It might have been

I pulled up on the street and parked my car.

2287. I double checked, then checked again.

I sat in my car, the keys still in the ignition, knots forming in my stomach. It's just a study session, I told myself, we're just going to study, that's all.

Or was it?

I couldn't help but think of how it ended before. The flirting back and forth, the two second warning before she kissed me. My first kiss.

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, took a deep breath and turned off my car. Slowly, I opened the door and stood out on the street.

What am I doing here? Am I...? Am I that type?

I heard the front door open and footsteps approaching the street.

"You coming?"

"Yeah, yeah, just a sec," I grabbed my backpack out of the passenger seat and closed the door. "Let's go."

"I have to talk to you first," Chris shifted her weight, fumbling with something inside her pocket. It made me feel uneasy.

"Sure," I took two steps in her direction as she turned around and headed for the front porch. She was wearing her usual pinstriped pants; the ones tattered at the ends, which for some reason added comfort to the situation. She always wore those pants.

"Do you mind?" She sat down on the cement step, still damp from rain a few hours ago, and took out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from her pocket.

I did mind, but I didn't say anything.

She lit a cigarette and inhaled. I tried not to look at her, so I played with the zippers on my backpack instead. She blew a puff of smoke in my face before she started to speak. I coughed and waved my hand as a reflex, squinting my eyes in her general direction.

"Megan, do you like girls?"

She was very blunt; I had to give her that.

"I don't know..."

"No. You do or you don't." It was then that I noticed she was avoiding me. She hadn't looked directly at me yet.

"I like you," I said quietly, as if that were an explanation.

"I know." She flicked the end of her cigarette, red ashes falling to the ground. I watched them turn from red to gray and then float away, disintegrating in the air. I felt like one of those ashes.

I just sat there; the silence had taken over our conversation. Chris inhaled once more, then exhaled a cloud of smoke, this time to the side.

"If we do this...." She hesitated and shook her head.

I didn't quite understand what she was talking about. But I sat and listened, hoping for some cues.

"I mean, I don't want you to just a week later say 'this isn't for me' and just leave."

"Ok..."

There was a long pause. My face flushed with the recognition of what she was talking about. Us.

Chris inhaled deeply, tapping her foot on the ground. As she exhaled, I saw a tear fall down her cheek. Her blue eyes pierced the ground as she tried to focus and rid the oncoming tears.

"I just don't want to get hurt again," she said, "I don't want to get involved and..." she stuttered and wiped away a few more tears.

"I don't want to get hurt, that's all.”

I knew there was a deeper meaning to all of this, but I felt that it wasn't my place to ask. At least not yet.

The only thing I could do was to comfort her. I put my arm around her, and by habit she laid her head down on my shoulder.

And she cried.

We sat on her front porch for ten minutes after she had finished crying. I grabbed my backpack and pulled it closer to me. Chris started laughing.

“What?”

“We wanted to study? For our chemistry exam? And look what we’re doing…” She laughed again.

“I don’t think I could study, not now,” I glanced at my backpack and turned to her with a smile. She smiled back.

“Do you want to go somewhere then? Are you hungry?” Chris stood up.

“Uh, sure,” I stood up as well. “But we do really need to study, you know.”

“Yeah yeah, we’ll get to that later,” She put her arm around me and we walked out to my car, my backpack dragging behind me.

Chris suggested that we should go to Waffle House.

We sat in the booth in silence. Just staring and smiling. She took out her cigarettes and lighter. I looked the other way.

I was deliriously happy. There she was, sitting across from me. Here I was, in the moment I had been dreaming about for months.

I asked her what it was like to be beautiful.

She inhaled on the cigarette, waited to exhale, tapping her foot.

She shrugged.

“It’s overrated,” she inhaled again. “People look at you like they already know what you’re about. Just another pretty face.”

She was beautiful. The definite line of her jaw, the way her dark hair fell into her face and framed the intensity of her blue eyes. I felt privileged to look at her.

“You’re staring at me.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you looking at this time?”

I smiled naively.

“It’s weird, you know? But I like it,” her blue eyes were smiling at me.

“What were you thinking about?”

“When?”

“When you were staring at me.”

“How I thought I knew what you were all about.”

“Heh…” she inhaled. “No one knows. I don’t even know.”

“You will eventually.”

“That’s what everyone says.”

Silence once again. I glanced around the restauraunt, half empty, or half full depending on how you looked at it.

“Do you think I’m beautiful?” there was something strange about her tone of voice, almost as if she already knew what I was going to say as she finished the last syllable. Her blue eyes focused into mine, I almost felt like a deer caught in headlights, I couldn’t move.

Numbly I nodded, clearing my throat. “You’re unconventionally beautiful.” I said with a flutter of my eyelashes.

“Oh really?” she smirked.

I paused and played with the straw in my drink. “I can’t lie around you.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

I bent my straw forward and backward, watching the bubbles rise out of the carbonation.

I had the sudden urge to kiss her. When she had kissed me before, I was shocked. But right then all I wanted was to kiss her again, because somehow I had missed what it had felt like.

“Let’s go some where.”

“We are some where.”

“Private.”

Chris raised her eyebrow. “We just came from some where private.”

I bit my tongue.

She just gave me this look. I couldn’t help but feel as if she had me all figured out. She was still a complete mystery to me.

“It’s just that…” I paused. I didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know…”

“I get it,” she winked.

All I could do was stifle a laugh. And smile back.

“Well let’s get out of here then! Get back to that ‘studying’, right?”

“Right.”

We walked out of Waffle House slowly making our way back to my car, hands dangling dangerously close to one another. As soon as I sat down and shut my door, her hand was on my knee.

I paused, my keys still in my hand, a few inches away from the ignition. She came closer and kissed me gently. My fingers went weak and let loose the grip I had on my keys.

I tried to concentrate on what it felt like. But I felt numb. All I could feel were her hands on my face and her saliva on my cheek.

I wanted to feel more. I pushed harder, too hard, and she pulled away.

“Whoa, hold on…” she wiped her mouth. “Wait a second.”

“Alright.”

Chris sat back in the seat. She looked straight ahead.

“I’m sorry.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time. I picked up my keys from underneath me and played with them in my lap.

“Let’s just go.”

She sounded distant, but I didn’t want to question her. I started the car and we drove back to her house in silence.

I figured I had just messed everything up. That she was going to take back what she had just said. That she didn’t mean any of it. In fact, I was so convinced that I braced myself for the conversation as I drove down the street. I slowed down and put the car in park.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

She just looked at the floor. Then she extended her hand to the door handle, pulled on it, and pushed the door open with her foot.

“We should probably study by our selves,” she said as she stepped out of the car. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Chris shut the door and walked slowly up her driveway.

I couldn’t believe it. I had ruined everything I had been working towards. I took a deep breath, put the car in drive, and made my way back home.

I knew I could depend on myself to screw things up. Numbly, I got out of my car and walked into my house through the garage. I felt like crying. No, I felt like throwing something.

I paced through the kitchen, thinking things over. My mind raced a million miles a second, thinking about three or four things at one time. How could things change so drastically in a matter of minutes? Was it wrong to kiss her? But she wanted me to, right? God her eyes are so beautiful. I love the way she smiles at me. Did she smile at me? I miss the way she used to joke around with me. Why doesn’t she joke around with me anymore? Am I getting too serious too fast? Am I too much for her?

Maybe it was out of place to kiss her like that. Maybe I should’ve waited.

I had walked circles around the kitchen table. I had to get out of my house. I had to do something.

But then my mind stopped. Maybe it wasn’t the kiss. Maybe it was something I said.

I slammed my fists on the counter out of frustration. Whatever it was, it was something I did. And I felt like a dumbass.

I walked out into the driveway, not really knowing where I was going or what I was going to do.

I half expected to see Chris standing outside, waiting for me. She wasn’t.

See you tomorrow? I highly doubted it.