Laura Miller - By Way of Accident

She seems to ponder it for a second before shaking her head no .

I find it funny she has to think about it. And I go about trying to come up with somethin’ clever to say, but nothin’ comes.

“Were you about to swim?” she asks, her eyes roaming my face.

“Uh.” I catch my shirt dangling from the tree, and I lower my head, noticing my unbuttoned jeans. “I was.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you.”

For the first time in my life, I want to scoop a girl right up and feel her soft skin against mine. It’s a new kind of feeling, and it feels kind of weird but also kind of good. I usually know how to play it cool. Well, at least I thought I knew how to play it cool, but damned if I can figure it out now. It’s as if all of a sudden, I’ve forgotten how to be me. I can’t think straight. I just keep thinkin’ about her legs and her pretty eyes. I mean, I’ve dreamed about a moment like this — when a sweet girl shows up out of nowhere and wants to talk to me — all my life. But when I’m finally starin’ the moment right in the face, I have absolutely no flippin’ clue what to do. And instead of doing somethin’ or sayin’ somethin’ else, I just watch her wade deeper into the creek, until her legs are swallowed up by the crystal water and the bottom of her shorts turn a darker shade of blue.

“Well…you comin’?” she asks, lookin’ up at me.

Her soft voice breaks my concentration on her legs.

“It’s nice,” she offers.

I think about it. Hell, why am I even thinking about this? An angel has just asked me to jump into the creek with her, and here I am, sittin’ here thinkin’ about it.

I stand up and quickly start unzipping my jeans but then all of a sudden I change my mind and zip and button them back up. Jeans stay on.

I carefully make my way down the bank next. It’s about a couple yards of rock, dirt and tree stumps all the way down, but I make it to the bottom without an embarrassing incident before I slip slowly into the water.

“Nice, right?” she asks with a pretty smile.

I didn’t even know God made smiles like hers.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. But I’m not talkin’ about the water necessarily.

“Do you work out?”

“What?” I ask.

“Your abs.”

I follow her eyes to my stomach.

“Oh,” I say, startin’ to laugh. “Mostly just the work part.”

She wrinkles her forehead at first, but then she gives me that off-centered grin again.

“So, where are you from anyway?” I ask, wading into the deeper part, closer to her.

“Nebraska,” she says, and her smile widens. “And Iowa…and Kansas.”

I bob my head twice. “Anywhere else?”

She seems to think about it a little bit more, then shakes her head. “No.”

I smile with her, and I think about askin’ if this is where she’s finally going to stay, but I don’t want to hear her say it isn’t, so I don’t.

“There snakes in this water?” she asks, matter-of-factly.

“Probably,” I say.

I watch her push her lips to one side and then nod her head, and all the while, she stares into the water. Any other girl would have taken off runnin’ at the thought of a snake swimmin’ around her legs. Instead, this girl looks me square in the eyes and doesn’t say another word about it.

“Why are you so sweaty?” she asks.

I wipe my brow with the inside of my hand. “Hay.”

Her eyes rake my body up and down as if she’s studying me or somethin’. She makes me nervous, but I’m too curious about her to care.

“You a farm boy?”

I shrug my shoulders. I can’t tell if she thinks that’s a bad thing or a good thing. “A little, I guess. We live on my grandpa’s farm.”

She keeps her stare on me, until she eventually nods. I still can’t tell if she likes what I said or not, but I do notice her lips movin’ up as if maybe they want to smile or somethin’.

I wade deeper into the creek, which just so happens to be even closer to her. The water creeps up past the top of my jeans. It feels good, but I really could care less about the water anymore. Coolin’ off lost its charm when she showed up.

She moves into the deeper part too. I notice the water slide up past the top of her shorts and dance on a piece of her tan skin not covered by her shirt.

“Okay, on three, we go under,” she says.

“Okay,” I agree. Hell, I think I’d agree to about anything right about now.

“One…two. Three.”

I watch her suck in a big breath of air and then shut her eyes before droppin’ down into the water. And just like that, she becomes a blur of colors. I hold my breath then, shut my eyes tight and do the same.

When I come back up, she’s already smoothing her long wet hair back. There are little beads of water hangin’ all over her smooth skin. I shake my head and wipe my eyes so I can get a better look at her and the way her wet clothes cling to her little body. She can’t be too much over five feet tall. I’m memorizing every piece of her when she suddenly falls back into the water.

“I like it here.” She seems to profess it to the wind or somethin’. Her voice is like my grandma’s freshly churned butter used to be — smooth and rich.

“It’s nice,” she adds.

I smile because I ain’t never been nowhere else. “It’s not so bad.”

Her pretty stare falls back onto me. I can tell she’s thinkin’ again but damned if I can tell what it is she’s thinkin’ about.

“You gonna be back here tomorrow?” she asks.

I nod my head. If she was going to be here, I was going to be here.

“Here,” she says. She lowers her face and slips that shiny, little necklace of hers over her head before she hesitates. “You’re not a thief, are you?”

I smile wider. “No,” I say.

“Well, then, here. To ensure your return.”

She slips the necklace over my neck.

“Aw, you don’t gotta do that. I’ll be…”

“Back,” she finishes my sentence. “I know. You have to return my necklace.”

I just look at her. I think I’m in awe or I’m waiting to realize she’s just a mirage — like when you get too hot and thirsty and you start seeing strange things — like in the movies.

She stands up again. Water slides off her like she’s shedding a translucent layer. And once that layer’s gone, all that’s left is her beautiful skin, which I just can’t seem to get enough of.

I watch her make her way back to the gravel again. My brain is tellin’ me to say somethin’, but my dumb mouth won’t open.

She gets to the little sandy-colored rocks and slips her shoes back on. Then she turns my way and smiles before she takes off up the bank again. I would chase after her if I knew my darn body would cooperate. Instead, I just follow with my eyes her long legs as they carry the best thing that’s ever happened to me out of my sight.

And when I can’t see her anymore, I look down and carefully pick up the piece of the necklace around my neck that’s most shiny. It’s a heart, and it’s made out of tiny, little glass prisms. I turn it over in my fingers and watch the colors dance inside the little heart.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’m going to be here when the sun comes up, and I’m not leavin’ until I see her again. I don’t care if I have to wait here all day. This girl has just officially stolen my heart — and I didn’t even know I had a heart to steal. And on top of that, I never even got her name.

The next mornin’ I’m up at the crack of dawn. I feed the calves. I put a new bale out for the cows, and I make sure Ace, Grandpa’s dog, has water in his bowl since my grandpa is out visiting his brother all day. On a normal day, those things might have taken me all mornin’ to do, but that’s when I’m piddlin’ around tryin’ to make less work for myself. I learned the longer it takes me to do things, the less work I’m assigned. But there’s no time for piddlin’ today. As soon as I get all my chores done — in record time — I fly down to that creek as if my ass is on fire. Hell, it could be, and I wouldn’t even know it — not today anyway.