we met that night, you and i.
you in your blue-jeans and cute flannel shirt,
me in my khakis and blue shirt.

thursday was the best day, that week.
only, it took me too long to notice you,
working by your side all week, focused only on the next nail.

but i did notice you, and i am a better man for it.
we talked and we fidgeted, but not a nervous fidget,
no, there was no nervousness that evening.

it was the fidget you get when you're just counting the seconds.
like a child, standing at the side of the pool,
waiting for thirty minutes to be up before jumping in.

we walked that night, talked on the beach.
your hand in mine, your baby-blue eyes gazing at mine,
your long blonde hair that smelt of the ocean.

some think we move too fast, ourselves included.
we know though; we know it isn't too fast,
because we fit, because we have no questions about our feelings.

regret is another story though.
i have two regrets from that week of building,
i should have grabbed you sooner, and we should have walked on that beach.

it changes nothing now, but hindsight is 20/20.
i still love you and you still love me,
but next time, we're walking that beach.
We were a class of school boys, taken away to the west on one of those very rare field trips. The excuse was to visit the grave of Peig Sayers and to see the area of Ireland that she had lived in, a small headland tucked between the mainland of Kerry and the slate cold Atlantic.
Running loose in Dingle 16 year old boys getting drunk and I was the only bloody sober one.
Later that night we strode down to the beach. High in the dunes the waves washed in out of sight and the we were perched at the edge of the world. Above the stars, nothing but the stars and I swore that I felt the Earth turn beneath me, spinning in the heavens.
All the old friends gone now, the old insecurities sought, fought and overcome. I look out at a different shore, another country and another ocean, but the same stars sit in my mind, turn above me.
That night on the beach I decided to study astronomy and 10 years later still seem to be doing so.

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