The sun had set hours ago, but it was still light on the sidewalks, where the old fashioned streetlights were silently turning themselves on, flooding the cracked asphalt with pools of golden light.

We were walking side by side, but I was too nervous – to afraid – to look at him directly, so I kept stealing snatches of the side of his face when I was sure he wasn’t looking. His messy brown hair was falling into his eyes. His long cool fingers found their way into my short sweaty ones.

I wanted to ask him so many things – What was his favorite color? When was his birthday? – but my mouth would not unbutton itself, and somehow I was greatful in a bitter way – sometimes my mouth started and then it wouldn’t stop.

It was cloudy overhead. “It’s going to rain,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“It’sgoingtorain,” I repeated louder, like it was one word.

“I know,” he says, all confident like. “And I was thinking that when it does, we can dance in it.”

Good Lord. That boy struck me like lightening.