Once there was a girl who thought she knew what she wanted, and perhaps, thought she knew how to live without confusing herself too much. All her knowledge is gone now; all the things she thought she knew and everything she thought she understood.

Okay, so maybe I’m being a tad bit overdramatic, but as I sit here in my room contemplating about what happened to me these past weeks, I couldn’t really feel anything else than just that; confused and lost.

It wasn’t as if how we were actually changed; we still hung out whether it was outside somewhere, or at her place. We still talked about the same stuff, and got wasted and high to some old records her mother used to listen to.

There wasn’t really anything different, except for the kissing really. Not that it’d been an awful lot of it, but when I think of the time we did spend doing that, it actually does add up to a significant amount of time… And honestly, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be worried or in something alike a total bliss.

However, I did know that whatever we were doing, despite my inexperience, it was kissing. I mean serious kissing with the whole losing my breath I can’t think effect, and I’d never suspected in a million years that something so simple could feel like this.

But it didn’t feel right. I wasn’t even sure if it was one of those guilty pleasures, or if it was still an experiment, or if there was something else underlying; something I couldn’t control, and didn’t really know to be honest.

But maybe wasn’t wrong in the sense of what we were doing, but from the fact that something seems to be missing, as if there is a point that I can’t get to. It’s something that’s been bugging me for the longest time actually.

On this rainy afternoon one summer day, I was simply lying on my bed listening to some music while tapping to the beat of the falling rain. I was in total solitude and almost on my way to fall asleep to the generally chilly summer air that went through the open window, until three taps echoed through my room.

Although soft, the tapping was loud and clear to my ears despite the sound around me. I simply swing my legs over to the edge of the bed, only to know who it is without even looking. Casually walking to the window on the right, rolling it up to let the thin figure get in with ease, before leaving it slightly ajar.

 “You know there’s a civilized way of visiting?” I deadpan before sitting down on my bed. Jessica simply shrugs before sitting down on the desk chair, placing her feet on the bed after kicking off her blue converse, dripping wet after the rain. “Yeah, but that takes the fun out of it,” she replies simply and I roll my eyes.

“My parents aren’t home anyway, so you could’ve actually knocked,” I say and again she simply shrugs, as if there wasn’t any other type of mechanism in her entire being. 

My parents didn’t want her here, but it didn’t really matter as I rarely invited her here anyway. She’d only come for emergency issues or just to get me out, and that’s why I’d show her the “secret” way in through the window. It wasn’t really rocket science; you simply had to climb up the tree not too far away, jump onto the roof and just enter through the window. How my parents still didn’t hear someone enter or leave my room was a mystery.

“Still not that fun; and I didn’t even know they weren’t home,” Jessica says casually before looking over at me, her eyes gleaming a bit with something I’m not too sure of, and although pleasant it leaves me a bit anxious.

For a moment, it almost appeared as if she looked at me as if she was about to say something important, but for some reason I couldn’t get myself to want to hear it as I turn my gaze away a bit, only to lead her thoughts elsewhere.

“Did you plan on bringing the rain inside?” I ask before getting up to hand her a towel from the bathroom, tossing it over to her as she slightly dries herself. Chuckling slightly, she places the white towel around her neck, still some drops of water falling down her face and down her collar, and further down and out of sight.

“Maybe; I thought you liked rain?” she asks with a slight smile on her face, an unreadable one at that, as she continues to dry herself lightly with the towel. “Well lucky for you it is summer rain, or else you would’ve been kicked out,” I mention as thunder echoes throughout the area, although faint. It must be far away this time.

Shaking the thoughts off instantly, I opt to focus on anything else as we sit there. The music in the background is still playing, some kind of static noise in a silence I really can’t comprehend. It’s neither awkward nor uncomfortable, but still filled with some kind of tension I can’t really grasp.

The only thing I can grasp is her, who’s sitting not too far away from me, just ahead. If I could, and if I had the guts, with just one movement she could’ve been here, but I sat in the same position. I tried to ignore it, the urge, but I could feel my fingers itching to reach out to her skin, and my lips wanting to touch hers. Those were thoughts I didn’t need again.

“The cashier guy asked me out today,” she mentions before putting the towel away, my stomach getting a bit queasy as she stalls the time. Moving her hair away a bit from her face, she places her hands down and focuses on the wall for a while. Was this what she wanted to say?

“What did you say?” I ask, despite being more focused on the slight dampness of her shirt. It wasn’t white or really that bright, but it still clung onto her, almost as if to show off the body underneath, causing me to swallow slightly by the sight.

“Of course no,” she replies before turning to look at me again, eyes still a bit different than usual, almost as if she’s focused on something else. I shrug without a better way to reply, looking right at the girl who’s sitting in front of me, only an arm’s reach away, and the urge to reach out to her still went through my veins.

“Why?” I ask interested, but not really sure in what way. Was it because I was curious or was it something else? My mind couldn’t really function the more she was around I figured.

She shrugs as she sits there. “He’s not my type as mentioned,” Jessica starts off, playing with the hem of her t-shirt, something she does whenever she’s thinking. I sit there, studying her pale fingers, up to her small frame, long hair and the surprisingly soft features of her face; even her eyes.

Because despite the fact that she might come off as a careless girl, and one with only one facial expression at that, her eyes said a lot. Maybe they said more than she ever would with the way they’d show clear annoyance when someone was deemed “an idiot” for her standards, or how they slightly scrunched together whenever she laughed at some stupid pun. Sometimes they’d lighten up with the mention of food, or that she could sleep an hour more or that she’d passed that test she thought she was going to fail. I’d also seen disappointment, sadness, surprise, jealousy...

Small things like that made it easier to understand her mood, at least easier than just going out from her expressions (that were again, down to probably one). And I’d usually been able to see them all, but this time I really was at loss to what she was saying with her eyes this time. It was something I hadn’t seen before, as a crossover of excited, nervous and happy at the same time, but it still didn’t add up to one specific emotion at all.

“Hey,” she successfully managed to awake me from my thoughts. “What’s up?” she asks later while nudging me with her leg. I look up towards her, who’s now placed her legs on either side of me as I simply sit there, not really knowing what to do. It’s not as if it’s the first time she’s done this, she always sits like this, but why does it feel so different this time?

“Nothing,” I say after a while as the music dies down, just to switch over to another song, which causes the room to be filled with noise yet not much of a conversation. I find myself sighing slightly.

“I actually came to talk to you,” Jessica says after another moment of silence, and although stoic her eyes look serious again, and I can see the small bit of anxiousness, and I can’t help but almost wanting to mirror the latter emotion.

However, I hold myself from doing so, rather to think over the fact that this might be the moment everything changes for better or for worse; although I’m not really sure what for better or for worse really is. What does she really want?

To talk about us? What we had done the previous times we were together? Sure we were out of it, but we weren’t really that out of it not to remember, and that’s the scary part because what am I supposed to do now? Say that it was fun, but no? Do I even want to reject her if that is an option?

But why does it feel so wrong to say no?

There were many questions, almost too many questions and I didn’t have one single answer as I sat there and she looked over at me, eyes almost trying to reach mine, but I couldn’t get myself to really focus anymore because my thoughts were running a thousand miles a minute.

The moment she parted her lips to speak, was the moment I pulled the chair she sat on closer, just enough to touch her shoulders which were damp from the rain, although quickly drying. With her face this near towards me I can barely make her eyes anymore, as I slightly lose my focus on what’s real and what’s right. In that way I wouldn’t know what her eyes tried to say, I wouldn’t need to know, although I had a pretty damn good feeling that they were probably surprised, but I didn’t look directly into them as I didn’t want to disrupt this feeling inside and let this become messier than what it is… or messier than what it was.

I just kissed her without thinking, without really contemplating if it was right or not, but knowing that if I didn’t then there would be a whole lot of talk about this and that, and I knew I wasn’t ready for that just yet.

It probably goes a second or two, maybe less, before she finally manages to get over her surprise and kiss back, with her hands around my waist and her surprisingly warm lips moving against mine to create something small of me to just blow up with something crazy. My hands still gripping her shoulders, my head tilted to the side because she said it would give better access, I try to keep up with her pace, although I almost let her take control.

I felt her heart beat a little bit as we end up chest to chest, my hand on top of hers, both of us kissing as if we had all the time in the world yet no time at all. It felt as if my heart almost was beating too fast and my chest was fluttering as I tried to take it all in; the warmth, the small touches around my waist, the feeling and the moment. It was almost as if there was a drive inside of me that told me to take that leap in that moment. It felt good.

No, scratch that, it was maybe a step away from the closest I’d ever come to heaven for doing something like this, committing something like this although I had never thought it wrong in the first place, but more because my parents thought so.

But it wasn’t really enough this time to just kiss anymore, to be so close yet not close enough; I wanted more this time, although I didn’t really know what.

I ended up on my back after a while, wanting to feel, to touch and be felt in ways I hadn’t been before, and in that moment by none other than the girl above me, kissing me as if there was nothing called oxygen and hands almost going everywhere.

It took a minute before I feel cold fingers sneak under my shirt, up my stomach and further as I tried to suppress sounds I probably shouldn’t be making in this house, especially not like this, but the only thing I can feel is heat and chills running down my spine by the contact and the slight thrill of the hot touches.

As I return the gesture, feeling the warmer skin beneath her shirt, the small bumps of her ribs and all the way to the texture of her bra, I almost felt too hot as I lied there just wanting more and even more. I fell short of breath, the heat growing intensely inside the more time passed.

“Wait a minute,” Jessica managed to say although sounding almost short of breath herself, her face moving away from mine just to look at me, her eyes questioning about something I already knew, although couldn’t answer. “What are we even doing?” she asks, almost as a whisper, our hands still lingering on each other, and my heart still beating a hundred miles a minute. She looked at me while not saying a word, and I averted my gaze knowing that no matter what I can’t speak properly if I look into them. I sigh slightly.

This time I couldn’t blame it on something. I couldn’t brush it off saying that we were drunk or high; we were both completely sober as I knew of it, and I did this with a perfect mind and I should be feeling guilty, but I can’t… and I realize that this should be a big deal, and alarms should be ringing and I should be feeling bad because I know why I’m doing this, but the only thing I can hear is the deafening sound of the music and the rain blending together, and the sound of our lips making that kissing sound I usually cringe of, yet find myself actually liking right now.

“I don’t know,” I reply honestly, because I actually had no idea what we were doing, or where this was really heading, but I knew that whatever we were doing could only bring us up or down in that moment. I just had no idea where.

I kissed her again, and again, until our hands started undressing and things became even hotter, messier and complicated. But I couldn’t get myself to care anymore, I just wanted to do this for a reason I didn’t really know why because I’m not even attracted to girls, and I shouldn’t be doing this because this isn’t right, but I couldn’t stop myself anymore.

And despite the cool summer rain outside, and the slightly crisp air entering my room, my body felt as if I were on fire by every touch. I felt out of my element in a way that made me feel as if I was in the middle of the sea, lost and confused, yet it was something about the feeling that made me want to fly, in some weird way.

I opened myself up in a way that, alike my first kiss, was not as I expected. It hurt a bit, and it was an odd feeling that I couldn’t imagine could even feel good at first, though I did learn to appreciate after a while. I ended up doing things I thought I never would, and I realized that in this moment I wasn’t even dreaming anymore. It was actually happening.

It left my mind empty yet fulfilling at the same time with her touches around my body, the kisses, the cold skin upon mine, the rush through my veins and every part of me.

I felt as if I was drowning willingly; as if I was pulled in deeper by the tide, making every movement harder to breathe and think properly, yet it still made me want to scream more.

In that moment I just felt so disconnected from my thoughts, my prejudice, my sense…

We get so disconnected.

When the aftermath of what just happened started to die out, we lied there side by side, close enough to touch yet not too close as if we were something significant. At least it didn’t feel like it, and although I noticed the way she tried to hold onto me afterwards, I pretended to move so she couldn’t do it because things couldn’t get any further right now.

“You know we’re going to have to talk about this sooner or later,” Jessica says after a while, and I’m still looking up at the ceiling not really knowing how to react anymore. What was there to say?

“We don’t have to pretend.”

The words came out quicker than I thought they would, before I could even stop them, but even then I knew it was what I was thinking all along. I felt her shift beside me, now looking in my direction as if to listen clearly, although I tried to avoid eye contact.  It appeared as if she wanted to ask, but she didn’t say anything at all, just took in the silence in confusion.

“This… we don’t have to pretend like this is real, and that it’s going to mean something,” I say as I sit up, pulling the sheets closer. “I mean you don’t do relationships and I don’t date girls, it wouldn’t even make sense!” I found my voice getting higher by the second, my shoulders shrugging sharply, and everything about my actions felt as if I was giving what I was feeling inside away.

But it didn’t seem so, as Jessica remained quiet and the rain was our only source now. I didn’t know how to fill in the silence because I’ve never done this before, and I don’t even know how to explain the situation. I just had with my best friend, and I’m not sure if it meant something or not.

“Then why did we even do this?” she asked after a while of silence, and I only faced her after a moment of inner debating. My mind told me that it was just hormones and experimenting that made me do it, that I fell into the lust and the want inside my body that I could’ve ignored, yet didn’t. It felt more logical in that sense and it almost made me feel better.

But something else told me that it probably did mean something, because although I may be young and I might have never done this before, it still felt real and almost too real. Because I couldn’t even imagine feeling so breathless, with no weight on my shoulders as something fake because it felt better than everything else I’ve ever done.

“Experimenting, I suppose,” I answer as carelessly as I could, because there was no other way to do it. “And now I suppose you have another notch on your belt,” I said although it sounded weird and slightly offending, although I wasn’t sure if I was trying to offend myself or her and I didn’t even know why I said it at all.

But in that moment I expected a shrug, maybe a joke or two before she suggested we eat or something, just anything that sounded like her because she rarely took things like that to her. But instead I got a slightly tense silence, followed by some shuffling in the space right next to me before I see her .

“Another notch in my belt?” she asks, almost shocked and insulted judging by her voice. I silently look up at her, not really knowing how to say anything as the silence passes by.

“You slept with me just because you wanted to be another notch in my belt?” she asked a bit louder, although not shouting, and I almost felt my heart stop because she never raised her voice at me like this before. Sure, she has been mad but rarely at me.

I could see her sigh heavily, before standing up to grab her clothes that got scattered around the room, and hastily she seems to pick it up to get dressed. I sat up on my spot, placing the covers around my bare body as I watched her get dressed in a slightly angered hurry.

“It’s just , Jess, why are you so bothered?” I said a bit louder. “Isn’t this how you always are?” I asked and even now I don’t know what’s wrong with me, or why I’m saying it, but I couldn’t think of anything else because those were my thoughts exactly.

She stood in the middle of my room now, pants on and her bra with her shirt in her hand, looking over at me for a second before shaking her head. “Yes, but that is because I don’t care about those other people, I barely even know them,” she adds before turning to face me. “I care about you, and for one I know you’re not like that because you always say how you want to find the right one before ever doing anything,” she said then before taking a deep breath to steady herself. “I don’t understand why all of the sudden you became like this, but I thought that you’d finally gotten the hint and wanted to take it further, you just didn’t know how to say it.”

She balled the shirt in her hands by now before sitting directly on the bed in front of me, her eyes unreadable again as they looked into mine. It took me a while before I could muster up a reply. “I…”  my voice suddenly stopped, and I had to cough a bit before continuing.

“What are you going to say?” she asked with a normal volume, yet her voice seemed to drip of something unpleasant. “That it was fun, but goodbye?” she adds, and I could see the slight anger building up in her eyes, which seemed to transfer into my mind as well.

“I admit I was curious on you, and I wanted to know about things like these, but I didn’t have anyone else to go to,” I said a bit louder as I sat up straighter, and she only looked at me intensely. “You used me just because you wanted ,” she said as a statement more than a question and I could only nod.

“It wasn’t as if you would feel anything anyway,” I said, and in that moment I swore her eyes almost shut down in a way that was void for emotion. It almost scared me how harsh they suddenly became, almost as cold as the wind entering my window.

“So you are really telling me that you didn’t know?” she mentioned with a slightly cold voice. “That you didn’t understand the fact that I did this because I thought you were genuinely interested in me and not because it was some experiment you wanted to try? You didn’t understand the fact that I’ve been trying to hide what I feel just because I thought you were straight and didn’t even like me?”

Her gaze got harder by each word, along with her voice as she sat there in front of me. I could only look at her and I tried to understand and grasp what she just told me in that moment. I couldn’t understand the fact that she actually liked me, although I didn’t know for how long and if it could even make sense.

She’d been sleeping around with all of these people, yet she actually liked me? Maybe there were some obvious signs that I could’ve pointed out, like the fact that she seemed to trust me the most, that she would let me do more than anybody else, that she would look at me from time to time, but even then I didn’t think of it as something romantic. Although I maybe wanted it to, but my head was too focused on the first thoughts as I could feel the anger inside grow because this didn’t even make sense anymore

“I thought that you of all people wouldn’t care too much or make this a big deal,” I replied a little aggravated myself by now because this couldn’t be real. Jessica, the Jessica who I had known for so long did not like me as more than a friend despite her gender preference.

“And why wouldn’t I care about you?” she asked louder, as if she knew my slight disbelief about the fact that she liked me. This couldn’t be, she saw me as a friend, she couldn’t like anyone, she couldn’t be with anyone… She can’t be with anyone.

“I thought you wouldn’t care because you’re just like your father, you can’t commit!” I found myself almost shouting in anger by now, although the minute those harsh words escaped my lips the room fell silence in the worst atmosphere yet.

She silently looked at me, her gaze hard and cold by now as her lips shut. I immediately regretted what I said, because I just crossed a subject I shouldn’t have ever mentioned. I of all people knew that her relationship with her father was never the best, in fact it was quite tattered after her mother finally divorced him after learning about the multiple affairs he had behind her back.

She never said anything other than that, but I knew that it must’ve changed her view on love and relationships because once upon a time they were very close.

The silence dragged on and she didn’t say anything, and her eyes didn’t face me anymore as she got up to put on her shirt. I was at loss for words, although I tried to get my mind with something, anything to say and hope what damage I just did would go away.

But instead she turned around and was about to leave, making my vision blurry because I knew that what I just did didn’t only hurt her, but me as well because I couldn’t stand being like this to others. And Jessica was by all means a strong person, but even she had her limits, and I knew I crossed it a long time ago.

“Jess… can’t we just go back to being friends and nothing else?” I had to ask before she went, the fogginess in front of my eyes clearing up despite being close to releasing tears that I didn’t want to fall. My voice was kind of raspy by the events that happened during these couple of hours.

I could see Jessica simply standing there by the window, looking up at the now orange sky above us. I knew that she wanted to turn around, but she didn’t even want to look at me. And honestly I don’t blame her at all, because I would probably do the same.  

The silence dragged on for a second or two as she got closer to the window, letting out a sigh before turning around. But even if her eyes were faced in my direction, she didn’t give me a single look. However, I noticed the distance in her eyes, something I never wanted to see and I know that it was her way of crying. I couldn’t help but want to hit myself for everything that I said.

 “Most likely not, but we can pretend,” she replied coldly in the end before she left me alone in my empty room and disappeared. I didn’t ask, I didn’t have the opportunity to either, but I knew that somewhere deep inside nothing could change and we couldn’t go back to how it was before. I expected this; I truthfully did and didn’t want to even dare hope for something else because I knew another outcome would be almost impossible.

Everything was my fault; how I blurted those stupid words, how I tried to shake it off as if it was a one night stand although I should’ve listened because I knew what we had right now was more.

I knew it was impossible to fix this, but still my heart dropped, and the realization hurt too much that I was almost surprised by how much I actually wanted to cry. Irrational tears kept pooling up behind my eyes, threatening to fall and I realized that I was almost mourning over a loss for someone that wasn’t even mine to begin with.