We swam for a while, and I splashed her in the face every chance I got, until I think she finally had enough and swam back to the dock.
“Have you ever kissed a girl before?” Bray asked, taking me by surprise.
I glanced nervously at her to my left; we both moved our feet back and forth in the water.
“No. Have you?”
Her shoulder bumped against mine hard and she giggled and made a horrible face at me.
“No way. I wouldn’t kiss a girl. Talk about gross.”
I laughed, too. Really, I didn’t realize what I had said until after she pointed it out; I was too blindsided by the kissing topic to notice. But I played it off smoothly as though I was just being weird.
“I’ve never kissed a boy,” she said.
There was an awkward bout of silence. Mostly the awkwardness was coming from me though, I was sure. I swallowed and looked out at the calm water. Every now and then I heard a random firework pop off in the distance somewhere. And the song of crickets and frogs surrounded us.
Not knowing what to say, or if I was supposed to say anything at all, I finally added, "Why not?”
“Why not, what?”
“Why haven’t you kissed a boy before?”
She looked at me suspiciously. “Why haven’t you kissed a girl before?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. I just haven’t.”
“Well, maybe you should.”
“Why?”
“I dunno.”
Silence. We stared out at the water together, both of us with our hands braced against the dock’s edge, our bodies slumped between our rigid shoulders, our feet moving steadily in the water pushing poetic ripples outward across the surface.
I leant over and kissed her on the cheek, right next to the corner of her mouth.
She blushed and smiled. I knew my face must’ve been bright red, but I didn’t care and I didn’t regret it.
I wanted to do it again.
Next thing I know, Bray is jumping up from the dock and running back out into the pasture.
“Fireflies!” she shouted.
I stood up and watched her run away from me beneath the dark star-filled sky and she grew smaller and smaller. Hundreds of little green-yellow dots of light blinked off and on out in the wide open space.
“Come on, Elias!” her voice carried my name on the wind.
I knew I’d never forget this night. I couldn’t have understood why back then, but something within me knew. I would never forget it.
I ran out after her.
“We should’ve brought a jar!” She kept reaching out her hands, trying to catch one of the fireflies, but she was always a second too late.
On my third try, I caught one and held it carefully in the hollow of both hands so that I wouldn’t crush it.
“Oh, you got one! Let me see!”
I held my hands out slowly and Bray looked inside the tiny opening between my thumb and index finger. Every few seconds my hand would light up with a dull glow and then fade again.
“So pretty,” she said, wide-eyed.
“Just like you,” I said, though I had no idea what made me say that. Out loud, anyway.
Bray just smiled at me and looked back down into my hand.
“OK, let it go,” she said. “I don’t want it to die.”
I opened my hands and held them up, but the firefly just stayed there crawling across the ball of my thumb. I leaned in to blow on it and its tiny black wings finally sprang to life and it flew away into the darkness.
Bray and I spent the whole night in the field chasing the fireflies and laying on the grass, staring up at the stars. She told me all about her sister, Rian, and how she was a snob and was always mean to Bray. I told her about my parents because I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. She said I was lucky. We talked forever, it seemed. We may have been young, but we connected deeply on that night. I knew we would be great friends, even better friends than Mitchell and I had been and I had known him since first grade and he tried to con me out of my peach cup at lunch.
And before the night was over, we made a pact with each other that would later prove to live through some very troubled times
“Promise we’ll always be best friends,” Bray said, lying next to me. “No matter what. Even if you grow up ugly and I grow up mean, you’ll always be my best friend, Elias.”
I laughed. “You’re already mean!”
She elbowed me.
“And you’re already ugly,” she said with a blush in her cheeks.
“OK, I promise,” I gave in, though really I needed no convincing.
We gazed back up at the stars; her fingers were interlaced and her hands rested on her belly.
I had no idea what I was getting into Brayelle Bates. I didn’t know about such things when I was nine. I didn’t know. But I would never regret a moment with her. Never.
*