It has nearly gone a week since that day, but I still haven’t talked to Tiffany at all.

On Monday I planned on apologizing for leaving; after all I was the one overreacting. But when I first saw her in the halls I just couldn’t get myself to do anything, the notebook in my hands nearly falling down on the floor. My heart kept beating in that irrational speed and my mind just went blank when I saw Tiffany by her locker. She hadn’t seen me yet, and I’m happy she didn’t, for I suppose I was just standing there like an idiot. And instead of walking up to her like I planned over the weekend I turned away and nearly ran the other way in slight panic.

What was wrong with me?

On Tuesday I tried again but to no avail; this time I felt better but I still didn’t know what to say. I knew I had the opportunity to talk to Tiffany when I saw her in the library, but before I could even take a step closer to her table I noticed another figure seated beside her.

Clad in a red varsity jacket, gelled hair and white t-shirt… a face with a cocky smirk; Nichkhun.

 I didn’t know what they were talking about, I was hiding behind a book shelf, but I could see Tiffany somewhat smiling, although in my head it looked a little forced. However, what confused me the most was the fact when he leaned closer, before taking her hand. I didn’t know why, but a huge weight entered my chest and a sting in my throat. It was almost painful to watch, but why? Tiffany is allowed to be with whoever she wants, and she has the right to get herself in a relationship, but why do I feel myself sadden by the thought?

I didn’t stick around long after that, my chest still a little heavy.

On Wednesday we didn’t share the same classes, and then she was sick on Thursday and the same on Friday. Inwardly I groaned because this couldn’t be happening. Every time I gained enough courage to face the situation something always came in the way, and now I figured that I would just have to do it the hard way.

Outside by the wooden door of the Hwang residence, I stood there biting my lips. School had just finished and I took the first bus I could catch, and on the way I planned on what I was going to say.  But when I actually stepped inside the apartment complex and finally found their door my mind went blank again. I didn’t know what to say to her anymore, the words in my head suddenly vanishing. I should’ve written this down beforehand, stupid me.

Taking a deep breath I gently press the door bell, thinking it was now or never. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

It takes a while, but eventually I hear footsteps by the door until something clicks and the door opens. Through the wooden barrier I see bits of pink pajama pants and equally as pink slippers, before I look up and see a confused face.

“Jess…” Tiffany says with a surprised voice, and suddenly I feel bad for not announcing my arrival beforehand. But I didn’t have her number and honestly I barely knew how to use a cell phone, not really having anyone to call. So there really was no way I could warn her beforehand. I look at her before nodding slightly, before writing and slipping her a small note.

“Can I come in?”

Hastily Tiffany nods before opening the door a little bit more, making it able for me to walk inside. Silently I slip out of my shoes and follow Tiffany towards the living room, where she covers herself up in a blue blanket before sitting down. Cautiously I sit down on the other side of the white sofa, carefully looking around the living room. There is some medicine and bottles of water, along with a collection of books but nothing else on the table. My eyes wander up to Tiffany, where I see her looking at me in a daze. She seems pretty normal to me, albeit a little bit more tired than usual, but I guess that happens when you’re sick.

I open up my notebook and decide to get this over with, ditching the small talk, as I give her a note I wrote previously before coming.

“I’m sorry for what happened last week; I shouldn’t have left like that. I just get a little freaked out when people are close to me for a long period of time. I don’t know why, but it’s nothing personal, if that’s what you thought.”

Carefully I hand her the note, and smile a little when I see her hands pushing through the thick layer of the blanket, before she takes it and starts to read. Her eyes seem a little darker than before, small eye bags covering the space. She must be really exhausted. “Actually I should apologize; I didn’t really know what I was doing,” Tiffany says after reading, her eyes still a little weary. “Like my mom always says; I don’t know what personal space is.” Then she chuckles a little, before it turns into a small fit of coughs. Gently I pat her back to ease the small fit, knowing that it worked on me and luckily it did on Tiffany as well. I let out a faint smile, thinking it’s the best I can do before I start writing.

“Let’s just say we’re both sorry, alright?”

I hand the note to her, my fingers brushing against her skin. Her hands were a little hot as I watched her read the note, a small smile on her face. “Alright, alright; let’s just say that then,” she says with a smile. Then we fell into a comfortable silence, the sound of a clock ticking on the wall, along with faint voices from the radio by the window. We stay like this for a while until Tiffany breaks the silence.

“Jess, I was just wondering…” Tiffany starts slowly before adjusting her position, leaning her head on a pillow. “What did you mean by that last note you gave me?”

Slowly I feel my cheeks burn up a little by the mention of that, the small pit of my stomach suddenly feeling a little bubbly. Shyly I look down on my lap, feeling stupid for what I gave her back then. In case you wondered it was simply a sketch of a heart and my reason for doing so was... Honestly I didn’t know why I drew that. But from what I could remember was my heart beating so fast that I thought it was going to burst out, and as if I was going to float way into the clouds.

Wow that sounds sappy, but it’s the only thing I could think of, something alike the spur of the moment thing. But I don’t tell her that as I write.

“One day I’ll tell you, just not now.”

I didn’t know what else to say, but I knew I couldn’t tell her what I just thought; that would really freak her out and it would probably be forgotten one day anyway. Tiffany nods by that, yet she still seems confused and honestly, not content with the answer. Then a small put forms on her lips. “You’re no fair!” she exclaims and meekly hits me on the shoulder, and silently I chuckle by her attempt before shaking her hand away from me. But knowing Tiffany, she’s more persistent than that, so her constant asking is to be expected.

“Why can’t you tell me?” she asks after a while, arms leisurely placed on top of her lap. “You are so mysterious. What are you hiding from me?” she asks. Again I let out a faint chuckle before hitting her slightly on the head, but of course I didn’t use any force. A small thud came from the top of her light hair, and we both started to laugh by that.

“You know what’s weird?” Tiffany asks again, and I look at her while cocking my head to the side, patiently waiting for her to continue. “I’ve heard you laugh but… I’d like to hear you speak someday,” she ends it there. Silently I look at Tiffany, not really knowing how to react. I knew she was curious about why I never spoke, and she is probably tired of having to read my notes, but at the same time it was too hard. I haven’t spoken to a person in years, how would I be able to do so now?

“You don’t have to do it now of course; I’ll wait until you feel comfortable around me,” she then says before wrapping the blanket around her. I’m about to reply with a note, but before I can my gaze drifts to the window. The sky had gotten darker, and soon the street lights would light up soon. I didn’t know time passed so quickly.

“It’s probably best for me to go home now, you need to rest.”

I get up from my seat, almost walking away towards the hallway until I remember something. With some rummaging through my backpack I pick up the papers I was looking for, before placing it on the coffee table. I took some copies of today’s notes so she wouldn’t miss out; I didn’t want her to feel left behind in class.  Tiffany looks down at the small stack of paper before looking up at me, a grateful smile on her face. “Seriously Jess, you are too nice,” her voice says again, a little lighter than before as she looks away a little.

I smile faintly by that before attempting to turn away, yet Tiffany’s voice echoes throughout the room. “You want me to follow you home? It’s quite dark outside, and it’s going to be a while before the buss is here,” she offers, but I shake my head before taking up my notebook. Although I am grateful for the gesture I know it won’t do her any good. “You are sick Tiff, and I can walk alone.”

Tiffany looks at me with a pout again, and for some reason my heart feels a little different when I see it. But I swiftly ignore the feeling before stepping into my shoes. “But I don’t want you to go alone, and I have to buy some food anyway.”

With a small sigh I shake my head yet again. “You’ll only get worse, and won’t your parents flip if they find out you’ve been outside while you’re sick?”

For some reason the look in Tiffany’s eyes change by that, almost as if she had gotten… sad? I look at her a little longer, but it left as fast as it came, and she turned back to normal. “I don’t care, I’m walking with you and that’s final!” Tiffany says a little stubbornly, but instead of looking intimidating she just looks cute.

Cute… where did that come from?

Then she proceeds to walk, or more like stomp, towards her room for a while. Confused I just stand there not knowing what to do; my shoes and jacket already on. From my position I hear some shuffling in Tiffany’s room, before she emerges in a pair of jeans and a fluffy, knitted sweater. She smiles brightly, her eyes nearly disappearing again before taking on her shoes and her jacket.

“You ready?”

For a while I just watch her, before I turn towards the small table by the hallway. Carefully I take the scarf on the table in my hands, before wrapping it around her. When it’s tucked safely on her neck and I’m sure she’s wrapped up in it, I zip her jacket up so no cold air will seep through her; she can’t get sicker. “Wow, you’re acting like my mother,” Tiffany laughs, covered inside the huge layers of the scarf. I give her a small glare before writing in my notebook.

“You can’t get any sicker.”

Carefully she looks up from the note and towards me with that gleam in her eye appearing again. She whispers something for herself with her eyes down again, her voice trailing off towards the end. I couldn’t pick up what it was before she suddenly put on a smile, but it still feels a little different than before.

“Well let’s go!” she suddenly exclaims and she steps outside, me following shortly wondering what happened, but I don’t question it as we step outside.

The walk towards my place is mostly filled up with Tiffany’s chatter; not that it’s something new. For the most part she filled in about how bored she was, not having anything to do but sleep or occasionally read. “I don’t even like reading that much, I’m more of a movie person,” Tiffany shares, her face nearly tucked inside the thick scarf. Carefully I take out my phone to reply; my handwriting would be too messy if I were to walk and write at the same time, so I used the notebook function instead. “Reading can be alright if you find the right book, and watching movies while having a headache is not a good idea.”

A small laugh escapes her lips, and I turn to look at her, my heartbeat speeding up a little when I took in her appearance. Even if she looks a little tired and pale she’s still very pretty, with that same optimistic smile on her face. “For some reason I expected you to reply something like that,” Tiffany says before handing my phone back into my hands. I silently laugh by that.

We keep on talking like this a couple of blocks until a familiar voice greets us, and I hesitantly look up from my phone to see someone I honestly didn’t want to meet.  “Hey Tiffany, what are you doing here?” Nichkhun asks underneath the streetlight, stopping up right in front of her. His hands are in the pockets of his jacket, his hair a little messy with a slight smirk as he studies Tiffany up and down, as if she was an object of desire. A slight uncomfortable feeling enters my veins, but as usual I keep my cool.

“Oh, I’m just walking Jess home,” Tiffany replies casually, either not noticing or purposely ignoring his obvious stare. “And what about you?” she continues afterwards. He shrugs his shoulders, barely sparing me a glance before continuing to talk. “I’m about to go home actually, my car is parked over there.” Then he nods his head towards a red car in the distance, fancy and probably very expensive. But it’s not like it’s not expected, he comes from money after all. “I could drive you home, but I only have two seats…”

Silently I look down, feeling a little dejected for some reason. Not for the fact that he only had two seats in his car, I didn’t want to drive with him anyway, but for the possibility of Tiffany saying yes. I’ve got a really bad vibe from Nichkhun, and that’s what I tell myself, but selfishly I want her to walk with me. But at the same time it’s her decision, not mine, and it would probably be better for her if…

“No, we’re good… and I have to stop by the store anyway,” Tiffany says after a while and to my surprise actually declines the offer. With widened eyes I look at her, a little confused but at the same time very happy and relieved.  For some reason he darts his eyes from Tiffany to me, and from me to Tiffany as if he was trying to figure something out, his eyebrows furrowed a little in thought. “Well okay I suppose,” he says before taking a step away. “See you around then.”

Then he finally leaves towards his car before driving off somewhere. We simply look at the car before Tiffany starts walking again, and hurriedly I follow after. We walk in silence for a while, a silence I can’t really describe until Tiffany finally breaks it. “Nichkhun… he’s really…” Tiffany starts, yet doesn’t complete her sentence, seemingly in deep thought. Silently I look at her as a cool breeze passes us, before I turn over to my phone.

“?” is the only thing I write, not knowing what else to ask. Inside I wonder if she’s interested in him, if she has that weird heart fluttering or simply thinks a lot about him. But of course I don’t ask, afraid of weirding her out. It takes a while before she replies, our footsteps echoing throughout the area. “He kind of gives me an odd vibe, but I don’t know why,” she finally shares before slowing down a little, swinging a little with her legs as her eyes are facing the sky.

I don’t really know what to say to that; I’ve never really spoken to him before, except for his random encounters, but I suppose they don’t really count. Instead of replying I keep my eyes on her, studying her side profile as we walk. By now we’re beside the school gates, not far away from the football field. Usually it’s the first thing you see instead of the school building, oddly enough, as it’s placed a little away from the main area.

It’s dark around the field, but suddenly the stadium lights turn on, shining upon the green and abandoned field, small particles of damp fog sparkling through the night. I can see it as the light surrounds Tiffany as well, who looks away from the sky and towards the field, her hair being the only thing in my vision.

 “The field seems so much prettier with those lights on,” Tiffany says as she gazes out at the field, her voice a little muffled from the scarf. The bright light swallows the darkness and makes the fog more visible, the air growing cooler. I want to see what she’s talking about, but for some reason I just can’t seem to look away.

“Let’s go check it out!” Tiffany suddenly shouts before taking my hand in hers, abruptly yanking me along. Nearly running towards the large field, my legs barely manage to catch up with her, my head still in a daze. Nevertheless I silently laugh by her random enthusiasm over something as normal as a football field, but I let her guide me down to the field without protest.

Some small pebbles creak underneath my shoes as we walk on the small concrete part of the field, making small noises. Tiffany looks around as if to see if anybody is nearby, before slipping out of her shoes and taking off her scarf before walking on top of the grass. Silently I stare at her with a dumbstruck expression, not really understanding why she would take off her shoes. It’s early October, and even if it wasn’t exactly freezing, it’s still too cold to walk around barefoot in the grass and to top it all off; she’s sick.

I’m about to take out my phone again and say something about it, but before I can she suddenly starts speaking. “The grass tickles between my toes. It’s pretty cool actually,” Tiffany says with a small laugh before lightly skipping around the place, looking like a small kid playing outside without their parents knowing.  The sight is slightly funny, ridiculous and at the same time endearing, and the smile on her face as she skips around makes my heart do funny things again. And for some reason I don’t have the will to stop her and drag her away, even if I should.

“Come on Jess!” she smiles again, her eyes nearly disappearing as she waves me over a good distance from where I’m standing. Carefully I slip out of my shoes as well, the cool air seeping through the bare skin of my feet before I slowly step on the green grass as well. The ticklish feeling nearly makes me squirm, but I step further into the field nevertheless. The small strands of grass are damp and cold, but at the same time it does feel a little good.

I stand there for a while, simply watching Tiffany take small twirls around for herself before she suddenly stops to look at me, and with a smile she skips closer and takes my hand again. Contrasting to the somewhat cold air her skin is warm and soft as she takes it and walks a little further into the field.

After we reach the middle of the field she smiles again and turns towards me, both of us just standing there. Then her eyes cast upwards, her lips shaping an o before looking down again at me. She silently looks at me with a gaze I can’t read, before she parts her lips to ask a totally random question. “Have you ever played around in the rain before?”

For a second the question throws me off, not really understanding where it came from, but before I could even think of a way to reply a wet drop landed on my forehead. Curiously I look upwards and touch the spot where it landed, before another one lands nearby until more of them stream down from the sky.

The rain is cool on my skin and instantly runs down my face. I look over to Tiffany, who has one of her hands reached out towards the rain, drops landing on the palm of it and dripping away. After a while she looks back at me, her eyes gleaming a little. “So have you?”

I shake my head no, not really recalling myself doing that. Whenever it rained I would stay inside listening to the raindrops fall down the window pane as I did something else; usually studying. When I was a little kid I usually hid underneath a tree or a ceiling; I never played outside in the rain.

The smile on her face widens a little before she fully faces me with that same spark in her eye. “Then you’ve been missing out,” Tiffany says before grabbing my other hand, the rain drops falling above us. “It’s one of the best feelings in the world… You just feel so free.”

I didn’t really know how to reply to that, but her smile made me silently agree, and slowly I mirrored the action. Small droplets are falling down her pale skin, along with some strands of hair sticking onto her face, but even then she still looked gorgeous.

How is this possible?

As the rain keeps on falling down over us, she suddenly pokes my shoulder before nearly shouting “You’re it!” and running off, her wet yet weirdly warm hand leaving mine as she disappears out of my grasp.

Then I let out a small laugh before slowly jogging towards her in an attempt to catch her, the rain pouring down even harder. The stadium lights are bright as they cut through the intense rain and fog, the shadows of our figures around the field as we run around like idiots. And as we continue on playing I feel breathless, a little tired but even then I still feel so… good. I’ve honestly never laughed so much in a long time, nor have I felt so free before. It’s as if I was in a wide open space and could do anything with nothing stopping me. I didn’t like it, no… I think I loved the feeling.

Then after a while we stop by a small part of the fence, underneath a stadium light as we try to collect our breath. Carefully I lean my body against the metallic fence as Tiffany simply has her hands on her knees, still laughing by the whole ordeal.   “Wow… I’ve never ran so much in my entire life,” Tiffany says before walking a little closer, leaning on the fence right beside me. I let out a breathy chuckle in reply, trying to cool down. The rain is still pouring down, and by now we were both drenched, clothes sticking onto our bodies.

I carefully look away from the field and over to Tiffany, our faces closer than they were before. I jump a little in surprise, but not visible enough for her to notice. And through my nose I take in her scent, and slowly feel her warm breath on my skin.

Both our heads are now leaned upon the fence as droplets of rain fall on the floor and cut through the silence between us. She’s as close as she was the last time we hung out, but for some reason the creeping fear inside isn’t that prominent as before. It’s almost as if the fluttering heartbeats and lightness has taken over… and it’s not an uncomfortable feeling.

Again I hear my heart pound throughout my chest until it echoes through my ears, drowning all the other sounds around me. My gaze drifts from her light eyes towards her pink lips, moist with water from the rain. By now we’ve gotten so close that if just one move, just one move and…

My eyes widen in surprise, the oxygen in my lungs nearly disappearing by the sudden feel of her lips on mine. For a moment I just stand there not moving, not really knowing what to do as I close my eyes.  Although I only see black it doesn’t feel like it, multiple sparks running throughout my veins and threatening to escape throughout my skin. My heart nearly pounds into my chest, ringing throughout my ears, stronger than before. Yet the only thing I could really concentrate on was Tiffany’s soft lips on mine, as I hesitatingly respond to the kiss.

I can barely feel my back pushed against the fence, my body falling a little against the metal. Even more water runs down our faces, causing some drops of rain to fall from my face and into my parted lips. When we finally part I feel a little breathless, my eyes slowly fluttering open until I see an equally as flustered Tiffany staring right back at me. Both of us just look at each other, our hands intertwined together, probably something that happened during the kiss. None of us dared to move for the longest time, until Tiffany finally broke the silence.

“I don’t know what I just did… I’m sorry if I went a little too far, it’s just…” she starts of rambling, guilt evident in her features as she’s about to let go of me, but by an instinct I still hold on to her. And then Tiffany’s words stop right there as I slowly built up some courage inside, and grasp onto her drenched jacket and pull her closer again in another kiss.

Underneath those stadium lights that Friday night, I had my first kiss, and I felt as if my heart was going to combust in any second. But still I like the feeling… a lot.