The last time

7: Him

Of course Nat wants to talk about our first kiss. She always made things into something bigger than they were. We were two dumb drunk kids that couldn't be bothered to think through what we were doing. And to make it worse, we kept it from everyone. For years. I remember my friends talking to me during the weeks that followed that night and commending me for turning down Nat's advances. Turns out, they were more obvious than we realized. 'You're such a great friend' they would tell me. They'd say things about my amazing ability to turn down a girl that looked like that. Those bothered me. I didn't like hearing my friends talk about what Nat looked like, but I couldn't say anything about it. She was just a girl we'd known a long time. They had no clue I'd finally kissed a girl I'd been thinking about kissing for years. What Nat won't mention is what happened the day after. The boys had all driven home in the middle of the night, but Nat had a strict no driving after drinking policy and texted her parents to say she's be staying the night. Marley slept in my bed with Nat and I for most of the night, but left a little before five am to make sure she was in bed before her dad woke up in the morning. Even with Marley in the same bed as us, I slept facing Natalie, between the two of them. Her hand was resting under my cheek and we couldn't stop smiling and giggling and kissing until we fell asleep without even realizing it. When we woke up, things were awkward to say the least. The alcohol had worn off and we had definitely stopped kissing. She leaned over my body to grab her phone off of my nightstand and I watched her eyes grow three times their normal size. "Aiden texted me" was all she said. I frantically reached for my phone and saw a message with his name on my screen. I'm sure both of our hearts were beating faster than they ever had before. We were both thinking through who must have told him, what he must be thinking. We opened the messages. "Look! It's snowing!" That was it. The same message on both phones. We both sank. We were the only people in the world who could hurt that boy by kissing and that's what we'd done and here he was texting us, his two best friends, about the fucking snow. He just had to send the more pure, sweet text he possibly could hours after we kissed. We both felt horrible but still decided the best thing to do was to not tell anyone what happened. Nat told me it wasn't like it was going to happen again, I told her I wished it could. Later that day, I called her panicking, we had to tell Aiden. He deserved to know. She came over and we talked it out which led to her convincing me not to say anything. "It's not like it's going to happen again. (Why'd she have to say that again) Why tell him about something stupid we did while we were drinking and hurt him." Looking back, I wanted him to know because it would mean I won. As fucked up as it was, that was the truth. Aiden and I were always competitive. In everything. And I'll admit, I knew I wanted Nat even back when I was dating Marley. I even said something about it once when the four of us were hanging out at my dads house. I'd been sitting on my bed with Marley sitting next to me but barely even touching me and there on my couch was Natalie, giving Aiden all of the love and attention she had and God I wanted that. I was young and stupid and let "why can't you be like that, I want a girlfriend like Nat" come out of my mouth. I can't believe Marley didn't smack me, looking back. I said it with a smile and honestly it probably came across like I was joking but fuck I was not joking. I hated watching Natalie play with his hair and poke at his sides and smile that big smile of hers in his direction. I wanted some of that light to shine on me. I wanted to be the thing that made her smile that way.