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𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫'𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝟓 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐠𝐨
✦
"𝐖𝐇𝐎 do you plan on kissing at midnight?"
Aliyah purses her lips to fight a grin, gripping the balcony's handrail tighter with her free hand, flayed wood splinting into her palm. She takes a sip of her drink and keeps her back towards the intruder. Craning her neck back to gaze at the glittering night sky, her heart stammering in anticipation.
"Come on, don't be so evasive. I need you to tell me, that way I can prepare myself." The playful jaunt is accompanied by familiar footsteps. It's cold out, and she's not dressed for such chilly weather, her dress too thin, too revealing for the outdoors in winter. Each exhale causes a misty cloud to appear before her. When she was younger, she and Henry would hold small sticks to their mouths and pretend they were sophisticated aristocrats, smoking over a game of cards, which in their case was Goldfish.
Now, they curse the weather.
"You know who," she whispers, a little shy, a little excited, but mostly nervous. Out of all her friends, Henry knows the most about her infatuation with the one, and only, Lincoln Wyatt. He's her living, breathing diary, filled to the brim with her every thought, be it sinful or mundane. The day they stop being friends, is the day Aliyah will await her demise.
"Lincoln?"
She doesn't nod but the uncontrollable smile that appears at the mention of him is confirmation enough. She could count on one hand the number of times she's approached Lincoln of her own volition, and every single time she'd taken the initiative, whatever objective she had in mind would escape her, and she'd be left stuttering and mumbling like a buffoon, thoughts entirely scattered.
But not today. Today, she was determined. Today, she had a plan and a glass of champagne. Today, she would go from mere acquaintance to genuine friend and what better way to go about this than with a simple, innocent kiss? She'd done it with countless friends, male, female, and non-binary alike. It was a perfect plan, and this year, she would do it.
"Oh-la-la," Henry sings. He stands beside her and shimmies, nudging her. "Look at you, Ms. Adventurous. Dora the Explorer would be so jealous right now." He shakes his head in equal parts disbelief and pride. "You're finally going to do it."
She grips the stem of her glass more firmly and nods, reaffirming her determination with repetition. "Yup. I'm going to do it."
Henry whistles and whoops at her determination, just as pleased as she is.
"'Aliyah and Abe sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,'" she shoves her shoulder against her childhood friend's but Henry falters in reciting this childish rhyme for only a moment before picking back up, "'First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage.'"
"Henry, the adult," she presents sarcastically to the empty air. She holds her drink up in mock cheers and he joins her. They take a sip and stand in comfortable silence. She polishes off her drink and thinks, shivering, wanting, and waiting.
Nina shouts out a two-minute warning for everyone to come back inside, it's almost midnight. Aliyah looks at Henry, a prickle of uncertainty contaminating her will. But his face is filled with encouragement, his smile warm and she forces herself to feel confident again. A shiver rushes down her spine, and they both go back inside, parting ways once they get to the threshold of the living room.
It doesn't take her long to locate Lincoln. She can sense anytime they're in the same room, that's how attuned she is to his existence.
Nina thinks it's an obsession. Henry thinks it's cute, though a little unhealthy.
But Aliyah thinks it's a divine connection.
"Yah-Yah!" Hattie shrieks from the other side of the room, near the fireplace, the center of attention in a group of five. Everyone turns to look at Aliyah while Hattie waves her hand up in the air, jumping and signaling enthusiastically in a bid to get her friend's attention. Aliyah waves at her friend, and shakes her head politely to decline coming over. She's on a mission and besides, Reece is in that group, and though they split up amicably, it's still awkward being around him.
That's when she spots him: Lincoln. He's conversing with someone, leaning his shoulder against the wall, ankles crossed, arms folded over his wide chest. An expression of concentration creases on his face, and he nods, listening intently, a hand on his chin. She takes a moment to admire him, to swoon over the way he pushes his glasses up his nose, or swipe his thumb over his bottom lip. He has such nice arms... such marvelous hands.
"One minute!" Nina warns, tapping her glass with the flick of her acrylic nails. Aliyah flinches back into action. The room bursts with pockets of conversations that grow louder, and everyone starts to crowd together.
But not Lincoln. His head is still bent forward, and he's still gracing this other person with his attention. Aliyah makes her way toward them, her feet moving on their own accord.
A heartbeat later, she's standing in front of him, and she's intoxicated. Not with alcohol—she'd barely had a glass—but with him. His existence. His presence.
Lincoln notices her right away. She stops to stand two steps from him and he excuses himself politely to turn to face her a few breaths later.
At first, he looks down at her with a puzzled expression, like he's surprised to see her. Then, the corner of his lips perks up in a quiet smile, and his cheeks crease, revealing a set of deep dimples. His voice is low and deep, but she hears him, memorizing the intonation of his words so that she might replay them over and over again later that night. "Hey, Aliyah. What's up?"
And there it goes, her thoughts—her sensibilities. They flutter from her like a frightened butterfly the second he says her name, the cadence of his voice utterly flawless, and she meets those gleaming, hazel eyes. Without forethought, without so much as a rational consideration for the consequences that would be had if she acted on her deepest desires and impulse, Aliyah reaches for him.
He stumbles back in surprise when she cups his face. She lifts up on her tiptoes to get closer, her lips hovering just above his. The entire room goes quiet, and all her friends stare in bewilderment at the unexpected scene. This isn't what's supposed to happen.
But she doesn't care. For once, she just doesn't care.
The next words that fall from her lips are her own, but they come from a secret place within. A place she'd kept under lockdown since its inspection. She'd often imagined confessing her true feelings to Lincoln, but it was usually after he'd exclaimed his undying affection for her.
Of the millions of way she's envisioned it, it never went down quite like this. So unexpectedly. So unsolicited. So publicly.
But it happens nonetheless, and she would never be able to take it back. She could only move on knowing that her next words to him aren't a cordial, "Nothing much. What about you?" and instead is an impassioned, breathless, heart-wrenching confession of, "I love you."
