Monument by M. P., Duxbury, MA

The stone was hard and uncomfortable. I sat looking over the Atlantic, shivering as the warm wind played with my hair. I tried to think of poetry, or stories to tell. I wanted to say something. I wanted to say anything. I was scared, excited, but I didn't know how to start. I was thirteen, an amateur, and this was new.

She was twelve, but to me she seemed years older than me. She put the thick blanket we had used for our picnic over my legs. Then she asked me how I could be cold in this weather.

I wasn't cold. It was 85 degrees or so. I was nervous, or elated, or frightened. Mismatched emotions were slinking around in my belly - or maybe it was just the tuna. But I wasn't cold.

Nicole and I had been dating for about two weeks. I still hadn't kissed her. I had never kissed any girl before. I knew she was getting impatient, and I knew it had to happen that day.

The ocean always looked peaceful from a mile away. I looked hard toward the shore from up on the hill where the monument stood over me. With all my might I wished myself to be on that beach. I wanted to forget where I was, and what I had to overcome. I imagined myself down on that beach all alone. But the thought of being alone scared me right back to the top of the hill, into my body, to face her lips, her smile, that was now almost a frown.

"Are you all right?" she said innocently pulling a part of the blanket over her own legs. She slid closer to me and put her arms around me, I shivered. The blood in my veins congealed. Nothing will ever taste or smell as sweet as it did that day. My world aged a century in just under a minute.

I am still young, still an amateur, but a thousand times more confused than I was at the beginning of that day. I don't know whether what she gave me, or what she took from me was more precious.