fake stern nod.
His smile made me forget how to breathe for a second. “Alright, then. Consider it official-official.”
He held out his hand for a shake, and we both lost it laughing. When the laughter faded, I looked at him, still catching my breath, my heart basically trying to escape my chest while he stayed cool as ever.
“Josh?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you gonna kiss me, or am I gonna have to file a formal request?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “You really don’t like waiting for things, do you?”
“Nope.”
He smirked. “What am I going to do with you?”
I leaned closer. “A kiss would be a great start.”
He leaned in, slow enough for my pulse to lose its rhythm. The kiss was quick, warm, a little clumsy, but somehow perfect. No fireworks, no dramatic music. Just us.
When we pulled apart, we stayed there, smiling like total idiots while the stars burned overhead and the ocean whispered below, saying everything we didn’t need to. I didn’t want to move or even breathe too hard, afraid the moment might slip away.
Eventually, he glanced at his phone, and reality crept back in—the night had to end. We stood, brushing the dust from our clothes, and started down the path toward the ferry. Every few steps his hand brushed mine, sending little electrical pulses down my spine. Finally, he just took it, and my heart started doing somersaults all over again. Neither of us talked much on the ride back. The quiet said everything: we were both just mourning the end of a really good night. By the time we docked, I already missed him. So rude of him to go and make the night perfect like that. The city lights came back into view, bright and ordinary, and I realized I wasn’t the same girl who’d left home a few hours ago.
