It was the last day of spring break and Jasmine hadn't gone anywhere. She thought it would be such a waste to stay trapped away in a coffee shop every day of her lamest spring break ever just to make minimum wage.

She wanted to go to the boardwalk. She thought about taking her bike, though she was rather in the mood to feel the balmy spring breeze across her bangs as she aimlessly moped around clutching her phone, ignoring everything else. That was the plan.

Her feet reached the golden sand. She took off her flats and put them in her bag. The yellow sun made the sky an angel blue; the wispy clouds were like white feathers floating along. The sea was alive with tossing waves, dancing hand in hand with the tiny shards of sunlight given to them. The clouds, like a white canopy afforded a soft, shadowy contrast cast over the beach; it made it perfectly relaxing for the people with the time to spend their afternoon there on their towels, watching their kids play in the shallow water or the teens camping on the far end smoking pot. There was one sullen mass that stood out from all the rest, all the happy people enjoying the day. She was drawn to it, drawn to him, and the waves slowly rolling in.

He was sitting quietly, shoulders hunched with his heart shielded from the world, as if he had stolen these fleeting moments in the sun. There was a strong possibility that he had, there had been not much time to enjoy the cool sand between his toes, and his arms and legs were very pasty. For now at least, he had a moment, so there he was with notepad and pen in hand, shirking the caress of the ocean breeze.

When he looked at her, she could tell something about him was different. There was something about him that made him warmer than others. It was something she liked.

"Michael? Michael Uzoma," she called.

Her big eyes were a warm coffee brown. From them, he could not look away. Her skin was the exact color of the desert; it was golden. She had bubbly, smiling cheekbones and perfect, pillowy lips parted slightly, enough to see only a bit of her white teeth. It was a smile that petrified him in ice, frozen solid.

He felt his heart slamming against the inside of his ribcage. His brain was just as frantic. It fired a million crazy thoughts per second, all amazing and terrifying and spectacular and harrowing, yet never in the company of the thing he actually needed at the very moment he needed to bring it all to life.

Words.

"Jasmine."

They stood there on the beach, looking at each other for what seemed like forever. She was almost getting ready to leave when he said, "listen, I—"

"Michael!" she cried out. "Am I seeing a ghost?"

He felt his heart plunge beneath his diaphragm as he forgot to speak.

"It's— it's been awhile, huh?"

She tackled him in the sand, burying her face into his chest as she cried.

As he held her, Michael looked out into the ocean as it appeared like a blue bed on which a frail sheet of sunlight was spread across, and then cracked apart and burst by the millions of rolling peaks rushing to the shore.

"I like to come out here when I just want to have a chance to think," she started softly after a long time.

"Did you want to be alone?"

"Of course, but I never expected to see you here. Michael, I thought you were gone."

"I'm sorry, Jasmine. After what happened, my mom thought it was best for me to leave town once I recovered. Tell no one where I was going. I never thought I'd be back."

"I'm just glad you're back. But I'm also a little sad, too, I guess."

"Why?"

"Because we stopped being friends in the first place."

"Jasmine, I'm—"

"You don't have to keep apologizing, Michael. It's my fault. It wasn't fair of me to treat you like that. I was immature and I should've known better when it comes to choosing who really had my best interest in mind. Deep down, I knew that was always you."

For awhile he hung there in limbo, feeling half at ease around Jasmine, and half-tortured by the illusion of the company of a beautiful girl who only viewed him as a brother. But in that moment he decided to live inside the reality he wanted; in this distinct, separate moment in time when everything felt good. He turned to watch her gazing out at the waves, and suddenly he remembered all the things he loved about her, like pearls of memories strung together and each containing happy moments, all unique and special in their own respect. They were distant stars to him now, but he could recognize them in any sky.

"Jasmine..."

The tide was pulling away. The sand left behind was pudgy and cold. Jasmine put on a kiddish grin. "Hey, let's build a sandcastle!"

So that's what they did.

"Do you remember when we used to do this as kids?" she said, patting in the sand for a wall she was building.

"I don't think I ever built a sandcastle before," Michael replied. "I guess I didn't have that much of a childhood. Is it supposed to be this difficult?"

"I think I remember it being a lot easier with little pails and shovels. Hey, there are plenty of kids around. What's stopping us from just pushing one down and taking his?" Jasmine murmured with a sinister croon and a shadowy look stamped across her brow. "I mean it. What're they gonna do? We're bigger than them."

Michael burst out laughing. "I can't always tell when you're joking."

"You're not packing the sand in enough," Jasmine teased. "You're terrible at this."

"I said I wasn't any good!"

"Hm, you did," she agreed. He watched her turn her gaze to the sea as she swiped her curls from her face. She hid her smile in the wind, but the gleam in her eyes gave her away.

"One day, I'll live in a castle on an oceanfront, just like this. As soon as I get the money to finish school and get out of this city, I can go anywhere I want. The quicker the better."

"Why do you want to move away so badly?"

"Isn't that what every princess wants? To be rescued from her wretched circumstances and whisked away to a land far away from all her problems?"

"It's a dangerous world out there."

"Isn't that what you're here for, Michael? To protect me?" At that moment, he looked into her baby eyes and immediately knew he shouldn't have. He was entranced to the point of no return. Their bodies briefly touched, chest to chest before tearing away from one another. The two listened to only the sounds of the waves rolling in with no words spoken between them. Jasmine reached out, timidly encircling his pointer finger with a few of hers. She smiled affectionately as his hand embraced hers.

Michael felt his own heart frantically beating, and his palm beginning to sweat. He turned his head to gaze at her beautiful face once more as she stared out at the glimmering orange tide. There was such a gleam of expectant wonder in her brown eyes. No part of him could resist.

Before he knew it, they were kissing. It was as if the pent-up longing stored beneath years of puberty and pining over the same girl had erupted at once, and everything became lost in a blur.

In the next moment, they were in his midtown apartment. Jasmine pulled her face from Michael's and playfully tugged him by his shirt sleeve into the hallway, pushing doors open with her other hand until she found the bedroom. Then she sat down on top of his bedsheets and looked up at him with a mischievous smirk on her lips. Then she curled her fingers around the edge of her shirt and lifted it all the way up.

For quite some time, Michael gazed at her there. He studied every detail of her sublime, pure naked beauty. For his eyes, there was so much to consume, he could barely hold his attention in one place. He started with her elegant brow, so perfectly round, and then her narrow, delicate nose, fixed so fittingly well in the center of her face. To each side of it, her big eyes were housed underneath sweeping eyelashes like black fans, descending lightly atop her cheeks, which sloped gracefully into her pink lips, which were unremarkably thin and fixed in an innocent pout, and a small chin. He admired her long neck, tracing it down to the small divot made by her clavicle, and below that, the small space between her breasts; how marvelously erotic her supple hips were.

"What's wrong, Michael? Still afraid mama's gonna get you for messin' with fast girls?"

Michael gulped as he tried to steady his nerves and not let her see.

"No, I'm just, taking it all in," he said finally after closing the door behind him. "You are as beautiful as I imagined, Jasmine."

She stood up from the bed and sauntered over to him. Jasmine threw her arms around his neck, as he encircled her naked body in his embrace. She sank into his chest and he wrapped her tighter. "What did a girl like me do to deserve a guy like you, Michael?"

"Nothing, except be perfect," Michael declared.

Jasmine rose up on her tiptoes and she gazed into his warm brown eyes as he drew closer. The wisps of air from his nose made her blush and close her eyes as she waited with lips slightly parted.

"Oh, Michael."

Their noses gently touched, and he closed her mouth with his lips. She felt herself melting in his arms as she pressed her lips against his.

***

The morning light slowly poured in from the blinds. Michael awoke to find Jasmine still laying in his arms. He relished the chance to gently play with her hair without waking her. He kissed her once more on the forehead before sliding out of bed.

As he took his first steps, Michael still felt as though he was walking in a dream. He turned on the light switch in the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror.

It felt odd liking what he saw. The entire structure of his jaw seemed different as he cupped it between his index finger and thumb. It was thicker, manlier. And he had muscles— in his neck. He opened the medicine cabinet and picked up his toothbrush, which was beside his old glasses case that was now collecting dust. He ran the cold water in the bathroom sink and carefully scrubbed away at his perfect white teeth. He vaguely remembered having crooked teeth, but by then, the memory was old and fuzzy. Everything about his past felt like an old movie he only half-remembered.

He ran his fingers over his stomach. An electric jolt coursed through him as if the cells of his body had memories of their own. They had not forgotten the trauma of being shot. He could still feel the blood on his hands; the oxygen seeping from his lungs and the darkness that followed. He was in darkness for a very long time. And then, from above, a tiny shimmer came into view. It was fleeting, it danced and beckoned his impending arrival, perhaps a beacon of the afterlife had torn its way through dirt and rock, with its hold on him more urgent than ever. But the light grew brighter and brighter, it encompassed his entire body. And then he shattered it, with a flailing splash. The water pulled him down, but he could see above, it was crystal clear. Slowly, he came to the surface. His first breath came like the first from outside of the womb.

Slowly, his senses returned. He was in a comfortable bed, tucked in the sheets. He was fine now. As if it had never happened.

Michael rinsed once more, and then reached for the towel. He glanced up once more, but this time, his eyes met another pair, gazing at him from the glass.

"Why are you here?" Michael asked the reflection in the mirror. "What do you want?"

"Don't let her distract you," the reflection answered back. Michael's lips were moving, the voice was different. It wasn't nervous or timid. It was steely and cold and commanding. "She is not a part of the plan."

Michael took his trembling hand and pressed his palm over the reflection. His teeth were clenched together and he had bit his tongue so hard, it had started to bleed. He looked up again, and gazed at the reflection through the webbing of his fingers.

"Don't tell me what to do."