I had forgotten how much I liked kissing her.
The softness of her lips, the feeling of her smooth, creamy skin brushing mine, the way she didn't grip or push me and just let our mouths move together in gentle synchronicity.
Yet, I still felt sad inside.
I kissed her for a long moment, knotting my hands through her long hair while she held the sides of my face. Heather cleared her throat stiffly somewhere to the right of me. I broke away, turning to her as Rhoda leaned on me.
"Maybe you could continue... this... later?" she asked meekly.
"Look," Rhoda started, and I shook my head swiftly, trying to get her to shut up. "Our kiss was better than yours anyway," she told Heather haughtily.
"Maybe," the other girl murmured. "But ours was more meaningful. And you can't ruin it."
"It wasn't a competition," I said firmly, trying to steal a glance at Michael. "No one's ruining anything."
He was looking past all of us at something in the distance, sort of unhappily. Is he mad at me? I thought in sudden panic. Does he think I'm trying to be better than him?
"We should probably get going," he said finally, his tone steady and impassive. His hand touched Heather's and I noticed how she moved her arms up to cross around herself, as if cold. "The rain's picking up."
Rhoda looked skyward, though it was too dark above us to see anything. "If I get rained on my shirt's gonna be see-through," she said, pinching the material of her tight cap-sleeved tee to separate it from her skin.
I felt almost worried that Michael didn't say something or even make a slight smirk. Something must really be wrong with him.
"Well then," Heather said, breaking the nervous silence. "Goodnight." She narrowly avoided bumping my arm as she made a beeline for Michael's car.
Rhoda turned to give her a poorly concealed sneer, then shrugged and offered up her fist to Michael for a bump. I supposed that meant she was okay with him now. He looked blankly at her for a second, then obliged, forcing a smile.
"Bye," I blurted out.
He turned his eyes to me, smiling a bit more genuinely before reaching over to gently ruffle my hair. I relished in the split second he touched me. "See you tomorrow."
My heart felt heavy as Rhoda took my hand and led me over to the Impala, swinging our arms slowly between us. "Was that horrible?" I asked softly.
"What part?"
"All of it," I murmured. "The whole night. Did I, like, torture you by forcing you here?"
"Nah," she said assuringly. "Like I said, tasty chickens."
I snickered and opened the passengers' door for her. "I'm glad you liked them."
"I liked kissing you too," she said as she buckled herself in.
I walked around to the drivers' side, trying to collect my thoughts. Was I leading her on? No. She understood the situation. Didn't she? "So, was Heather too much of a nerd?" I asked, slamming shut the door.
Rhoda shrugged. "She's annoying. Not like I care, though. Those losers aren't worth our energy."
I looked behind me as I backed up the car, trying not to get in a wreck as I escaped the parking lot. It was after 9 p.m. now, and though most days in high school I'd stayed up past three in the morning, I was exhausted.
"Do you think they're gonna go home and fuck?" I wondered sullenly.
"Probably," she said. "Did you see the look in her eye every time he said two words to her? She's totally in love."
I made a wide turn onto the road and straightened out the wheel hectically. "I don't know. She kinda seemed upset."
"She was crying," Rhoda pointed out.
I laughed a little. "Um, yeah, 'cuz of you."
"No. Really?"
"Yes," I said.
"Damn. That's just sad."
"You were kinda mean to her," I murmured while she pulled a new cigarette from her pack.
She made a scoffing noise and raised it to her lips. "She started it."
"Not really," I muttered.
She exhaled loudly and left the cigarette hanging from her mouth, breathing out through it so the end burned red. I reached over and rolled my window down for some relief from all the second-hand smoke I was engulfing.
It was raining pretty hard now. I'd always liked the smell of rain, as weird as that sounded. It was clean and refreshing and some part of me had always wanted to go out and dance in it.
I looked back as Rhoda did the same, waiting until hers was all the way down to prop her arm up on the door, letting her hand dangle out in the air. "How do you think Michael feels about you?" she asked suddenly, catching me off guard.
I looked straight ahead at the road, lit up by my headlights. "Uh, I don't know. Why?"
"Just wondered. Like, it seems kinda weird that he would just reject you and then keep on being friends like nothing happened."
"He didn't reject me," I said quickly. "I don't want to be with him."
"Oh," she said. "What do you want?"
I tried to think about it and come up with an answer that wasn't some foolish sappy thing about wanting someone to care for me and make me feel safe. I had to take care of myself, of course. And someday, if I did well in life, I'd have to take care of other things as well, like a wife and children and a home and all those other things that now seemed sickeningly unappealing.
I had been silent for so long I wondered if maybe she'd forgotten what we were talking about. I looked over, glancing back and forth between her and the road. "I'd just like to be happy, I think."
Rhoda said nothing, just drew her cigarette slowly from her lips and blew a thin, curling line of smoke into the air.
Michael
Heather's apartment was gross.
The door was old, painted brown with scratches of green cut into it, and rusted around the hinges.
I rubbed my shoes over the dirty welcome mat beneath my feet, which had a faded picture of a lion's face. Heather was fumbling with the lock, one hand turning the key, the other nervously pushing her hair behind her ear.
"What's the matter?" I asked lightly as I clasped my own shaky hands together, then immediately dropped them. I was lost on how to behave now. 99% of the time, if I was at a girl's place, it was to party or hook up. And over the short period of time I'd gotten to know Heather, I gathered she enjoyed neither.
She finally got the door unlocked, and swung it open with a loud creak as we walked inside. The interior of her home wasn't much prettier. The teal paint on the walls was peeling, the carpets had stains everywhere, and the armchair wedged in the corner was simply storage space for miscellaneous art supplies.
I walked over and reached beside it, picking up a dusty tan acoustic guitar. "You play?" I said, shoveling through a few paint palettes to sit down.
"Oh, not really," she said. "I only know a couple chords. I always wanted to learn but I'm too busy."
I positioned the guitar in my arms and tested it out. "Out of tune," I said shortly.
"Oh," she said again.
I dropped my eyes from her, starting in A minor to play the beginning of Working Class Hero, one of the few songs I had memorized. It sounded bad.
She listened for a moment, standing in the middle of the floor, then bounced forward on her toes. "Could you teach me?"
"Sure, c'mere," I said. She hesitated, then shuffled over, her arms hanging loosely at her sides. "It takes years to learn, you know," I said, holding the guitar out in front of me so she could slip between me and it.
She perched herself on the edge of my leg, her elbows digging into the chair's armrests to hold herself up, as if she was afraid of being too heavy. I took her left hand in mine, ignoring the freezing feeling of her skin, and positioned her fingers on the frets.
"Alright," I said. "Strum."
She did, weakly with the pads of her fingers.
"Here." I held both her hands, my arm lightly covering hers, and brushed down the strings a second time. She jumped up before I could even get all the way through, forcing her hands from mine. "What's wrong?"
"I'm just not good at it," she said, taking a wide step back.
I narrowed my eyes. "No, what's bothering you?"
"I-I've-" she stuttered, her voice making a high squeaking noise as she played with her hair again. "I've never done anything like this before. It's..."
"Play the guitar?"
"No, no, this. Going on a date. Bringing someone here. It's so late. Oh my goodness. Are you staying here?"
"I can," I said calmly, lifting the guitar by the neck to lean against the wall. "Would you not like that?"
"I'm not sure," she whispered, and it was probably the most honest she'd been all night.
I chuckled a little. "Well, why don't I stick around for now and you can decide later if you wanna kick me out?"
She took a shaky breath. "I could never."
I walked past her, making her tense up as I nudged open one of the doors connected to her living room. "This your room?"
"Yes," she murmured from behind me. The walls of her bedroom were a soft lilac color, with pink curtains over the window and pink and purple polka-dotted bedsheets. There was a rather alarming number of stuffed animals lining the headboard.
"Wow," I said.
"That's, um-" She pushed past me and rushed to the bed, scooping an armful of elephants, cats, and raccoons to throw into her closet and slam the door loudly. "I've been meaning to clean."
"They're cute," I said. I picked up a fallen hippo from the floor. "This thing is adorable."
"Oh, it's silly," she dismissed, snatching it from me.
I got on the bed, crossing one leg over the other before settling back. "You got a computer?"
"Yes," she said as she joined me. "Why?"
"I thought we could watch a movie while you decide whether you want me here," I said.
A rosy blush had overtaken her face. "Of course I do. You're very... charming."
She reached to her nightstand, which housed a white, flower-shaped lamp, and lifted her laptop over. "What kind of movies do you like?" I asked, not sure if I should expect old classics or Disney princesses.
"You pick," she said as she entered her password and clicked to open Netflix.
"Let's watch a horror movie."
"Oh no, I can't watch horror movies," she said quickly.
I took a steady breath. "Okay, how about a rom-com or something?"
She sat still, considering for a moment. "That sounds nice."
I hid my grunt of hatred by clearing my throat, plastering on a smile while she scrolled through some of her choices. There was only one genre of movie I hated more than mushy, cheesy romances.
Mushy, cheesy romances that thought they were funny.
She ended up picking 50 First Dates, some dumb Adam Sandler movie that people apparently liked. She sat next to me, holding one of her pillows against her front while I leaned into the other and fantasized about watching a cool slasher movie instead, filled with many jump scares for her to cower in my arms.
Every time she laughed at something she would look at me, almost expectantly, and I would grin and, if I happened to have been paying attention, make a comment. But most of the time I was plotting ways to inch a little closer to her, bump my arm to hers, maybe sneak my hand arou-
"Are you tired?" she asked about halfway through the movie, her head falling sideways onto my shoulder.
"No," I said truthfully. "Why?"
"I am," she murmured.
"Do you wanna go to sleep?" I said, both curious and disappointed.
She blinked rapidly, her gaze flicking back and forth between me and the screen. "I don't know if I can. That seems so weird - sleeping with another person."
I almost laughed. "What do you think every couple on the planet does?"
She shifted her eyes down, and I think I embarrassed her. "I suppose. It just sounds uncomfortable."
I held my breath completely, fighting down the urge to spitefully bring up the other girls who would have liked spending their evening with me. "I can always leave," I said. Maybe I would just go home. I was sick of today.
"I think..." she said, keeping her eyes carefully on the movie, "I would like to try these things. Like the kiss. I never kissed my high school boyfriends."
"Poor guys," I joked. "Musta been torture."
"I imagine that's why they all ended up breaking up with me."
"Well sometimes you gotta fuck 'em to keep 'em around," I said.
She stared at me as if I'd just committed mass murder.
I sniffed a little and sat up to adjust the pillow behind me. "Anyway. I, uh, I tend to break some hearts myself. So I'm probably the last guy on earth you should be falling for."
Her eyes widened slightly. "But you seemed so wonderful."
"That's how they get broken."
"Oh," she whispered. "I'm stupid. So stupid. Why do I always do this?"
"You're not stupid," I said. "I would fall in love with me too." She looked up with that horrified stare again, and I realized how nuts that must sound. "I mean, I just... I see why pe- some people... might... I don't-" I stopped awkwardly, falling silent.
"I don't fall for anyone easily," she told me. "My heart was drawn to you."
"But you've been in love before?"
"I think so," she murmured. "Haven't you?"
I smiled sadly. "Yes."
So far, I'd been in relationships with two kinds of girls: the kind that only called to meet up for a good time, then forgot you for weeks on end, or this kind. Fragile, infatuated. And by the end of it, utterly destroyed.
"We should sleep," I said. "Decide now if you want to banish me to the chair."
"You can stay," she whispered, then turned over into her pillow.
I slowly scooted down so I was on my back and watched as she, within minutes, fell into a heavy snore. There was no way I was sleeping now. I felt too awkward to even chance putting my arm on her.
With a sigh I rolled over and pulled my phone from my pocket, shielding the brightened screen with my arm. I opened my messages and scrolled through them, chewing on the corner of my lip. I blocked Jessica. She was sending way too many why-are-you-ignoring-me texts.
Next I blocked Carlie, Lindsey, one of the Lisa's, and Dominic. He was ugly anyway, with his half-shaven green hair and nipple piercings. He also had absolutely nothing to offer besides painfully close shots of his tiny penis.
I found Meg someways down the list, and sent her a simple Hey. I wasn't sure if she was awake, or if she would even reply.
I continued through the names as I waited, blocking many more and sending identical Hey texts to a few girls. One named Stacy answered almost immediately.
Stacy DTF: heyyy wyd?
Me: Lying in bed. You busy?
Stacy DTF: no soooo bored
I tapped out of the conversation the second I saw a notification from Meg slide down the top of my screen.
Meg 👹👹👹: what do u want?
Me: Mmm... what do you think?
Meg 👹👹👹: send ur cock first.
I sighed in discontent and looked over at Heather, whose mouth had fallen open in her sleep, then carefully sat up and got out of bed, knocking into a smiling stuffed monkey as I did so. "What are you looking at?" I hissed.
No reply.
I tiptoed out of her room until I found the bathroom, locking myself inside and setting my phone down on the sink to unbuckle my pants.
Maybe, I could coax nudes out of Stacy first and then use them to jerk off until I got hard enough to take a pic of my own.
Meg sent me a second text while I leaned against the door.
Meg 👹👹👹: i'm waiting.
My jaw clenched as I stared at her words. Today had been nothing but a stew of misery and now I had to lower myself to this contemptible level for the tiniest dose of happiness?
Me: Nvm. I'm going to sleep.
Meg 👹👹👹: fine ur the one that texted me anyway
I left the text on read and shoved my phone in my pocket, fully intent on going back to Heather and forgetting this.
Then it vibrated again and, without hesitation, I pulled my phone out to check.
Meg 👹👹👹: you still wanna come over tomorrow? gma will make you breakfast.
Me: Yes
Meg 👹👹👹: okay :)
I shut off my phone and opened the door, shooting an uneasy glance into Heather's bedroom. She hadn't moved. I twisted my lips together, considering, then walked back to the living room and sat down with her guitar instead.