Here’s a fun beach romance for the fourth Flash Fiction, Button Style, 250 words in one hour.  Button from Lorelei M.  

A Summer Thing

“I don’t understand.”

This was why she didn’t say good-bye.  How had she forgotten?

She rubbed her hand against the stubble on his cheek, noticed how the moonlight formed a halo around his curly hair.

“I have to go back,” she whispered.  “It was a summer thing–fun, pure.  That’s how I’ll remember it.”

“But the things we did, the things we felt—I’ve never . . . . ”     His voice broke.

She was glad she couldn’t see his face.  She leaned into his warmth, felt his breath on her ear—the air pulsing out from his lungs, a dangerous weakness of hers.  She bit her lip.

“You’re so beautiful,” she whispered.  “Like this moment–a beautiful last gift.”

“I’ll go with you . . . .”

She kissed his mouth, felt a tingle as the breeze sent fingers through her gauzy pink blouse.  For a moment she wavered, pulled by a strange current, a hypnotizing force.

But then she turned toward the distant moonlit whitecaps.  “You have to walk away,” she said in a voice she knew he couldn’t refuse.  “Don’t look back.”

His face struggled but he turned and slowly disappeared down the beach.

Finally, she slipped off her white shorts, roughly pulled off her blouse, tearing fabric, popping buttons.

Clothes were something she would not miss.

She stepped into the surf, feeling the saltwater reclaim her.  When she was waist deep, she dove under, scales flapping, his face a pleasant dream drifting among her final bubbles.

~~~

Do you have a button with a story waiting to be told?  Email an image of it to ej@elizabethjennings.com and I’ll do the rest.  Click here for details and for your own summer reading, don’t forget to check out my book, The Button Collector.