BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

▬▬ 23

TUESDAY
25 SEPTEMBER, 1990
ISAIAH

               Our eyes meet through the window. Dorian waits for me at the stop with an umbrella and a plastic food container. I feel his eyes follow me as I walk the length of the coach to the door where I'm greeted by the musk of soggy grass. The humidity seeps through the seams of my blazer.

I hesitate to step down to the tarmac as though there's an invisible tripwire waiting for me. Stumble and I might ruin everything. Eleven years of friendship can easily be annihilated with one explosive when the fuse leads right to my heart.

I shouldn't have kissed him.

I knew it the moment he pulled away. Dorian won't think of me like that. Maybe there's some part of him that's curious, the part that makes him stare when he doesn't think I notice — Of course, I notice. How could I not when it's all I've ever wanted? But Dorian has always observed halakah; no matter how intrigued, he won't think of me like that.

I accepted years ago that the closest I'd get to kissing him was sharing an apple. To take a bite and, when I catch him looking, offer it to him, position it so he has to bite the same cheek, for his lips to touch the flesh my lips were on moments ago, then to return it to my own mouth and suckle his saliva along with the nectar. I accepted it years ago, so why risk everything?

It was a mistake. It was a dream. A mistake. A dream. A mistaken dream, maybe. Maybe I'm rotten to the core.

'Are you on or off?' the driver prompts and thus, with jittering hands, I take the plunge.

My left foot has hardly landed beside my right before the rain stops dotting my shoulders. Dorian holds his umbrella over my head, forcing us much closer much quicker than I prepared for.

Normally, I'd live for him to be this near. Now, it's a threat of the distance to come; the way you squeeze someone's hand before you let go, or how doctors give a conciliatory pat on my shoulder after admitting there is nothing they can do for me. "You could try praying."

I guess I could try praying.

The door thwacks shut behind me and the coach trudges around the cul-de-sac. The stench of the exhaust fume is heightened by the humidity and Dorian coughs a little, burying his face into his arm until the coach has disappeared behind the cypress and aspens.

'I'm really sorry.' It's all he can get out before he chokes and stumbles over himself in incoherent messes. 'I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it– I'm so stupid– Say things without thinking and I hate that I hurt you and it's completely reasonable for you to hate me– You hate me– It's fine– But I just– I'm bored or rebelling against my parents or testing HaShem or anything like that. My mum hates me– I can't– I'm so confused, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. 

'I baked you these.'

Dorian shoves the plastic container into my chest.

I cling to my shield but it takes half of a second for it to crumble. He baked for me. Who am I to hold a grudge three days from Yom Kippur? Who am I to hold a grudge? I could've said no, I could've pulled away...

''S all good, cuz.' I accept the tupperware box with a smile. We're so close I have to crane my neck to look up at him. It's funny — we rarely stand facing each other, our nearness most common when we lie down, and I almost forget we're not the same height. 'You're my best friend; I'll get over it — well, probably not, but I'll deal with it. We can forget it ever happened. We can just go back.'

Dorian blinks. 'I don't... I don't want to go back.'

My heart plummets like a stone into my stomach. He's had enough of me. Having a batty boy for a best friend is one thing, kissing him is another. I've finally crossed the line. I'm almost relieved–