34 Seconds by Stella Samuel Read Free Book Online Page A

remember many details of the conversation after he moved closer to me the first night we met Will and his soon to be best man. Once the ice was broken and we were laughing, it wasn’t long before Will and I were in the deep end getting to know one another a little better. My memory of it could still generate a nice tingling sensation in my groin, but he was really very respectful and didn’t even try for a simple kiss. Instead he flirted a lot, making me think he was as interested in me as I was in him.
    ***
    “Ow!” Liza brought me back to present day as she moaned when she tripped over a tree root. There was another sign the world around me, the world was once so clean and pure from a little girl’s eyes, was changing. Tree roots were jumping above the ground, poking through grass and causing grown women to catch themselves before falling flat on their faces. It was then I noticed a new street light near the pool, along with the same old wooden short two-rail fence and a new lock on the gate. I guess over the years there became a need to secure the pool from intruders who would jump the fence and swim late at night. Someone put a lock on a gate only about three feet tall. Anyone could just as easily climb the fence and still get into the pool. The only deterrent today was the mold and moss growing on the wooden fence, making it a bit slippery. I almost fell onto the concrete climbing over the fence.
    “There it is, Nikki. There is our pool! Hey, you know it’s not salt water anymore, right? Some loony local made it a chlorine pool. Said something about if you want to swim in salt water, the bay is right there. No one argued, so it’s chlorine now.” Liza walked ahead and sat down on a bench and took her shoes off. She threw her head back and started to breathe in the salty air. Salt from the bay, not from the pool. More change for me to process.
    Chlorine. No salt water to taste. No salt to feel on my skin. If I were to get in. I hadn’t even thought about swimming at all, but when Liza told me it was chlorine, I suddenly felt like I had to get in and swim. Suddenly I really wanted to feel and taste the salt water. And I was upset it wasn’t there. I may not have wanted to swim at all until I saw another piece of my past change for the present. Tree roots above ground, mossy fences, and chlorine. What else could be happening to my world there?
    Then I saw him. Will. Standing there against the fence, with his curly locks hanging slightly in his eyes, shorts, and a cotton button down shirt, fitting just loose enough to look sexy. Sexy. Holy shit. I could have been looking at the man I loved so many years ago. I think it is marriage and parenthood which ages us so fast. Will hadn’t been down the road of marriage yet, of course, so he was still as hot as ever. I thought about telling him before he took the fork in the road. I had paused long enough, letting my mind wander to the last time I saw him here. We had decided to meet up, and we simply sat on the cliff just on the other side of the pool playing guitar and singing songs. It was so fun and so romantic. Several people on kayaks and row boats stopped at the bottom of the cliff, listened, and applauded when we were done. I knew no one was applauding me. I had stopped singing long before the boats showed and became once again mesmerized in his reedy, deep voice. The voice which could melt my heart within the first few words. That was the last time we’d made love. Our evening on the beach was spent discovering each other again, years after our loved ended, with sand fleas jumping on the blanket we tried to stay on while rolling around, exploring our bodies as if we’d never touched before. It was the last time I had sex with someone other than my husband, since we started dating just after I returned back to Colorado. And it was the best sex I’d had in years. He held me like he never had before. Touched me with similar emotion. That was the night I learned