He came up to me at the party and just sat down like sometimes they will do, only usually with girls who are pretty. Immediately, I suspected his motivation. "I hate these things," he told me, which was stupid right off the bat because then he looked dumb for being there if he hated it and he made me feel dumb for going to such a stupid party. But he had big hands and starry blue eyes like the sky on warm nights and he couldn't look dumb for long looking that good, and if there are beautiful people at a party you know it can't be that bad, and then I started to get my hopes up which is where I always go wrong.

He said, "How do you know Paul?" because it was Paul's party, the big post-graduation bash, and I told him the truth -- I worked with him once at Snyder's -- even though I wanted to say once he was my boyfriend really casual and flippant about it because it would sound like I'd had lots of boyfriends, like this was just one more. But I told him the truth, and he said he was Paul's second cousin and all of a sudden the conversation stuttered and hung heavy and silent and I figured that was it.

So he went to get me a Coke and when he sat down again he nudged closer on the faux leather couch so his knees touched my knees and by then I'd decided it would never go anywhere, probably he was just bored and it was no use getting any hopes up whatsoever, so there you go, but at least I got a free drink out of it.

When he asked if I'd like to find someplace quiet to talk, I just smiled and shook my head. I knew where things were going. His house was just a few blocks up, he said, and would I like to come over? And I said no, but he could walk me home -- my house was just a few blocks down, and he jumped up and took my hand and didn't let go until we got to the front door. My fingers were all sweaty from the humidity of his closeness, and I was afraid he would ask to come in, and I was more afraid I might actually say yes -- the euphoria of graduating was starting to make me feel a little too adult. But he did and I didn't. I mean, he asked and I just kissed him instead of letting him in -- dry lips, no teeth, and just long enough to let him know that next time he could expect it. Then I shut the door, leaned against it and listened to the silence when he was gone and tasted the memory of him and the sweaty June night, tasted the whole hot summer still ahead of me, and realized I was counting on a next time.

So when he called the next day (which was surprising enough) and wanted to take me to Tropix, this dance club I'd always been too scared to go to alone, and when I said yes and realized I even wanted to go, I wasn't just saying it or trying to convince myself, I started thinking that maybe something was happening here. You know those moments when you feel like you've suddenly passed yourself up and your whole life, which has been whirring in this perpetually circular motion for so long, has suddenly flung itself out of itself and now you're flying free and forward and you're going somewhere? Those moments scare the hell out of me.

He picked me up in a dusty brown Plymouth that reminded me of my grandfather's and he was more attractive than I remembered. There was this one perfect tuft of hair that wouldn't stay down and his one eye was a little different color than the other and these things that weren't perfect made him seem even more perfect than he probably was.

"You know," he said as he checked his blind spot, "I don't usually jump into things like this. I don't usually pick up girls at parties, I mean." And I said, "I believe you," because I did; someone like him wouldn't ever have to pick up girls at parties. I found a spot on his cheek he must have missed when he was shaving and the air conditioning was turned off, which is why I must have felt so warm right then. He said, "I'm glad I did last night," and I didn't know what to say to that even though he was looking right at me like I was supposed to say something and I just watched out the window until he looked back at the road. It wasn't a long time because he's a careful driver and that was a reckless thing to do.

Later, when we were dancing, he held me tight up against him so my head was on his shoulder. Probably it was so I wouldn't see how his eyes were moving up the legs of girls who came without dates, but I don't mind any more when guys are like that as long as they don't let on. Once I was with a guy who told me he'd given up on attractive girls because they weren't as interesting as girls like me. I think he thought that was a compliment, but it didn't feel like one when he went back to his ex who was tall and blonde and would never have to be interesting to have them lining up. When he left, I stopped plucking my eyebrows and painting my toenails and worrying about pretty-girl things like lipstick and skin care because what was the point after that?

But there would be times I'd remember how it is to be in someone's arms, how his fingers feel on your hips and his breath in your hair and how you close your eyes and you're only smell and feeling. The way I let myself feel for this one perfect moment while I was dancing with him, this moment when he pulled me away and held my head in his big hands and made me so small and safe in his hands and kissed me without saying anything. No words and no groping to make it an awkward thing, just sweet, sudden kissing that seemed to mean something before I caught myself. He held me tighter then and we danced in slow, small steps and he still didn't say anything and I breathed him in deep. He smelled so good, like sweat and shampoo.

After, he didn't drive me home like I thought he was doing. He drove me to the highest point in the whole city -- at least that's what he said it was. It seemed high. He parked beneath a streetlight that made it all orange and foggy-looking in the car, like a sunset, and for a long time I just looked out and didn't talk because this is where you can see the whole city best, I suppose, and I didn't want to miss anything. It was glittery and alive down below, restless in the summer heat, and it seemed so far away.

"I'm over here," he said finally, and I turned my head and was surprised to find he'd moved closer. I said, "I know where you are," even though that wasn't true because I'd been surprised to find him there. He found my hand somehow and just looked at me then and let me just look at him. And I wanted to look at him, just take him in for as long as it took, I wanted to remember this exactly the way it happened because tonight felt like a photograph, like something that years from now would come to me out of the blue and I would sit back and remember this picture, frozen, perfect, and I didn't want to miss anything.

Then he said, "But where do you want me?" and it was like he'd gotten up and walked right out of my photograph and sat down next to me and now I didn't know what to do. I felt his hand hard and real around my hand, the stillness and the steadiness of his grip. The fast, fluttery tangle of our eyes as we took each other in.

"I don't know," I told him, "I don't know, I've never gotten to this part," and suddenly the flying feeling stopped and the whirring aloneness stopped and my whole life spun still and waiting on that hill above the city and all I could feel was the sunrise orangeness filling up the car, his big hand warm around mine. He wouldn't stop taking me in. "This is the hard part, getting this high," he said. "The hard part's over. Everything's downhill from here," and maybe he was right.

Kate Benson, 18 and a senior from Mounds View, Minn., belongs to an environmental group, tutors younger students, works at Barnes & Noble and worked last summer at a publishing company. She'll study creative writing at Princeton University in the fall. Her faculty sponsor is Stephen Schwandt of Irondale H.S. Benson's story is "Small Steps," about a girl overcoming her insecurities about a new boyfriend.