Scott and I sat on the fourth step leading up to the beach house that he and his friends were renting that week. It was three in the morning, and it was cool out.

Several nights earlier, finished with spring exams and ecstatic in our new freedom, a couple of friends and I had left Charlottesville for Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, along with a third of the university. It was Beach Week, the break between finals and graduation, when the fourth years tried to have as much last bittersweet fun as possible and the rest of us just partied to celebrate the beginning of summer.

I didn’t know Scott too well. He was a friend of a friend. He was getting ready to graduate and I had just finished my third year; I’d run into him that night at the club. When we’d got to the house where he was staying, some of his housemates had been partying outside. By now there was an empty keg underneath the stairs, and all its drinkers had gone inside to conk out in an alcoholic stupor. It was quiet, except for the occasional joyriding car or jeep revving down Ocean Boulevard, and the distant exhalations of the ocean.

We were sitting side by side in the cool air, our knees almost touching; a fuzzy blue blanket covered our legs. A breeze blew. I stared out into the darkness, feeling expectant. I could feel his leg hairs softly brushing against mine. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

As we were talking, my heart began to beat faster. I got fidgety. He was just biding his time, humoring me, waiting for me to leave. What could he want with someone five foot six? But if he didn’t want me, why were the danger flares going off inside my head? I was about to cross over to the Other Side. I was there at the airport gate, ticket in hand, stewardess ready with her outstretched arm.

And right then, right there, I chickened out.

“Well, I should probably go,” I said. “It’s kind of cold.”

“Are you sure?” said Scott.

“Yeah, I think so – you know – it’s pretty late.”

“Well, okay,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed, hook-up interruptus, or if he was glad to be rid of this short Jewish curly-haired guy. We got up, throwing off the blue blanket and disrupting its shadowy curves.

I was ready for the ten-minute walk back to the condos where I was staying with the Glee Club. I stuck out my hand.

“Well, thanks for hanging out with me tonight,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” said Scott, shaking my hand.

I then realized I was still wearing his jacket, which I began to remove.

“Why don’t you hold onto that for now,” he said. “It’s kind of chilly.”

“Okay – thanks,” I said, my face beginning to feel warm in the cool night breeze. I shrugged my shoulders and put my hands in the pockets. “It was good talking to you.”

“You too,” he said.

“All right, then – good night.”

“Good night.”

As I walked off, I turned and waved. He waved, too. Then he picked up the blue blanket, crumpled and lifeless, from the steps.

I was glad to be out of there. I’d escaped from the jaws of death. Never before had I been so close. I berated myself and said I must never go back there again. The jacket was too big for me; I felt like a little boy wearing his father’s overcoat. The bottom of it hung midway down my thighs, and I had to push up the sleeves, and even then they kept sliding back down past my hands. Maybe I was shrinking.

While walking back to the condo I passed another college guy wearing a white baseball cap with Greek letters. He seemed about my age. He gave me a slightly embarrassed smile; we were in complicity, each of us returning from some late-night exploit.

“Hey,” he said, conspiratorially.

“How’s it going,” I said as he passed me, feeling the jacket’s weight on me like a blood-stained cloak.