2 years later…

It wasn't spring in Aarondale until you went swimming somewhere. April was usually the month in which it finally got warm enough to justify going to a pond or a river to cool off, and today was the ideal day for that. It was tipping eighty-five, and it was so dry. It was the kind of heat that came from there being no clouds hanging in the sky, and the sky could not have been a brighter shade of blue. As cliché as it is to say, the color reminded me of only one thing; her eyes. Though the air was so hot, the expansive country sky that sprawled out overhead looked icy cool. I could have spent days just soaking it in.

I eased the rusty old truck to a stop by a knotted willow tree and threw it into park. It was sad to feel the A/C whine down, even though it had only been pitifully choking out not-so-cool dust the whole time we were driving. It was a mental thing; knowing the air was moving made us feel cooler than we actually were, even if it wasn't actually cold. Cold. She never felt cold, she always complained that it was too hot. Even in the winter, when it dipped down into the teens, she would complain about being warm all the time. She wore sweaters to school, but she'd take them off as soon as possible. If I had to guess, her godparents wouldn't let her out of the house unless she had one on. But, it was springtime now, and that meant it was actually going to get hot, and it was going to happen quick.

"Here we are," I said, looking across the front seat at her. She was looking pensively out the window, her braided hair draped over her shoulder like ribbon. She had the faintest smile on her face, and there were small drops of sweat beaded on her temples and upper lip that made her skin glisten like polished marble. I watched a droplet roll down her cheek and onto her neck, sliding down her chest until it met the black-green fabric of her bathing suit top. She looked too beautiful to be real. Some days, when I'd see her walk away into class or up her front steps when I'd bring her home, I'd find myself afraid that she would just…disappear. Like a dream, or a ghost.

I gave her a light tap on the arm. She seemed startled. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, "I must have spaced out." She tucked some loose hair behind her ear with her left hand, and I watched her dainty fingers bend and curl with flawless grace. Perfect, I think I was right. She looked from me to the pond and back. "Are we here?"

I laughed. "Yep, yep," I said grabbing the cooler off the floor and hopping out of my door, "last one in's a rotten egg!" She scoffed playfully, opening her door as well and collecting the towels and picnic blanket from the seat between us. I was long gone by the time she'd shut her door, already having dropped off the cooler by the base of the willow tree and hung my shirt on one of the low branches. "Geronimo!" I leaped from the top of the declined bank out over the pond, tucking my knees into my chest. I hit the water hard, its frigidness catching me completely off guard. I felt my bottom slam into the muddy floor of the swimming hole, and I powered my legs down and exploded back up into the air with a holler.

"You all right?" I rubbed the water from my eyes and looked back up the bank to where she had called to me from. My feet landed back on the bottom of the pond, leaving me standing in water that rose to just below my chest. I was gasping and whooping, trying to adjust to the shock of how cold it was. She shook her head and laughed, slipping off the running shorts she had been wearing over her suit bottom and spreading out the picnic blanket. I stood in the cold water, shivering and praying she wouldn't need to open the cooler yet. That needed to wait until much later.

"Are you c-c-coming in or n-no?" I asked, my voice shaking uncontrollably from the temperature of the water.

"Is it a little cold?"

"M-maybe a little," replied sheepishly, "maybe I c-could have not j-jumped in like that."

She smiled a small smile. "I'm sure it's fine," she said, turning and making her way down the small bank towards the water. She grabbed her braid and started winding it up around the back of her head, prepping the hairband she had been wearing around her wrist to fasten it into a bun. Her figure was starkly silhouetted by the deep green grass of the bank she stood on, and with her arms up behind her head, there was nothing to disguise the curve of her waist and the swing of her hips as she glided towards the pond. I felt my heart cartwheel into my throat; It's really today, isn't it?

She stepped into the water and I watched a wave of relaxation wash over her face. "Oh, you wuss, this is perfect," she said, finishing the construction of the bun in her hair and dipping her hands into the water.

"Says the Ice Queen over here," I jawed back playfully, "Miss 'It's Too Hot In Here.'"

She scooped up handfuls of water and let them run down her arms. "It's always too hot," she said, "you're just not as perceptive as me." I cocked my arm back and launched an enormous wave of pond water towards her. It crashed into her midriff, causing her to yelp in surprise. She looked up at me slowly, her mouth open in disbelief.

"What? I'm helping cool you off!"

A playful grin spread across her face. "You did not…" She splashed some water back at me, to which I responded with another enormous wave. She laughed loudly, continuing to slap tiny handfuls of water in my direction. She was so much fun when she laughed, when she smiled with me. There had been times when I would wonder if she had forgotten how to smile, or if someone had stolen her laughter from her. There had been so many nights spent on the phone with her, just listening to her crying, telling her that she was safe and everything was under her control. She needed love, and she needed to trust. When she felt loved, she was a different person She was this girl, right in front of me; this girl who was splashing water in my face, the girl who had nearly passed out laughing at how I sounded talking on helium, the girl who had tickled me to tears on the train tracks outside the county fair. If only she could see this side of herself, it would make such a difference.

Our splash fight ended with me throwing her over my shoulder and, despite her laughter-laden pleas for mercy, dunking the both of us into pond. When we resurfaced, even she was gasping and whooping the way I was, and I dropped her down onto her feet so she could have full use of her arms to adjust her hair. "Oh, my God," she said, pulling the hairband out of her unravelling bun, "now my hair's going to be a wreck!" Her braid flopped heavily out of its coil and she flipped it back over her shoulder, running her hands along it and squeezing some of the water out.

"Your hair looks fine, Elsa," I said, taking hold of her hands and putting them around the back of my neck, "come here and hold on." She locked her fingers together and I shoved off the bottom of the pond and began swimming backwards towards the center, dragging her along with me. I swam out until my feet no longer touched the mud below and stopped, letting my body float up to the surface.

"What are we out here for?" she asked.

"To spend time together," I said, "what else?" I paddled my arms gently, bobbing up and down in the water. She let go of my shoulders and started treading water, looking up at me through a raised eyebrow. "What's that look for?"

"You seem…preoccupied. Is everything okay?"

It's more than okay! It couldn't be more perfect! "Yea, silly, of course it is!" I kicked towards her and took hold of her waist. "Why do you ask?"

She wrapped her arms around my shoulders again, and I tread water to keep the both of us afloat. "I have this feeling that you have something on your mind, is all," she said slowly, looking down at the water past my left shoulder. "This whole thing really came up out of nowhere."

She was right. I had sprung the idea of a picnic by the pond on her over the phone last night. And she wasn't wrong about having something on my mind either, it just wasn't something she was expecting. I smiled. "You never do well with last minute change," I said, "being spontaneous is a part of life." She pursed her lips into a half-frown, half-smirk. I started propelling myself backwards through the water in large, swooping circles, letting my legs bump against hers as they dragged lazily through the water. "I do have something to talk with you about though."

"What is it?" Her question practically cut off the last word of my sentence. She was staring intensely at me, nibbling nervously on the inside of her lower lip.

I furrowed my brow, tilting my head to the side. "Well," I said slowly, "I've been thinking a lot about what I'm going to do next year." I shook my head. "Can you believe it?" I asked rhetorically, "I'm actually graduating." My pa hadn't, he'd taken over the farm from his dad who had died of cardiac arrest. My ma had, but she didn't pass with flying colors. I was actually doing well, too. Top forty in a class of two hundred was better than she had done, and the best ranking I had ever received. Of course, I owed it all to Elsa. She was merciless with making sure I did my work and studied hard. We'd had one or two fights about my tendency to…well, "fuck around" is what I would say it is. Football and friends were so much more compelling than arithmetic and social studies, though; I don't see how anyone in their right mind could blame me.

I returned to my original train of thought. "So, I'll have to decide what it is I want to do with myself. Honestly, and you know this, I'm not really sure what it is I'm feeling like I want." I paddled away from the reeds I had been approaching and towards the center of the pond again. "There are a few things that I know for sure, but there's still so much I'm not really one hundred percent ready to commit to."

"What is it that you know?" She sounded eager, but in a desperate way. I hated that I was doing this to her, but if I had guessed right, everything was going to turn out for the better. Her tone was evidence that I was on the right track.

I took a deep breath. "Well, I know that I'm not going to college," I said, "Pop's going to have to accept I'm not going to become a football legend; schools don't want an outside linebacker with the injury history I've got." Both knees busted, two tendons snapped, three broken foot-bones, and a hernia. It was a miracle I was still in one piece. "And my grades aren't good enough for anywhere but a community school."

"That's not true," she said, "you could get into plenty of places; state schools would love to have you!"

"If I go to school, I'll lose precious time getting my own farm started," I said, "I want to grow my own crops and sell them to a grocery distributer. There's good money in organic foods, if you get there first. If I don't get working soon, I won't have anything to build the rest of my life on." I started another lap of the pond. "I don't want to stay here, Elsa; this town can't measure up to what I want to be. I love my Pop and my Momma, but they're just not where I want to be. It may not seem like it, but this is a big dream to have, and I don't want to be held back here if I can help it."

Her face dropped. I fought to bite my tongue and keep from ruining my plan, and it hurt like no injury ever did. "Held back," she echoed, "right…"

"What?" I asked innocently.

"Nothing," she said quickly. "Do…do your parents know that you want to leave? Your dad seems pretty sure you'll be taking over the farm for him."

"I'll tell him tomorrow," I said, "but that's not what I'm worried about right now." I stopped paddling, having reached a shallow portion of the pond close to the bank where our picnic was set up, and stood in the mud. It was still deep, the water reaching my shoulders, so she was floating in front of me with her arms still draped around the back of my neck. I reached up and took hold of her forearms. "I'm worried about you; did I say something?"

She held my gaze for a long time, then her focus broke and her eyes whizzed across my face like they were tracking a fly. She pulled her hands away from me and floated towards shallower water where she could stand too. "You…I guess, no," she said, "you didn't really say anything explicitly." She sank low into the water, letting the ripples kiss the underside of her chin. "It's just…graduating has been on my mind a lot too."

"You've still got another year," I said, "that's a long time. If you're worried about valedictorian, I'm sure—"

"That's not why it's on my mind," she said, slightly snappily. I closed my mouth immediately. She breathed heavily. "I'm thinking about you being gone. It's been really…" She shook her head. "Hearing you talk about how you feel held back here; I'd always sort of known that—"

"What are you saying?"

"Look, if you brought me out here just to—"

"To what? What do you think I was saying to you?"

"If you feel held back, you could have just told me!" She was standing up now, in much shallower water; I could see beneath the surface that her hands were balled up into fists. "You could have just said so, you didn't have to bring me out here and make a picnic basket and ruin my hair and—"

"Hey! Hey!" She stopped, her mouth quivering in a heavy frown. I put up two hands and motioned for her to calm down. "Come here for a second," I said softly, "I have more to say."

"No," she said, gurgling and abrupt.

"Please," I said, "you didn't let me finish; just trust me, okay?" She stood statuesque in the waist-deep water. I sighed, taking a few steps towards her. "Or, I can come to you," I said, "whatever works." I walked over to her and reached for her hand, but she stepped back and crossed her arms over her midriff, hiding her hands from me. I took a deep breath. "What I was going to say next," I began, "was that not everything here felt like it was holding me back. That thing was what was causing so much uncertainty, because it was something I had no way to be sure that it would enter the fold of what I planned on doing next. So, before I decided anything, I wanted it to be crystal clear."

She was still recoiled from my presence, one or two tears sliding down her cheek as she blinked them away. She looked sad, yes, but I could tell that I had her full attention; she wanted to know what it was I was trying to say to her.

"So," I continued, "that is why we are where we are today." I opened up my arms. "I wanted a nice, quiet place to just be together and work something out. It was going to be hot, so I figured swimming would be nice, and here we are."

"So, what," she said shortly, "what are we working out."

I dropped my arms to my sides. "Us." I rolled my eyes quickly. "I know you probably figured that out by now, but I wasn't trying to keep it a secret." I don't want to lie to you, but I promise you don't need to be upset because of it. "I already know what it is I want to say to you, do you have any thoughts about 'us' that you've been sitting on?" She didn't shake her head, but she didn't start talking either. I sighed. "Well," I said, "here's what I think…"

"When I first saw you, I didn't know what to make of you. Growing up here, all you hear about city folk is that they have loads of money and they don't know what it means to live a fulfilling life. You were so timid and quiet, not at all what I was expecting. Nobody could get in, it was like you were just trying to push people away. But then, you started talking to me. It was so strange; around others you were still cold and distant, but if we were ever alone, you became someone…amazing. You laughed, you smiled. It was addicting, I wanted more of you. I wanted to learn about you and hear your life and just show you that you didn't need to be afraid to be yourself.

"Do you remember our first date? Now, I don't mean that crummy cup of coffee, I mean our real first date. We barely new anything about each other, and you shared with me something nobody else knew, like that." I snapped my fingers to accentuate my point. "And I still haven't told anyone. I felt like you trusted me more than anyone in this town, and I made it my goal to be that person for you. I wanted to be the one to show you that people can be open, and can be loving. I wanted you to see that the person you really are is someone who can laugh and have fun and be free to do what she pleases.

"And here is where I struggle…I want to leave, but I can't just leave you. I know I've said a lot about how I want you to need me, but the fact is, I need you more. I need you to keep me going. I need you to help when I'm feeling down. I need you to level me off and keep me calm and fill in the gaps where I come up short. Without you in my life, I wouldn't be in the place I am, I wouldn't be dreaming so big. Thanks to you, I want things, I feel like my life has a meaning. You give me hope that I might just be able to end up…"

I paused. I knew I was going to get worked up if I started talking about this; she would know what I was trying to say, but even without using the words I still couldn't stop my pulse from pounding. Childhood had been rough, but I just thought that was the way things worked. Then, as I got older, and I was allowed to stay the nights at my school friends' houses, the reality of the situation began to sink in. Since I had met her, though, there wasn't even an inkling of doubt in my mind. I clenched my fist and spoke through gritted teeth.

"You've proven to me that what he does is wrong."

There were a few moments of silence as I let that sentence hang over the pond. She was pulling on the end of her braid nervously, chewing on her lower lip. I closed my eyes and sighed deeply, shaking my head. "So," I said quietly, "I want to free myself from that. I want to get away from here and do things the way they should be done. And there is the crux of my hangup; I can't leave you, but you are the reason I want to leave. I know it's not the best explanation, but please try to understand. You are both what keeps me here and what makes me want to dream beyond Aarondale. And so I'm being pulled in two different directions, you see? That's what I brought you out here for; I wanted to tell you all about where my mind's been for the past couple weeks."

She shuffled her feet in the water. "So?" The question was simple, but clear. Tell me what comes next.

"So…now I tell you what I need you to decide for me." She narrowed her eyes. "Obviously, I can't make the choice on my own. I figured, who better to help me than the only woman I would give my life for."

"You are not asking me to do that right." The words bit at me like dogs. "You are not seriously putting that on me. After all that, you're going to make me—"

"Don't jump to conclusions, I haven't explained what I'm asking yet." I took a couple steps towards her. "Go look in the cooler, and then it'll all make sense."

She looked over her shoulder, then back at me. She turned and strode back up the hill towards our picnic gear. I took another step towards shore as she undid the childproof clasp and flipped open the lid. I smiled when she froze in place. It was like life was in slow motion as she looked back towards me, eyes wider than the full moon. "We're too young…"

I folded my arms and shrugged. "It's a promise, for now; we could wait as long as we need after that."

She squatted down and picked up the object from on top of the collection of food. "I thought—"

"I knew you would think that, Elsa; it never even crossed my mind to leave you behind. I meant every word I said. I need you more than you know, and what pulls me apart at night is wondering if you would be willing to let me be with you as long as I can." I paused while she dropped the thing she had just taken from the cooler back into the container and slammed the lid shut. "So, what I'm asking you is, basically; will y—"

My words were cut off as she vaulted down the riverbank and flew into my arms. She thudded heavily into my chest and sent me sprawling back into the shallows of the pond, scrambling to resurface and breathe, and when my head broke through the water it was immediately grabbed with fierce determination. The hands on my cheeks were cool and soft, slightly wrinkled from their time in the water, and they pulled my chin up towards the approaching shadow that filled my water-clouded vision. I tried to ask what she had done that for, but my mouth was unable to move. My lips had been commandeered by the most intimate, purposeful kiss I had ever experienced. It didn't matter that I couldn't see through the pond-scum film that had coated my eyes, because my eyes were closed. I was enthralled in this moment.

Every sense was exploding with ecstasy. The touch of her wet braid on my shoulder, her tongue dancing between my lips, the cold water frothing all over me; these things made my spine tingle and my hands go numb. The vanilla of her lip gloss was like candy to me now, its smell filling my nose and drawing me towards her for another chance to let it wash into my brain. The inside of my eyelids wasn't the endless nothing of sleep, it was a canvas covered in fireworks of color that erupted without so much as a moment's rest. I could hear the rhythm of her breathing as she pushed again and again for another kiss, and then another; not even songbirds sounded this beautiful.

This was unprecedented. This was totally unexpected. Yet, when she eventually leaned away, I couldn't imagine a world without it. I needed more, I needed her in my life. Something told me I would get my wish, but I wanted to hear it anyways. I opened my eyes slowly, the filmy residue mostly blinked away. She was crying, her face inches from mine as she lay on my chest astride my stomach. She had the biggest smile on her face, and every couple seconds she would choke out a sobbing chuckle. I smiled back. "So?" My question was simple, but clear.

She wiped her cheek quickly. "You're an ass," she said shakily, laughing in a short burst.

I raised an eyebrow. "Is that what you think? You could have fooled me." I was being coy because I already knew what she was thinking; she had shown me what she was thinking.

"Of course, I will," she said, thumping my chest playfully. I grinned ear to ear. My world was now complete. There was no longer anywhere else that I would rather be.

Because it ain't in the water, floating like a bobber, soaking up that hot sunshine.

It's knowing that the woman you love thinks you'd make a good husband for her.

That, without a doubt, is where it's at.