Windswept and Handsome Girl by Whitney Glover
That summer was a tease. Clear skies, but still enough breeze to flip my skirt. I’d wanted it sticky and humid; I’d wanted you sweating and impossible to peel myself away from. I invited you to the beach, to the lighthouse, but you were adamant we’d catch a chill. “Just come,” I’d begged, “please.”
You drove, humming an alto harmony with each song on the radio. We tipped out from the rust cage of your car, onto the sand, like toys spilling out of a bucket, like we’d do when we were kids, filling just to empty, and emptying just to fill. Then we tipped our heads and stared up at that old lighthouse, stark against the lying blue sky.
You told me to watch the windows, your voice so clear and steady even as you scaled and scraped the fence, then you led me up the spiralling lighthouse stairs, winding a corn-syrup path of the candy roll-ups you’d stash away when the fridge was empty.
You brought out binoculars when I told you we were watching for mermaids, and I’d laughed, only realising the problem once you’d shown me the solution. Like all those months ago, when I’d fidgeted with my shorts, damp from a wet seat on the coast bus, and your first driving lesson had been scheduled for the week before.
We huddled, close, in the watch room of the lighthouse. You shivered and shifted, even as I blanketed you with my arms, clinging like monkey bars. “I just can’t get sick. People depend on me.” you said, as mermaid tail scales caught the moonlight in a flicker.
Whitney Glover is a writer from the U.K. Her poetry was shortlisted for the Bournemouth Writer’s Prize, and published with Fresher Press, and her short play: Drunk Girl, on a Night Out, debuted at Theatre503. She spends her spare time reading, cuddling with her cats, and looking for queer subtext.
linkedin.com/in/whitney-glover
Photo – William Navarro at Unsplash
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