Between the Distance

f o u r:

I hear someone fumbling in the kitchen and a few seconds later Simon appears in the door frame. He's got a pair of earplugs in so he doesn't notice me standing in the doorway. He's holding a bottle of red wine in one hand and a wine opener in the other. He doesn't notice me standing near the front door until he walks closer towards the bed and looks up.

"Nev," He calls out halfway startled. He removes his earplugs as well. "You're here. I didn't expect you to be here yet."

I set the bouquet and card down on the floor next to my bag and walk over towards him, though there is still an awkward amount of distance between us. 

"This is why you didn't respond to my texts, because you were doing all of this." I motion towards the bouquet and the rose petals on the bed as well as the wine in his hand. I can't help but smile, but soon enough I remember the doubts I had earlier and I begin to feel guilty again.

"What's wrong?" He asks. I realize my facial expression must have changed quite a bit to match the guilt I feel on the inside, but I quickly plaster on a cheesy smile.

"Nothing." I walk a little closer to him and finally fill in the awkward gap between him and me with my small body. "I'm fine."

He doesn't say anything, but he does nod his head and take my hand in his, gently rubbing his smooth hands over mine. A warm feeling rushes up from my hand and through my arm, until it has circulated around my entire body and I feel a tad light and woozy. In a good way I think. Kind of like champagne bubbles rising to the top of a glass and soap bubbles in a bubble bath.

He gently beings to rub his hand up and down my arm and the tingles once again take over my body. I catch his arm with my other hand, slightly irritated. "You could've at least texted me." I know that he isn't going to respond and I don't expect him to. I punch his arm softly before I pull his head lower to mine and bring him in for a kiss.

The kiss is soft and delicate and gentle at first, but soon Simon has one hand on my waist and the other on the back of my head, trying to push my head closer to his, though that's not physically at least not something I'd like to see, possible at this point. Our mouths are both open and impatient as our tongues find each other's. The kiss is no longer gentle and soft. It's hungry and passionate. I can feel his tongue pushing back further into my mouth and I know he wants more, but right now I'm not sure that I'm ready to give him more.

I slowly pull my head away from his and lean my forehead against his chin, waiting for my heartbeat and breathing to return to normal.

After I'm sure that my heart is beating at optimum speed and my air isn't pushing out of my nostrils like a bull who's seen a red cape, I lift my head from his and tell him we need to talk. He just nods and pulls me over towards the bed.

"Simon..." I began, not really knowing how to finish what I feel is coming next.

"Are we drifting apart?" The question is blunt and very straight forward and I know that because Simon's face sours up and his eyebrows furrow.

"I just mean, I feel like things aren't the same as they used to be."

He opens his mouth to say something, but then closes it again.

"I don't think people stay the same throughout relationships Nev." He finally says. "I think what ends them is that people expect them to stay exactly the way they were when they first met. Whatever spark," The word leave his mouth half way sounding as if he doesn't believe the words he's saying, "Sometimes it burns out, and when...or if it relights, it doesn't burn the same color as it did before, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that's a bad thing. Change is inevitable."

"That's not what I mean Si. You can't tell me, you haven't noticed us drifting apart." I get up and walk over towards the door to close it after I realize it's been open this entire time. Has anyone seen us kissing just now? I shrug off the embarrassment. "And not in the-our sparks-relight-in-different-colors kind of way." It comes out more mockingly than I expected it to.

"I'm sorry."

"I mean things have been a little rough, but honestly you've been busy with school and the band's been keeping me busy. I don't expect us to be the same way we were when we were some punch drunk love struck kids in high school, Nev." The words come out of Simon's mouth so easily which is so unlike him, and he sounds so much older than 18.

It's one of the things about him I like so much. Simon's not the kind of guy you'd ever expect to be intelligent. Not the, I can tell you all the prime numbers up to 1000 kind of intelligence. The kind of intelligence that quotes some obscure author you've never heard of, but he doesn't do it in a snooty look-how-smart-and-cultured-I-am kind of way. He does it in a look-what-I-learned-today-and-I-think-it's-so-cool-and-I-had-to-share-it-with-you kind of way. He's the kind of guy who barely studied in high school and was mistaken for nothing more than a lazy bum, but still, he always got A's. His hair is always unkempt and you'd think he'd never seen a brush, but that's just his style and he's got so many piercings, some in his ears and one in his nose, I lost count a couple months ago. He's that kind of intelligent, the kind that doesn't really try, but just is.

Simon and I had met in high school the same night of the wild party that Sasha and Gemma threw. The same night I kissed the girl with the wild pixie cut.

After I had a few too many beers, but still a little bit before I had kissed the pixie cut girl, Simon escorted me to the bathroom. Though it's another one of those fuzzy memories. Simon recalls it as me announcing to everyone in the living, with an empty beer bottle in one hand and a slice of white bread in the other, that I had to pee pee and that I couldn't find the little girl's room. I'm fairly certain I didn't use those two words, but he insists that I did. Typically Simon. The next morning we bumped into each other in the hallway just before first period and he asked me for my number. I was reluctant to give it to him and so I told him to come find me after first period and that if he could, I'd give it to him.

I walk back towards the bed. "I guess you're right." Suddenly I find myself at a loss for words, which is odd because usually it's Simon in my position.

"I'm just saying, I don't think we should write things off so soon just because we're hitting a snag in our relationship." He says, he's eyes staring down at me hard and I feel as if he can see through my tan brown skin and between the crooks of my bones and deep into my soul.

I join him on the edge of my bed. Taking all of him in. His chestnut brown eyes, his awkward smile that always raises slightly higher on the left side of his face than the right, almost like a smirk, even though it's not, and his messy hair. I return his awkward smile and put my hand in his hair and ruffle it around, messing it up even more if that's possible. He leans into me as if my ruffling of his hair was some sort of an invitation to kiss me, and he's right it is. His red lips greet mine passionately, as if they haven't met each other in years and I'm lost in him all over again.