To my surprise, Chad offered to stay the night and I was yet again surprised at how little his parents seemed to care about things such as school attendance, grades, and staying out late or even all night. He didn't seem to mind the freedom, but part of me worried about it. At what point does it become too much?
However, tonight, I didn't mind one bit. After I dressed in an oversized t-shirt and slipped my underwear back over my hips, I padded back to the living room and packed up the rest of the leftovers, tossing the plastic silverware in the trash. Then, I quickly brushed my teeth and slid back under the covers, where Chad was typing furiously on his phone. His brow was furrowed, and once his fingers had settled, he pressed the lock button and tossed the device on the bed next to him.
"Something wrong?" I asked. He looked up at me a little startled, apparently so absorbed in whatever was going on at the other end of the phone that he hadn't noticed me reenter the room.
"Just my dad," he said, sighing heavily. His phone buzzed again and I looked over, but he quickly grabbed it and was back to typing again.
I stared at the ceiling. My bottom half ached and I decided that since Chad was preoccupied, I should take a shower. I got up and left the room just as unnoticed as when I'd entered.
When I got to the bathroom, I stripped off the large, cotton shirt and stepped into the nearly-scalding water, stretching and flexing my muscles under the hot droplets. I closed my eyes and my mind ran over tonight's events. Part of me couldn't believe we actually did it. My resolve had been wearing thin for weeks, but the decision came like a flash of assured reality. As if I wouldn't have spent my evening any other way.
I smiled at the way he'd kissed me, every inch of me, tenderly. Hot breath and sticky skin, groping, contracting, lusting for each other's touch. Sure, tonight wasn't one hundred percent how my adolescent brain had pictured my first time, which usually consisted of some movie scene montage, with an actress' face replaced with my own. This wasn't like that. It wasn't the first time of schoolgirl fantasies, of Hollywood romantic comedies, or even my own expectations. But it was wholly my experience. One that only Chad and I had shared, untainted by outside distractions or expectations. The pureness of this act of impurity was something that filled my chest and left it warm, almost fuzzy, and I had to blink a few times to move my mind from past to present.
I wasn't in the present moment for long, when a voice cut through the steam of the bathroom.
"Arabella?" Chad called, a little too loudly.
I stuck my head out of the shower curtain. "Yes?"
He was standing in the doorway, biting one lip and hands shoved in the pockets of his skinny jeans.
"I, uh, have to go," he said, quietly, not making eye contact.
"Now?" I asked, confused. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "I just gotta do this thing for a friend."
I stood, water pooling at my feet and circling the drain. Why was he being so vague?
"Oh. Okay," I said, trying and failing to find some sort of explanation in his body language. "I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Yeah, definitely," he said, finally making eye contact. He stepped farther into the room and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead before turning on his heel and exiting, taking all the warmth with him.
I sat on the rubber mat and let the shower water hit my back. Part of me felt like the other shoe I'd been keeping an eye on was beginning to loosen, threatening to drop completely. I didn't know what was happening, but Chad's vagueness and sudden shift in mood worried me. The pendulum that was our relationship perpetually swayed from amazing to grim and right now it was hanging in the balance between the two, a limbo I hoped we could pull out of.
