The track went to the next song. It’s faster, the temp speeding up further into the song. I cough and move away from her. My hand feels cold as I retract it away from her hand.
I focus my gaze back on the box. I search for anything to strike up a conversation that’ll change the subject.
There, among the albums of records, is a bundle of photos that look much newer than anything in the box. The pictures are held together by rubber bands which are an assortment of color. I note that Lianna and Carol love to throw color in wherever they can. It makes the room feel crowded, but also more like they’ve been living here for years.
I reach for the photos without permission. As I grab them, I think I’ve crossed some boundary. I know in the back of my mind I wouldn’t want anyone touching my things like I’m doing, but she doesn’t try to stop me.
“What are these?” I hold them out for her to take from me if she wants. I hate not knowing if I’ve offended her in some way. Even doing this doesn’t feel like enough.
She takes them from me and snap the rubber bands off. She fans the photos out.
“I…”
She blushes for the first time.
My heart flutters with a want to pull her closer and gust over the small ounce of emotion. It’s a strange thing to want to coddle someone.
I’m proud of her. And I really don’t know what to do with that feeling.
The photos are of nature, bugs, cats, and dogs. People are in some of them, but they’re never the main subject. The photos reveal so much more than I would have expected. I wouldn’t have known about any of this if she hadn’t decided to show me her records.
She’s given me a chance to glance into her mind. For that, I’m grateful.
“They’re nothing. Really,” she says and shoves them back into the box. I jerk my hand out to stop her.
We collide in the middle with my hand smacking into her arm. We glance up at the same time.
We’re an inch away.
My eyes fall onto her parted lips. There’s nothing calm about this. I don’t want to treat her like a delicate flower. I don’t want to show her how much I respect her.
All I want to show her is how she makes me feel. Like I’m a starving caveman who wants to take until I’m sated. This kind of feeling is the opposite from what I know is right. Even when I hate the thought of being with anyone. Even when I can’t see myself being with anyone, especially a girl.
But non of those thoughts are crossing my mind. It’s not those things that hold me back.
Instead, it’s the look in her eyes that is begging me to do those things to her. She wants me to take control, push her down onto the ground and take everything she has.
She’s the one to pull away. I let my gaze slip to the floor and let it burn through the carpet. The air around me feels like it’s growing hotter. My clothes feel like they’re getting smaller, tighter, constricting my breathing.
She picks out one photo among them all. It’s a small square, the focus on a line of trees covered in moss.
“This one is my favorite.” She looks fondly at it. I look from her face and down at the photo.
I don’t see what she sees. Everything in her eyes point me to some mystical thing that is hidden in the branches. Like a painting that has been assigned the title of being classic, I know this is something to be admired. I just don’t get how it is different from everything else like it.
“There’s beauty in even the mundane,” she says.
I snort. “You’re the last person I was expecting that from.”
It’s under my breath. She hears it anyway.
“Why?”
I don’t expect her to ask it in such a small and almost childish way. Naive is the better word though I still can’t ever associate that word with her. It’s my warped world view that makes it hard for me to distance the Lianna everyone has told me to see and the Lianna I know is here somewhere. She’s scattered in all these things that make up her room. I want to see it.
I stutter as I try to find the words to explain myself. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. That’s coming from a person who already finds it difficult to have a casual conversation.
“Sorry.”
“No,” she says and shakes her head. She puts the photos back, shoving them into the corner. “Don’t apologize. Tell me the truth.”
She slams the lid down on the box. Her eyes are blazing when she turns to me.
“Well?” She gestures forward with her hand and raises one brow.
My mouth turns dry. I don’t think I have the guts to say anything now, not when she’s glaring at me like that. All the thoughts about shoving her around are out the window. Now I wonder if she’s going to start shoving me around instead.
“You know what they say about you.” I flick a piece of dirt off the side of my shoe.
I can see her roll her eyes. “And?”
“You’ve never denied them. That’s all.”
“I don’t need to deny things that aren’t true.”
That gets my attention. I sit up straighter and lean in toward her.
“They’re not?”
She starts organizing some things in her closet. I can’t see what they are from here, but they don’t matter at the moment. I’m hangin onto every single words of hers, trying so hard to dig up the hidden meaning under her phrasing.
It shouldn’t be like this. I shouldn’t be so involved with her. It makes for a bad list of jokes about our relationship. I already know Liza won’t approve. She already thinks I’m obsessed with Lianna.
Maybe I am.
“No,” she says in a soft voice. “They’re not.”
It’s like the air from my lungs is being sucked out. I don’t know where to put my hands or what I should say. Everything in this small room feels like they’re inching closer to me. If I don’t get out of this room fast enough, I might suffocate.
She moves close to me as I’m about to get up. I still and wait for her to do something.
She’s going to kiss me.
It’s the first thing that pops in my head.
I imagine so vividly that she’s going to. She’s going to place her hand around the back of my neck and she’s going to draw me in close until the tips of our noses brush against one another. She’s going to tilt her head, brush her soft lips against mine, and then she’s going to part my lips until I’m burning with the need to push her down.
“My dad is the reason why everyone thinks that,” she says, almost out of nowhere.
I gape. “Your…dad?”
As funny as it must seem, it never crossed my mind once to think about her dad. It’s like me bringing up my dad though he’s never around. The whole sidetracked thought didn’t really fit into out whole conversation. And to blame her dad for the school thinking she’s a slut, that didn’t sound right either.
“He left Mom when she had me. She was fifteen at the time,” she says as she stands up. She holds her hand out for me to take. It’s a kind gesture I’m not sure how to feel about. I take her outstretched hand anyway. “No one really liked her after they found out she’d been sleeping with a married man.”
I grimace. “She was underage.”
She shrugs. “No one really cares about that. She looked like an adult, a grown woman. To them, she was.”
She laughs, but I don’t find it funny at all. My gut feels like I’ve been punched repeatedly.
When Carol had been ranting about men wanting only one thing, I hadn’t given it much thought. She’d been crazy, out of her mind when she said those things to me. But now that I know what she’d gone through, back when she was younger than me right now, it’s hard to see it like a scorned woman. She’s still a child.
Lianna moves to her bed and sits on the edge. I stand before her, my hands in front of me. I hover there, lips pursed, and my eyes concentrating on the carpeted floor. The tips of my feet enter my line of vision and I focus on them. Words keeping flickering in and out of my head. My thoughts can’t be controlled for even a second as I try to sort out the mess I’ve become.
I should say something. This silence is where all the bad things like to swarm. If I let this go on for too long, we might never find out way out again.
She beats me to it. She looks up at me and it’s the first time I’ve seen her show her true emotions. She usually hides behind a fake face. Now, she lets her feelings come to the surface. The tears in her eyes turn her once cold and heartless eyes into the eyes of an angel. Her flushed cheeks are inviting, soft as a baby’s, and her parted lips are calling to me.
It’ll seem wrong later. But I know there is no other chance than this.
I lean down.
“Maya,” she whispers.
I pause. My eyes flicker to her lips. We’re only an inch apart, but it feels like I’m miles away from her. My heart is racing and my courage is waning.
She doesn’t move an inch.
I close the last inch between us. My lips brush against hers. Sparks ignite through my body, shocking me down to my toes and to the tips of my fingers. It’s exhilarating and scary. I don’t want to give it up. My hands don’t know what they’re doing. I reach for her, grabbing her arms, but she bats me away.
She places her hand behind my back and pulls me in closer. Our lips finds a steady rhythm. Her tongue slides into my mouth—
“No.” I shove her back.
I’m panting as I move away from her. She’s watching me, the look on her face now back to the usual mask she wears. I hate that. I hate that she can just turn back into her old self when she wants to. For me, I have to deal with my true self. My emotions are written everywhere on my body and I can’t do a thing to get rid of them.
She gives me a dull stare. “What was that for?”
I ball my hands into fists. I’m a thousand feet above ground. My stomach twists and turns as I’m flying high above. The look in her eyes is yelling at me to get the hell out of here. She doesn’t want me. I’m just a game for her.
But I want to believe so badly that I’m wrong. This moment, where she showed me a piece of her, I want to hold onto that for the rest of my life. Though I might not have the time or the ability to break her out of the cage she’s locked herself in, I want to try.
I’m not a hero. I’m not going to save anyone. That’s not my job.
She gets up from the bed, sliding down to the floor.
“We can put a movie on. Your choice.”
It’s the way she says it, like it’s no big deal, that makes me sit beside her. I want to keep my distance, pretend like nothing is different. But deep down I can feel the changes already happening.
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