So this is happening. I'm not imagining it or dreaming. Jennie reaches out and pulls back her comforter, looking at me expectantly.
"Um..." I say. "If you have a sleeping bag..."
She frowns at me like I'm crazy. Oh my God. Am I being even more obvious by expecting to sleep on the floor? Shit. Shit.
"It's just sometimes other people's mattresses are too soft for my back," I say quickly, trying to cover and of course sounding like an old lady while doing it. My back?! Can I just dig a hole and hide inside it forever, please?
"Well, lie back and see," she says. "Mine's not very soft."
I do as she says because I can't object without being weird now. She's right—her mattress is firm. Her sheets and pillows, however, are soft. Lying back on the pile of pillows is like sinking into something too deeply, with no tether to pull you back.
I can't do this. I absolutely cannot sleep next to her.
"I'm really fine with a sleeping bag," I say, trying for a final, futile time.
"Do I smell or something?" Jennie asks, half-joking.
"Never mind," I say, because if she prods, I might just blurt it out.
"If you snore, it's fine," she assures me, climbing into bed and sliding her long legs under the covers. "Once I'm out, I'm out."
"Deep sleeper, huh?"
"Like the dead."
"I bet you're fun to get up in the morning," I say.
She flashes me a grin. "Jisoo once dumped me in the pool to wake me up."
"What is with you guys and throwing people in water?" I ask, thinking of the time at the lake with Kai.
"It was funny!" she protests with a hushed laugh.
She leans over and my heart stops beating because she's leaning toward me, so close I forget to breathe, but then I realize she's just reaching for the lamp on the nightstand. She switches it off, plunging us into darkness, and when she draws back, it's too slow to be anything but purposeful.
I've slept over at people's houses before. I've curled under scratchy Disney sheets next to other girls. But this is nothing like that.
Jennie is not like those other girls. She is every question I've ever had— about myself, about love, about touch. And she's in this double bed with me, tucked under covers together, nothing stopping us from touching.
My skin buzzes, but nothing happens. In the dark, I can hear her rustling next to me as she turns over onto her side. Her back's to me as she says, "Night!" like it's nothing.
"Night," I echo numbly, not knowing what to do. I lie there on my back, the covers tucked up to my chin, blinking in the dark. I stare into the darkness until my eyes adjust, until I'm almost used to it.
If I move, my entire body might just burst from the twisting ache of being so close but feeling so far away. So I just lie there, frozen between wanting and waiting, between question and answer.
She breathes softly next to me, so evenly that it has to be fake, right? But the minutes stretch, and when she lets out a gentle snore, I know she's not faking it. She did say she was a really sound sleeper.
I worked myself up over nothing. Maybe I'm really going crazy. Reading into everything.
No. No. I wasn't. This—whatever it is growing between us—it's real.
I finally tilt over on my side, facing away from her, desperate for the pull of sleep. But it's not going to work—she's too close. There's no way I'm ever sleeping, in her sheets, in her room, wrapped up in the citrus-flower smell of her, the heat of her body just inches away.
I turn once more. This time to face her. In the dark, I can barely make out the shadow of her form, let alone her face, but it doesn't matter.
I think I could summon the image of her even if I go twenty years without laying eyes on her. I think that someday, when I have gray hair and lines around my eyes, I'll be able to close them and see her perfectly, seventeen and smiling only for me.
Maybe I'll doze off if I count my breathing. They do that in meditation, I think, but I don't really know how to do that.
This is normal, I tell myself. Girls have sleepovers. They share beds. It's normal. It doesn't mean anything.
Her hands lingered. There was no other word for it. When she was spreading the medicine up my back, they lingered on my skin. I know, because mine did the same on hers.
"Mmph."
I stiffen at the sudden noise. The mattress shifts, and I slide a little toward the middle as she moves. Her arm flops, curling against my side. Such a simple touch, but it spreads warmth everywhere. Little sparks travel to parts of my body I've never been aware of before as her fingers curve into the soft skin of my stomach.
Is she awake? She can't be. She wouldn't....
Would she?
"Jennie," I whisper.
She doesn't answer.
I shift, but instead of her hand sliding off me, it causes her to cuddle up, closing the few inches between us.
Our bodies click together like puzzle pieces. She curves around me like she's a crescent moon and I'm the hidden half, something to be sheltered and cherished. I sigh into it—into her—the long line of heat sizzling up me. I want so much, so swiftly, it whips the breath out of my lungs.
"Jennie," I try again. I have to. I can't—I'm going to combust like this. Her hand splays across my stomach, her fingers brushing against the elastic of my shorts. I freeze, unable to move, unwilling to pull away. I can feel her hips pressed against me, where her shirt rides up and it's just skin—so much skin and so much warmth that I should be sweating, but I'm not. I'm falling into the burn of it instead, my breath finally back, and almost panting.
"Mmm," she sighs, her head dropping into the crook of my neck. The press of her lips can't be purposeful, because they flutter in a snoozy breath under my ear, but she lets out another sigh and her body relaxes, her arm tight around me.
I close my eyes, trying to calm the blood rushing to my head and ... other parts of me. I feel like a bomb about to go off, and I suck in air, screwing my eyes shut and trying to focus. One. Two. Three. Four. Breathe out. One. Two. Three. Four. Breathe in.
I lose track of how many times I do it. I don't try to shift underneath Jennie's grip. I give myself over to it, memorizing the feel of her fingers against me, the press of her breasts against my back. She is so sweet, in so many ways. I didn't realize someone so sharp could be that sweet. I don't even know if she knows she's like this, melting sweet and finally free, if maybe this is only something you can see in sleep. Maybe I'm the first person to ever see it. Does she sleep next to Kai, I wonder?
As soon as the thought hits me, I stiffen and she makes a noise, her grip tightening and her leg sliding between both of mine.
I keep breathing—amazingly, it's probably the most monumental achievement of my life—and keep my eyes closed.
Time ticks by, and somehow I finally drift off, wrapped up in her in a way I've never been close to another person.
***
The next thing I know, light's hitting me.
"Morning!"
I squint against the bright sun, my eyes struggling to adjust, my mind trying to catch up. Everything is too bright and loud and empty. Her arms aren't around me anymore, and it's like my body hurts where she was pressed.
"I slept so good last night," Jennie says. "You're like Ambien, Lisa."
I untangle myself from the blankets, pushing my messy hair out of my face. Oh God, I probably have the worst bedhead. I know I have terrible morning breath.
She looks amazing. Fuck. Of course she does. She looks like she's slept as soundly as she claimed and didn't spend the night drinking and getting tangled up in poison oak. I catch a glimpse of myself in her dresser mirror and cringe. The same cannot be said about me.
"I'm glad you slept good," I say.
"Didn't you?" she asks, and my head's pounding from last night, but I know when she's trying to pull something on me.
"Absinthe doesn't really agree with me," I lie. I'd only taken a sip, it had barely gone to my head. But she doesn't need to know that.
"Hanni gave you absinthe?" she asks, her words spilling out quickly.
"Yeah," I say carefully, remembering how she'd acted last night when Hanni and I talked. I can't help but continue, just to see how she'll act: "After you went off with Kai, she and I had a drink together."
"I told you Hanni was trouble," Jennie warns me.
"I'll take that into consideration," I tell her, even though I don't want to think about Jennie's idea of trouble, considering she'd basically spooned me last night.
"Whatever," Jennie says. "Don't say I didn't warn you when she, like, tries to hit on you."
"The horror," I drawl without thinking.
"What does that mean?" Jennie demands.
"Nothing," I say quickly, crawling out of her bed fast as I can. "I'm glad you slept good. I really need to get going. Marco will wonder where I am."
"I'll drive you," Jennie says.
"You don't—"
"Yeah I do," she says. "You didn't bike over here, remember? I picked you up. Come on."
The drive home is almost entirely silent. I don't know what I did wrong.
Was she awake last night? Is she mad at me for not jerking away or something? If I'd tried, I would've fallen out of bed.
Maybe she's embarrassed? I sneak a look at her out of the corner of my eye, trying to read her expression as she concentrates on the road. But when she catches me looking, she just smiles sunnily at me, and then it's back to focusing on the road.
"I'll walk you in!" she says when she pulls up to the house.
"You don't need to," I say.
"I want to see your room," she insists.
"I haven't cleaned—"
"I don't care," she says, getting out of the car before I can protest any further, so I'm the one following her up the path to the porch.
"Lisa, is that you?" Marco calls when we get inside.
"Yep. I spent the night at Jennie's," I say.
He comes out into the hall from the kitchen. "Hey, Jennie."
"Hi, Marco."
"I made pancakes," he says. "Have you girls eaten breakfast?"
"Oh, it's okay, we're—" I start to say.
"I would love some pancakes," Jennie says, interrupting me. "We used up a lot of energy last night, didn't we, Lis?"
I stare at her, my cheeks turning red. "Um."
"Playing capture the flag," Jennie continues smoothly.
"That sounds fun," Marco tells her as he beckons us into the kitchen. He dishes out the pancakes, and Jennie perches on the stool next to the kitchen island and pours maple syrup on her plate.
I take the orange juice Marco gives me, staying entirely quiet as the two of them chatter at each other. I feel like I'm in some sort of weird dream: spending the night with Jennie, literally in her arms, and now I'm sitting here having breakfast with her.
Is this what it's like when you have a girlfriend? Do you just get to grow up and move in with them and wake up with them and eat breakfast with them and be ... happy?
The idea is too strange to be real. This feeling growing in my stomach is too weird as Jennie jokes with Marco about something called the Snowflake Festival that the town throws in the winter.
"You're going to love it," she promises when she sees my confused look.
"There's a snowman-making contest."
"That sounds like something I'd hate," I say.
Marco laughs. "We've got a Grinch right here in the kitchen."
I glare at him. "What do you know about my holiday traditions?"
He falls silent, his expression sobering. Jennie looks nervously between the two of us.
"I should go," she says tactfully. "I'll see your room next time, Lisa. My mom needs me to watch my sister."
I nod.
"I'll AIM you." She hops off the stool. "Thanks for the pancakes, Marco!"
I clear the plates as she lets herself out, fleeing the awkward situation I absolutely created. God, what is wrong with me? I can see Marco is trying. It just seems to make everything worse. I don't know why.
"You okay?" Marco asks.
"I'm fine."
He raises an eyebrow and leans forward, his elbows pressing on the kitchen counter. "I know what a hangover looks like," he tells me.
"Ten points to you," I say. "I'm going to go lie down." My eyes are gritty, like I didn't get any sleep at all.
When I get to my room, I fall back on my bed, my hand dropping down to the spot on my stomach where hers rested for so long last night. I breathe in and out, my hand rising and falling, and I swear, I can feel her hand under mine. The ghost of her breath against my neck. The heat of her hips pressed tight to mine.
My eyes drift shut and for the first time since I took the weight of her against me in her bed, I let myself revel in it. In her. In the two of us and the sleep-warm tangle we made under her sheets.
I hope you woke up wrapped in me, I think, willing my thoughts to float across the streets and trees and through her bedroom window. I hope you didn't know where you started and where I began. I hope it shook you, how right it felt, waking up with your arms around me. I hope you didn't know what the fuck to do with yourself—because I didn't, last night.
My fingers move, skirting lower, under the waistband of my shorts. No. Jennie's shorts. They cut a little too tight around the waist and they're shorter than what I'd wear, and on her, they'd hang on her hips, low-slung and baring so much skin.
I hope you're thinking about me too, when you do this.