I WAS WOKEN by a feeling of hardness inside my trunks. Something was straining against the fabric. I lay facedown. No one had seen me. Luce was still asleep. I was covered in sweat and my head ached. I must have gotten sunstroke. Down below, the hardness kept pressing against my towel. This had never happened to me at the beach. I didn’t understand. It was actually painful. My eyes were fixed on Luce. I wasn’t looking at her face but at her breasts and the curve of her butt under her swimsuit. I felt stronger, more stable. I moved toward her and kissed her, stroked her with my fingertips, shivering with a new kind of heat that had nothing to do with the sun or with anxiety but was something else altogether, irresistible.

“Leo.”

“Luce…” I kept caressing her, my fingers trailing over her stomach.

“Leo. We’re at the beach.”

“Then let’s go back…”

“No.”

I wanted to stop but I couldn’t help myself.

Luce suddenly sat up. “What are you doing?”

I pulled a face, embarrassed. She looked away.

Yann and Tom, the two boys from the pool, spotted us from a distance and came over to join us. I put on Luce’s sunglasses to hide my eyes in case I started crying. They checked me out. Yann sat between us and Tom on the other side, close to me.

“Jesus, this motherfucking heat… How you doing?”

I nodded behind my sunglasses. They were very practical. I wanted to listen to what Luce was saying, but one towel’s length was enough distance not to hear anything but the waves—and Tom talking to me with his breath that smelled of beer and fries.

“So… are you with her or not?” He gestured to Luce.

I shrugged. I felt eloquent, without saying a word.

“Did you make out?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you fuck her?”

“No.”

“It’s hard work with her. Yann’s struggling, look at him… Oscar had a hard time, too, you know. She sent him packing last night. He was pissed off, man… I bet that idiot puked. I think he left with his mother without even saying goodbye. Look at the sky… There’s a storm coming. It’s going to explode. Hey, are you listening to me?”

A lifeguard was yelling. All swimmers had to get out of the water: it was getting dangerous. I sensed Yann moving closer to Luce, trying to seduce her with his words. What’s the point? I thought. Go ahead and try. Anyway, everything was going to explode. The storm would coincide with a massive wave that would sweep away the beach, the campsite, and all the tangled desires of the girls and the boys. A red helicopter was hovering near the water. That was the SNSM. They were checking to see if Oscar’s corpse was floating in the sea. They were looking in the wrong place. They were searching the sea because the sea was obviously violent and cold. The sand, by contrast, was too soft and warm; Oscar couldn’t be there. They’d gotten the wrong enemy, just like I’d mistaken the smiles and the laughter, the joy spreading along the paths. Everywhere, it was the same big misunderstanding. Not many people committed suicide in the water. The helicopter flew farther out to sea and I stayed where I was, in the sun, still hard against my towel.