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they were playing!"
I laughed. Kori? "I'm guessing you like this band?"
She nodded excitedly. "Anything alternative I'm all for!" she laughed, and I laughed too, because apparently laughing about Panic! At The Disco was a thing now.
"Well, can you tell me that you're not just a fan of this band because you think Brendon and Spencer are hot?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm gay too."
Oh. Well. Hey. That was. Uh. That was certainly. Something.
I didn't even pretend I wasn't staring, but she either didn't notice or care, probably the former because she was too busy cheering as the band came on stage. After taking a few suggestions, the crowd voted on Sarah Smiles and we both cheered louder than probably everyone.
As Spencer started on the drums, we both shared a look, before I held out my hand. Why the fuck not? "Care for a dance?"
She grinned, took my hand, and we both got up, running so that we were right in front of the stage.
I don't really know what we were doing, because of how hard I was laughing, but it was something in between rocking out and slow dancing and it worked, twisted limbs and giggles and heads bumping painfully. I was dizzy and free and this was great, this all was great.
We didn't realise that the band had stopped before the next one was playing. "Oh," I mumbled under my breath; a variant of a surprised "oh" and a flat, disappointed "ohh". I wasn't ready to stop dancing, though, and the song proved to be good enough to keep going, despite the somewhat dramatic change in genre. What variety this concert had! Some Australian band I only knew about because of the internet were playing something I was pretty sure was called Our Perfect Disease, which was fast beat and incredibly alternative and good to dance to, great to do whatever it was we were doing to.
We kept dancing, smiling at each other whenever we had the chance, and kept dancing through at least four bands, careless and wild and happy.
Before I knew it we had twirled our way towards the back, to another private hill like the one we'd started at. We stopped dancing, and I looked back at the stage behind us, wondering how it had gotten so far away so fast. It was now dark enough that my eyes had to adjust to the shadows of the tree we were near, and I checked my phone from my back pocket, the light almost a painful kind of blinding. 11:50. Mom would be home. I was in trouble. I didn't care. This girl and I, we had been in each others' company for a while now... not that I was complaining. My stomach was doing all kinds of weird things and I realised for the first time how close we were, quietly panting from the strenuous, slightly aggressive dancing over here, breaths mingling in the almost tight space. She smelled of flowers and tropical fruits and she had freckles, barely visible, in the palest of peach across her cheeks, her neck. We were still hand in hand, completely encased in our own shadows, and the realisation of that was hauntingly sudden. No, because this was a whole other kind of vulnerability, not the kind of false, bubbly, giddiness you get when you think that someone is cute. She was in my personal space and I felt like she was in my emotional space. Her eyes were too big, too open. She was staring.
Before I knew it, our lips were inches apart, foreheads pressed together and we were backing up, I was backing up, the tree dangerously close to finding my back but never quite there.
Her shaky breath hit my face, and I shut my eyes, inhaled the scent. I opened my mouth to talk, but stopped, not wanting to ruin the moment. I didn't have anything good to say anyway, so I cupped her face with my left hand, and let my own breath hit her face. I watched as she did what I had done, shutting her eyes and breathing me in.
I pressed my lips to hers, forcing the move to be gentle, pulling away immediately and looking in to her eyes through the mask. She was vulnerable and open, expression raw and almost childlike, shy. Pretty. She started the kiss again slowly, but it didn't take long for me to kiss back, and then I was gone, no hope of return. I pressed against her insistently, lips bruising against hers as my hands went straight for her hair. Hers tugged at my shirt, held me closer. There was too much gentleness there and I kissed it out of her, pulled her hair and bit her lip, moaned quietly in to her mouth when she reciprocated the bite, opened my mouth and tried to coax her tongue. It worked, and the minute my hand went to her ass she came alive in my hands, throwing me back against the tree with enough force to hurt. I wrapped my arms around her neck, holding her there and kissing her leisurely, chasing her tongue with my own and tasting her mouth, her breath. She slid a knee between my legs and I broke away in a helpless gasp, composure a long since melted puddle at my feet. She rutted against me and I gasped again, cheeks turning red at the rawness of the noise, the involuntariness of it. "N "I tried to say no, embarrassed, and her mouth latched on to my neck. I threw my head back against the tree, the single 'n' turning in to a long series of them, and I wanted to know her name so that I could chant it to her like a prayer but I couldn't ask, not now, not when I was so indulged with this vulnerability here under her hands, I could just do this forever and...
Hold on.
No.
No.
No I could not do this forever! Holy shit, Andy, what about mom?! You can't be gay, not actually gay! Not feelings gay, anyway, and that's exactly what this was, some feelings-orientated homo shit. I wouldn't let myself stay here and get hurt, and I certainly wouldn't stay here and hurt this girl!
I pulled away, eyes wild, stared at her. She pouted, swollen lips and flushed cheeks and reached out for me, but I jumped back, shock covering me like a blanket.
"I...I'm sorry..." I started. Stammered. Couldn't finish my sentence and the girl was still staring, a look of desperation on her face that sent shock waves right up my spine.
"Wait, please-"
I backed up, and took off running away from the girl, leaving her by herself.
"Wait!" She called after me, but I was already gone, Cinderella style and not looking back.
"Shit." Something dropped behind me, probably my fucking phone, but she was running after me and if she caught me I would be sentencing myself to a whole world of awkward, so I went on instinct and kept running like an idiot. Away from love at first sight, like one of my animes.
No, Andy. You do not believe in love at first sight! And better yet, you don't believe in love. Love is stupid. All of your favourite comedians say so. What would a girl like her want with a girl like me, anyway? To play me? To use me? And even if her motives had been different, she couldn't stick with me.
No one could.
I would just drag them down.
I was suddenly tired, wine-slow and heavy lidded despite my sobriety. Sleeping sounded like a very good plan. I searched wordlessly and zombie-like for my sister and my friends and I tried to succumb to numbness.
