Hailey suggested a destination known as Knoll’s Overlook, although no signage had ever graced the roadside to stipulate its whereabouts. The hill itself resided just outside the artificial glare of Belle Falls, but at least it was far enough away so that almost any stargazer would have been delighted by the ocular affect. In reality, few sky watchers sought refuge at Knoll’s Overlook. The locals designated it as a place for adolescent thrill-seekers, and even this crew seemed to be in short supply during the winter months.
On warmer evenings, it was not uncommon to espy a gaggle of bleary-eyed teenagers assembled on the hillside, with a campfire’s smoke emanating a foggy backdrop for their gory tales. They faithfully gathered to regurgitate yarns told to them when they were too naïve to dispel such myths. As it was with the best urban legends, the one regarding the Indian Tower thrived simply because no one truly wanted to ask the questions that would have tarnished the terrifying amusement for future generations.
Of course most legends were moderately grounded in truth. The Indian Tower existed in structural form. No one denied its distinctive presence among the verdant hills. The precise history surrounding its two-story, concrete edifice, however, was grossly exaggerated—or more accurately, ignored entirely. Factually, the tower was used as a lookout post during the 2nd World War. Shortly after the war, it was virtually abandoned until an assortment of rather lecherous youths decided that it afforded more privacy than their parents’ basement or a motel room.
Other stories rumored the tower to have been built as a monument to a rogue family of Native Americans who settled in the region in the late 1700’s. When colonists pilfered their land, the family was brutally murdered. Their mutilated bodies were then disassembled and buried on the very site where the tower now erected. A small cemetery with unmarked headstones was constructed directly behind the tower in an unkempt field. It boasted the reputation of being a spot where worshipping tribe members came to pray and die as a way to pay homage to the slaughtered innocents. None of these tidbits of lore, however, had ever been verified. Sometimes the truth just was not as much fun in the aftermath of things yet to come.
Perhaps ascending a hillside leading to a scenic overlook was not the stuff of legend, but doing so on a partially frozen slope in a fair-weather automobile proved to be a daunting task nonetheless. A quarter way up the incline, the pavement ended abruptly, leaving only traces of gravel on the pathway for the remaining distance to the tower. Most visitors braved the perilous conditions on foot from this point, but Hailey had no intention of enduring the frozen elements any longer than necessary. She pumped the car’s accelerator a bit harder with her foot, and despite almost snagging its wheels in a reclined portion of the trail, her efforts proved worthwhile. The Mustang managed to climb to the last bit of passable roadway, although Ryan was visibly shaken by the unacceptable conditions of the drive.
Regardless of a headache that he would have no doubt needed to suppress later, Ryan found the encompassing darkness a pleasant alternative to his backyard. He recalled Victor mentioning its seclusion a few times over the years, but those accounts never compelled Ryan to investigate the place on his own. After scanning the grounds, he immediately decided that no other location in the vicinity afforded a more perfect blend of altitude and seclusion for a study of the stellar world.
As Ryan opened the car door, he instantaneously distinguished the sky’s improved clarity. “This is wonderful,” he announced, hopping eagerly from the vehicle’s confines. He was not the least bit unnerved by the whipping winds weaving perpetually around the hillside like a livid serpent. In fact, Hailey found it difficult to understand how he appeared so well insulated wearing just a thin leather jacket.
Once Hailey flicked off the Mustang’s headlights, the evening’s shade engulfed everything it touched. Since Ryan neglected to bring a flashlight, the unhindered moonbeams provided a sole spotlight to guide his footsteps over the darkened terrain. Ryan paced across the embankment just as anxiously as he exited the car. He stared beyond the snow-covered pastures with a glint of wonderment flashing in his eyes. In the farther distance, he noticed Belle Falls’ faint lights streaking the horizon, but nothing within his range spoiled the enveloping darkness.
“I can’t wait to tell Victor about this place,” Ryan shouted to Hailey, who still fumbled around inside the vehicle in search of a flashlight. She eventually managed to locate a penlight attached to the end of her key ring. Unlike Ryan, she did not revere dark environments, especially in locations where taboo legends flourished. Once she had the penlight in hand, Hailey joined Ryan on the snow-covered knoll. Ryan had already trained his binoculars on several constellations only previously discernable to him through the lens of his telescope.
“It’s pretty cool up here, huh?” Hailey asked, smiling as she tucked her hand in the fold of Ryan’s arm. Her teeth still chattered, but she pretended to be as excited as Ryan by the dazzling display of stars.
“It’s better than I thought,” Ryan confessed. His line of sight then meandered slowly to his left, where the Indian Tower jutted from the soil like a monstrosity carved from brimstone. It appeared like a medieval castle’s turret and possessed a foreboding aura in the darkness. Ryan was not only seemingly immune to the frigid temperature, but he was also unaffected by any of the rumors attributed to the structure.
“Looks pretty desolate up here in the winter,” Hailey observed as she shone the penlight in the tower’s general direction. At the same time, she tried to position herself as close to Ryan as he permitted.
“Can we climb up that thing?” asked Ryan, referring to the tower.
“Yeah—it has a staircase in the center.”
After Ryan strolled nearer to the structure he detected a narrow wrought iron set of stairs spiraling up between the tower’s massive support columns. He motioned for Hailey to follow him, but had no intention of slowing his own progress to accommodate her reluctance. Hailey gradually scampered behind his footsteps.
“Hey, wait up a second,” Hailey called to him. “You can’t just rush up into that tower.”
Ryan stopped and pivoted toward Hailey. She directed the penlight in his face when he asked, “Is the thing safe to climb or not, Hailey?”
“Well, it depends,” she answered. “You’re not supposed to touch the tower’s hollowed ground until you kneel down and pray to the Indian gods.”
Ryan barely managed to stifle a chuckle when he said, “You don’t really believe that garbage—do you?”
Hailey shrugged her shoulders and replied, “I don’t know. According to the legend, anyone who doesn’t pray before entering the tower will die a horrible death for showing disrespect for the family buried beneath it.”
“There’s no evidence anyone was ever buried here. Some goofy kids made all those stories up years ago.”
Hailey acknowledged Ryan’s opinion, but she did not follow his reasoning. Despite the snowy ground, she bent to her knees in front of the tower. “You do what you want,” she said, clasping her hands together and tucking them beneath her chin. She then mumbled a chant that she half-remembered from her younger years.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” said Ryan, still trying to contain a giggle, “who or what are you praying to exactly?”
Hailey stopped her makeshift prayer and said, “I already told you—the Indian gods.”
“So there’s more than one?”
Hailey continued with the ritual, despite being taunted by Ryan. After finishing the prayer, she stood up and dusted the snow from her jeans. Since she was wise enough to wear a pair of mittens, her hands remained relatively warm. Instead of mimicking her gesture, Ryan sauntered beneath the tower, disregarding the unwritten rules that so many before him had obeyed. At closer range, Ryan immediately recognized that he was not the first to inspect the tower’s interior. Some teenagers had desecrated its concrete walls with neon paint. The graffiti was mostly sophomoric in design at best, but it seemed to graphically mock the legends. One rather unimaginati
ve artist undertook the chore of scrawling several Indian-like figures with pieces of their bodies hacked off.
When Hailey finally joined Ryan beneath the structure, she cringed at the sight of those depictions. “People should be more respectful,” she whispered in reference to the graffiti. “The kids around here are so stupid and immature sometimes.”
On this point Ryan did not disagree with Hailey, and after considering the ritualistic manner in which she entered the tower, he became somewhat less cynical. After all, her beliefs seemed no more irrational in theory than the notion of his family being abducted by aliens. Perhaps it served them both well to be somewhat superstitious toward things they did not fully comprehend.
“Do you want to go up in the tower?” Hailey asked, pointing the penlight at a winding staircase that was barely wide enough to climb in single-file formation.
Ryan’s eyes drifted overhead to the iron platform above. “We should have a great view of the sky up there,” he declared.
“We can probably see the whole valley.”
Ryan did not require any further coaxing. He ascended the iron stairs hastily, but still being mindful of the icy water forming on the stair’s narrow treads. “Watch your step,” he warned Hailey. “These stairs are slippery.”
Hailey figured now was a good time to feign her helplessness. At the very least, Ryan would have been gracious enough to extend her a hand so that she did not fall. “Hold on a second,” she remarked, tentatively reaching her hand out in front of herself. “I need your help, Ryan.”
Ryan gladly clasped her fingers in his hand as they climbed the thirteen steps leading to a square-shaped platform. They both assumed the wind would have been stronger once standing atop the tower, but this was not the case. Solid walls of concrete provided a welcomed barrier to the frosty currents of air. From Ryan’s current position, many of the stars gleamed brighter to the naked eye than he ever remembered as a young boy. He instantly reminisced about his grandmother’s stories, and how she often boasted of the nightly visions that had long since dissolved in an artificially lit skyline.
Although Ryan and Hailey both stood safely on the tower’s deck, neither one seemed to be in any hurry to release the other’s hand. Contrarily, Ryan sensed his hand squeezing her fingers tightly within his palm, suggesting his approval for such contact almost as much as the scenery. Before long, Hailey’s attention inevitably settled upon the adjacent cemetery, which was clearly visible in the pasture under a moonlit sky. She acted unnerved by the sight of these headstones, but Ryan had little interest in anything not directly connected to the inky black terrain of space.
These gravestones served as markers to memorialize the eternal placement of the deceased. As a result, the landscape changed over time, but the sky offered features that had not altered since the first Earthling gulped a breath of air. Ryan delighted in the fact that all the individuals born throughout history gazed upon the constellations exactly as they appeared in the sky to him tonight. In this way, the stars represented a link to both the past and present. Just as those who died beforehand, Ryan too would one day pass through this world long before the stellar realm shifted its alignment in the heavens.
In the northeastern sky, a centerpiece for any amateur astronomer relied on the proper identification of Ursa Major, or more commonly referred to as the Big Dipper. During the winter months, the ladle-shaped constellation appeared to stand upright on its handle. Even a novice such as Hailey immediately distinguished the consistent arrangement of its seven stars.
Binoculars were not required to observe any of Ursa Major’s stars, but its brilliance certainly intensified under magnification. Ryan held the binoculars in front of Hailey’s field of vision so that she might appreciate the formation as much as he had when he first studied the heavens.
“I think I learned about the Big Dipper in the third grade,” said Hailey confidently, while peering through the eye gear set in front of her face.
“Look a little bit to the left,” Ryan advised as he guided the binoculars toward the northwestern sky. “You see its smaller cousin—that’s Ursa Minor.”
“The Little Dipper,” she remarked sprightly.
“Well done.”
“You see—I’m not such a beginner after all,” she fibbed, half-jokingly. Ryan then pointed his finger to the center star trailing away from Ursa Minor. Hailey was not familiar with this particular area at all.
“That glittering star directly overhead is called Capella. It’s the brightest one in the Auriga constellation.”
“Okay,” Hailey simpered, “you’re showing off now.” Even if there was a shred of legitimacy to that observation, she was still amazed by the confidence oozing from Ryan’s voice. After a few seconds, Ryan redirected her line of sight to the horizon, where one star burned like a brilliantly colored sapphire.
“Do you see that bright blue one sparkling out there just over the hills?” Ryan asked her, pointing his finger to where he wanted her to focus the binoculars.
“Yeah—I think so.”
“You can’t miss it,” said Ryan assertively. Without hesitating, he announced, “That’s Denab—it’s the boldest star in Cygnus. It’s estimated to be sixty thousand times more powerful than our Sun. Luckily for us, it’s sixteen hundred light years from Earth.”
“Imagine if Denab was as close to our planet as the Sun,” Hailey thought aloud. “It must be beautiful.”
“If a ball of fire of such mass was anywhere near Earth, there wouldn’t be anything left of this planet as you of I know it.”
“It’s all so incredible,” Hailey remarked, still staring through the binoculars. “Who named all these stars anyway?”
“Most of the stars names are Arabic, Greek, or Latin,” Ryan elaborated. “Credit really goes to the ancient Babylonians. During the Dark Ages, the Arabs were the most advanced astronomers in the world.”
“You’re really something special, do you know that, Ryan?”
“Why do you say that?”
Hailey moved her face away from the binoculars and pivoted her body so that her legs brushed against Ryan’s knees. “I just have a feeling about you,” she uttered softly. “You’re not like the other guys at school. I don’t really know how to explain it, but there’s an energy swirling around you that I just can’t seem to get enough of. Did you ever feel like that about someone before?”
Ryan was not sure if he possessed any words to articulate his exact feelings in regard to this girl, but Hailey’s explanation sounded reasonable. “I’m not really used to hanging out with too many people,” he admitted. “Victor has been my only real friend since I came to this town.”
“You’ve got to start believing in yourself, Ryan. The kids at school could learn a lot from you.”
Ryan rejected her statement bashfully by saying, “I don’t think so, Hailey.”
“I’m serious,” she insisted. “You know, I once thought being the smartest kid in school wasn’t cool, but there’s enough morons walking around B.F.H. who think just like that.”
Handling compliments was never something Ryan excelled at, and this was due in large part to the infrequency in which he received them. But he was appreciative of Hailey’s kindheartedness, even if it was manufactured for motives he did not yet understand. Still, as they stood abreast atop the tower, neither needed to impress the other anymore than they already had. For several seconds, their voices remained silent, but they spoke sheer volumes with their eyes. Normally, Hailey expected a kiss by now, but Ryan remained petrified in his stance as if his legs were welded to the iron platform. She thought about initiating the first move, but then figured she might have been only teasing herself.
“You can’t imagine how many creeps I’ve been out with,” Hailey told Ryan, although she always considered this statement misused by girls who had not bothered to get to know the targets of their desire. Hailey did not wish to echo her earlier thoughts so blatantly, but she now presumed Ryan sensed precisely how she felt
about him. “Can I be honest with you, Ryan?”
“I hope so.”
“A lot of the guys at school have been wondering why I wanted to go out with you in the first place.”
Ryan did not have the nerve to admit that he wondered the exact same thing, but rather than ask her outright, he assumed he was about to hear her reasoning. “I guess I didn’t know the answer to that question until a few minutes ago,” she continued.
“Are you going to keep me in suspense any longer?”
Hailey shook her head and replied, “It’s not easy to define, but I think my reason for wanting to be with you is that you’re so passionate about what you do, and you don’t care if anyone else in the world follows you or not. I don’t see that everyday in people. Most of the boys I’ve dated have no real dreams or goals, other than to drink and pick up girls.”
“So I take it Neil isn’t the guy for you after all?”
Hailey winced as if her tongue was coated with battery acid. “Neil?” she questioned, crinkling her nose for emphasis. “What makes you think I want to go out with him?”
“He sort of gave me the impression that you two were more than close friends.”
Hailey appeared momentarily embarrassed, but she was not totally unaware of Neil’s infatuation with her. “Oh, he may fantasize about me being his girl, but that’s the furthest thing from the truth.” She edged a bit closer to Ryan’s face before uttering her next statement. “I don’t have a boyfriend, Ryan—at least not yet anyway.”
Ryan busied himself by staring at the girl’s plump, raspberry-colored lips, which no longer shivered along with the rest of her body. “As I said before, a lot of guys at school have the wrong idea about me. I’m not the stuck-up bitch they think I am. They say bad things about me just because I won’t go out with a jock whose captain of the basketball team or whatever, but I want something more meaningful than that.”
“Well, I guess we both learned something worthwhile tonight—didn’t we?”
“Ryan, I sense that you’re going to do great things someday.”
“You flatter me. I thought I was supposed to do that for you?”
“You can try,” Hailey gushed.
As natural and reposed as Ryan attempted to present himself, he simply could not maintain the composure necessary to interact fluently with this girl all evening. However, what he did not suspect was that his introversion had actually strengthened his romantic advancement with Hailey. But even if their conversation progressed to an inevitable level of intimacy, how was it possible to appease her affections? He had not been tutored in the methods of seduction. She must have already surmised that he never even touched a woman for such purposes. Perhaps at this moment in time Ryan would have willingly exchanged all his knowledge of the stars for a blueprint to Hailey’s desires.
Hailey astutely recognized the boy’s callowness and she certainly had no intention of frightening him with any risqué suggestions. In order to put his mind at ease, she turned back toward the tower’s concrete banister to gaze across the open pastures and sky.
“Our world seems so small at times,” she murmured. “I feel so tiny out here beneath all these stars. Do you ever get like that?”
Ryan paused and trained his vision to where he thought Hailey had fixated her concentration. He then said, “The stars keep us humble. I think we all need to be reminded of that from time to time.”
Hailey’s mannerisms suddenly became as audacious as her next thought. “But do you believe there’s ever and end to all of this?” she asked, extending he arms to represent the vast space around herself. “Does the universe just suddenly stop somewhere?”
“Astronomers speculate that it must stop somewhere,” answered Ryan. “All things that have a beginning must also have an end.”
“But we can’t see everything,” Hailey pondered. “It’s almost like a metaphor for life—we know when it begins, but no one really knows when it’ll end.”
“I suppose you can look at it that way, but I’m convinced that some inevitabilities are better off left unexplored.”
At this moment Ryan wished he possessed the insight to lure Hailey into his arms. He almost reached for her while she leaned across the banister. But as always, he resisted a temptation to indulge his intentions. In a very real sense, he understood his limitations of discovering the mysteries of the galactic region better than he did his own motivations.
They remained atop the tower for another twenty minutes, using this time to scan the various constellations observable in the sky. Since Ryan seemed most at ease with himself when reciting astronomical facts, Hailey kept respectfully quiet and listened to everything he offered. She was content to stay at his side longer, but the wind increased in velocity as the minutes ticked away. Eventually, she suggested that they return to the Mustang and resume stargazing through the access of her car’s sunroof. Although Ryan was not visibly bothered by the cold, he agreed with her request.
Once situated back inside the car, Hailey rushed to start the vehicle’s engine and cranked the heat ventilation system on its highest power. She then removed her mittens and pressed her hands against the dashboard’s vents so that the warm air radiated between her fingers. Ryan sat next to her, watching her curiously as she tried to ward off the invading chill. She viewed his reaction to the frigidness as particularly odd.
“It must be b…below zero out here,” she shivered, while noticing Ryan situated calmly in the passenger seat. “D…did you grow up in Alaska or something?”
“What do you mean?”
“Aren’t you cold?” Hailey reached her hand across the seat and touched Ryan’s hand with her own. The temperature of his flesh felt no different from her skin. “This cold doesn’t bother you?”
“No,” said Ryan, enlacing his fingers across his lap. “I’ve always had a high tolerance for cold weather. I never thought much about it.”
“You must be very hot-blooded,” Hailey commented, still using her girlish ways to orchestrate as much tension as possible.
Ryan was not quite certain how to respond to Hailey’s flirtation. Perhaps it was a wiser choice for him to shrug his shoulders modestly and remain silent on the matter. After the car’s interior warmed, Hailey opened the sunroof, creating a window into the stellar zone overhead. Neither of them seemed so preoccupied with the stars that they neglected one another. Binoculars certainly were not required to survey the attraction pervading between them.
The stars may have been perfectly aligned for romance in Hailey’s mind, but Ryan still struggled with the self-assurance required to reach out and brazenly kiss the girl like he envisioned. Hailey preferred such a blunt method rather than endure his procrastination, but she dared not risk her reputation by indicating as much.
“Do you mind if I ask you something personal?” Hailey questioned, while fidgeting with the dials on the dashboard’s radio. Ryan refrained from responding to this type of inquiry in the past, but his compliance in this scenario seemed almost mandatory.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I once read somewhere that smart guys are the most romantic. Is that true?”
Ryan debated Hailey’s question with reluctance. He was not sure if she ever actually read such a thing, but her premise sounded slightly amusing. “I suppose if they’re given a chance, they could be as romantic as the dumbest guy in town,” he said jokingly.
“What about you?” Hailey persisted. “Are you romantic or not?”
Since Ryan had not accumulated any experience in this area before tonight, he felt hindered to submit a candid reply. Hailey seemed intent on getting him to fess up, even if he was clueless on the matter. “Come on,” she coaxed him, “everyone knows that you’re the smartest guy in school.”
“They do?”
“Of course. You needn’t pretend otherwise. I was just wondering if any of your intelligence comes out in other ways.”
“But isn’t the idea of romance a subjective thing?” said Ryan
diplomatically. “Think about it—what might be considered a romantic gesture to one girl could be the exact opposite to another.”
“You’re avoiding the question,” Hailey giggled.
“No—I’m avoiding the answer.”
“Okay—let me put it another way.” Hailey paused momentarily, while twirling a lock of her midnight-colored hair around her finger. “Let’s just say you have a girlfriend, and you really want to impress her. So what would you do for her that’s the most romantic thing you can imagine—something that makes her feel like the luckiest girl in the world?”
“You ask tough questions,” groaned Ryan as he tilted his head back against the passenger’s seat. From his vantage point, he observed the sky through the open sunroof. His eyes scanned across a glistening ribbon of stars before he said, “This is definitely going to sound corny.”
“No it won’t,” Hailey assured him. “Now tell me what you would do.”
“Well, I’d probably give her something that she’d always cherish—something that wouldn’t depreciate over time or change in any way for her entire lifetime.”
“I’m listening…”
“She’d always be able to find it, and it would stay with her long after all of her other possessions were either lost or forgotten.”
Hailey thought for a moment and then directed her stare to the portion of sky where Ryan had fixated his gaze. He seemed to be envisioning something in his mind that he wished to share with her. “Can you guess what it is?” he asked plainly.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
“A star,” he replied earnestly. “Every star should have a name, and not too long ago someone got the bright idea to sell them at random. They give you a map so you can track the course of your star throughout your lifetime.”
“And you get to name it, too?”
“Yeah. It’s even registered in the astronomical community. I see it as either the most romantic gesture on Earth or the shrewdest marketing scheme ever devised.”
Hailey grinned at the notion and believed she received a perfectly honest reply. “That’s a beautiful thought,” she said, now shifting the direction of her eyes so they peered upon Ryan’s face, which was delicately bathed in pale moonlight. “You could’ve answered that question a thousand different ways, Ryan, but you picked the very one that no one else would’ve sounded half as genuine saying.”
“I’m far from an expert on romance, Hailey.”
“But what makes you romantic,” Hailey clarified, “is your truthfulness. I don’t know any girl who would ever walk away from that.”
After hearing such a confession from Hailey, Ryan only managed to blush, but he sensed a torrid fire emitting from her skin that needed to be doused. She leaned her body across the bucket seats, entwining her right leg over his left. Her upper torso pivoted as well, permitting her arms to settle on the middle of his chest. Ryan grew excitedly apprehensive at the prospect of reciprocating such affection. He then took his hand, which was moistened by perspiration, and gently caressed her hair as it cascaded across her shoulders. Hailey craved this mere gesture as if she had not been touched with any significant tenderness in a long time.
For Ryan, the desirable yet elusive sensation of a girl’s lips connecting with his own set a few inches from his mouth. It was an impulse that every boy his age yearned to initiate. He no doubt dreamed of this night for almost as many moons as when he first raised his eyes to the sky. But when faced with temptation, he did not place his lips where they most wanted to be. Fortunately for him, Hailey had already committed herself to a kiss, and she was not going to suffer through such deprivation any longer. Without offering further subtleness, she pressed her moist lips across Ryan’s mouth and kissed him fervently. He flinched momentarily, but then relaxed and let her lips and tongue massage every crevice in his mouth. When she finally released him, he felt dizzy with excitement and lust. His heart now thumped in his chest with an erratic cadence, but he would not have preferred it any other way.
“Are you okay with this?” she whispered in his ear. Ryan swallowed and nodded his chin once. An eagerness teeming from his stimulated expression told Hailey everything she needed in order to continue. She then removed his eyeglasses and placed them on the dashboard. At the same time, she maneuvered her body directly on top of him. She was tiny enough to wrap both of her legs on either side of his hips. Both of them were cramped, but neither complained.
Hailey probed deeper into the boy’s bluish-gray eyes. Though she could not be certain in the darkness, his eyes reflected a silvery glow that she had not discerned earlier. Her second kiss settled upon his neck, permitting strands of her silky hair to fan across his cheek like a sash of satin. Ryan’s blood flowed rapidly through his body now. Each time she kissed him it became easier for him to lose composure and he willingly reached a point where he sought to postpone all inhibitions.
“I don’t know what’s come over me,” Hailey sighed achingly. As she started to unzip Ryan’s jacket, a hunger flashed in her eyes that he had never witnessed before this moment.
“I want to get closer to you,” she told him in a voice that required no further clarification.
As his own breathing rapidly intensified upon hearing Hailey’s words, he asked, “How close?” He sensed a heat generating through the girl’s clothing, and then her intention was no longer a mystery. “I’ve never done this before,” he admitted.
Hailey already surmised as much, but that only seemed to have a more potent affect on her actions. Although she did not claim a similar level of inexperience, she never behaved with such reckless wantonness before. But she extended no explanation for her sudden urge of intimacy. Her cravings simply could not be contained any longer.
“I need you,” she proclaimed feverishly.
Hailey tugged at her garments now; the coldness that had earlier caused her distress now seemed like a hazy memory. As she undressed, Ryan’s thoughts reeled with exhilaration. He mimicked her actions as best he was able beneath the weight of her body. If he or she had any other reservations to consider, none were uttered aloud. While he watched Hailey hover over him, his hands slid across her smooth back. Her hips tantalized every nerve in his fingertips. Within moments, he felt himself entering her. As she moved her body, Ryan sensed his flesh quake with joy. The moment of climax was fleeting for them both, but they melted into one another with an unmistakable contentment.
They remained in each other’s arms for several minutes, allowing their breathing to subside with desire. Silence served as a voice for both of them now, for no words adequately conveyed the height of such bliss. Soon thereafter, Ryan diverted his gaze to the evening sky. Cold air streamed into the car through its sunroof, causing Hailey to shiver as it collided with the sweat on her skin. She nestled closer against Ryan, as if he alone possessed the ability to shield her from every unpleasant element.
At that precise moment, as if by design, Ryan watched three streaks of yellow light scrawl across the sky’s blackness. Had Hailey opened her eyes to survey the event, she would have no doubt expressed her quixotic views by suggesting that they were shooting stars. Of course Ryan already knew that such happenings shared no association with actual stars. Perhaps it would not have been quite as romantic to mention, but Ryan viewed those random flashes of light as bits of space debris trailing aimlessly into Earth’s atmosphere. This display was more accurately described as a meteor shower, but he would not dare rupture Hailey’s fanciful dreams with such an explanation.
In fact, Ryan was content to leave things as they were for as long as Hailey wanted. His thoughts finally seemed composed. There was nothing in the stars or his mind to distract him from this hour’s fulfillment. Of course, he had no way to know how long any of this tranquility might have lasted. But for now, while entwined in a rapturous moment with this girl, nothing upon the soil or in the air rated quite as compelling as his deliverance from sorrow.
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