pete

“If I make it until Sunday, I will have been a month without kissing anybody. So my resolution is to be less slutty. And to make friends. . . who are girls. . . or gay.”

“I’ll be your friend. Just think of me as gay,” he’d told me across two big bowls of ramen.

But on the subway platform, waiting for both directions, he’d pulled me close to him. It was cold. I’d pressed my cheek to his. And I suddenly couldn’t think of him as gay.

It was only four days later, and we were doing nothing, like always. But it was different.

“Your pupils are really big. I can see my whole self in them.” I covered my face except one eye to look at him, and he put his face closer. “What color are your eyes? Green? Blue?”

When I pointed at something over his head, my fingers ended up tangled with his. I don’t know how. I let them stay there.

I was sitting down and he leaned over me. He brushed the hair away from my face. He was gentle, looked down at me, and into my eyes. He was behind me, above me, all upside down.

I was nervous. It was fantastic.

His arm ended up around my waist. He asked me if I wanted to arm wrestle. Things were different.

And he had to go. A party at 7. He couldn’t be late.

I turned off the hall light while we were waiting for the elevator. He made a scary face in the dark. I laughed, stepped closer. He wrapped his arms around me, the two of us all clumsy in warm coats, and pressed his nose to mine. Index finger on my chin, he pulled my lips to his and kissed me. Sweet. Soft.

“What are you doing?” The elevator door opened, with its rectangle of light.

“I just wanted to break your streak,” he kissed me again. We let the elevator door close.

“Jerk. We were supposed to be friends.” And I kissed him.

“Do you think I’m ruining it?”

“I kind of wanted you to.”

I walked him to the subway. He pulled me close to him. “No?” So I kissed him on the cheek. He kissed me on the cheek. Then we kissed for real, standing on the sidewalk.

“You are going to make me late.”

“It’s not my fault.”

And it’s not my fault. It is all his fault.



~beatrix