I was, prior to this moment, barely awake.
Now I am
so
awake.
Awake enough to notice a lot of things other than the obvious thing, which is my teeny little freckled redhead best friend tongue-wrestling with the resident campus manwhore.
Like, I notice that they’re both in their running clothes, and they smell ripe. After two years of rooming with Bridget, who runs track, I’m more than used to the odor of warm armpits and high-tech fabric, but this time it’s coming off both of them together.
Their mouths are making this wet smacking sort of noise. Krishna is
owning
Bridget. One-hand-on-the-back-of-her-head, one-right-above-her-ass, bending-her-backward-over-the-counter
owning
her.
His hair and shoulders are wet. Her thighs. Their arms.
Rain. It’s raining out there. The rain is drumming against the house, and Bridget is kind of … squeaking? She’s making a noise that’s so obviously compliant that it makes methink of animals,
mating
animals—like, hamsters, maybe, which I wish it didn’t because I once actually saw hamsters mating and it isn’t something I want to see again, or think about, and Jesus, neither is this.
And yet I can’t move.
I can’t move, because this isn’t a first kiss or a fourth kiss or an eighth kiss. They have done this many, many times. This has been
happening
.
When?
When did this start happening?
Krishna’s hand is sliding beneath Bridget’s back, rucking up her shirt, his skin so dark against hers, and my brain is just hammering at me,
when, when, when?
Last school year? Over the summer, when Bridget took more than one long weekend to visit Krishna in Chicago for reasons that now seem flimsy as tissue paper?
As flimsy as her sports bra, which presents no obvious barrier to Krishna’s hand. It’s working its way around to the front. It’s going to get there, and no. No.
This is wrong. It’s wrong in the way things are wrong when you don’t expect them, but it’s wrong in other ways, too, that I can’t even get a handle on because they hit me in one big mass, a cumulous cloud of emotions, foggy and cold, impossible to sift through, especially because
it keeps happening
. His hands are over her breasts now. They’re moving, they’re
tweaking
, and she likes it. So much.
I have to clear my throat against the possibility that Bridget’s hamster noises will actually kill me.
Bridget
leaps
away from Krishna. Her hand flies to her throat. “You scared me!”
I lift my water-bottle hand, now frozen into a claw. “I just wanted a drink.”
This is the worst thing to say, it turns out, because it makesthem step farther apart, clearing a corridor to the sink that I have to walk through.
I have to not-look at Krishna so hard. And not-hear the way they’re breathing. And not-consider how wrong it is that none of us seems to have anything to say at this awkward moment to end all awkward moments.
Bridget. Krishna. The two talkiest people in a whole universe of talkers, now totally silent.
The water running into the bottle is louder than any running water has ever been.
I can feel them looking at each other behind my back. I can feel the conversation they’re not having, the frantic exchange of messages through hands and eyes.
I turn off the tap. Set my bottle in the sink. Pivot to face them and say, like it’s no big thing, “So this is a surprise.”
Bridget is the color of beet juice. “It’s not what it looks like,” she says. “Because, you know, it looks like we were going to—”
“It’s exactly what it looks like,” Krishna interrupts.
“It’s
not
,” she insists. “Caroline’s going to think we were sneaking around and we didn’t want her to know, but that’s—”
“We were sneaking around,” Krishna says. “We didn’t want you to know.”
Bridget punches him in the arm. “Stop it!”
“Stop what? Telling the truth?”
“No! You’re making it sound like we’re—like I’m—and it’s just not …”
“Not
Now I am
so
awake.
Awake enough to notice a lot of things other than the obvious thing, which is my teeny little freckled redhead best friend tongue-wrestling with the resident campus manwhore.
Like, I notice that they’re both in their running clothes, and they smell ripe. After two years of rooming with Bridget, who runs track, I’m more than used to the odor of warm armpits and high-tech fabric, but this time it’s coming off both of them together.
Their mouths are making this wet smacking sort of noise. Krishna is
owning
Bridget. One-hand-on-the-back-of-her-head, one-right-above-her-ass, bending-her-backward-over-the-counter
owning
her.
His hair and shoulders are wet. Her thighs. Their arms.
Rain. It’s raining out there. The rain is drumming against the house, and Bridget is kind of … squeaking? She’s making a noise that’s so obviously compliant that it makes methink of animals,
mating
animals—like, hamsters, maybe, which I wish it didn’t because I once actually saw hamsters mating and it isn’t something I want to see again, or think about, and Jesus, neither is this.
And yet I can’t move.
I can’t move, because this isn’t a first kiss or a fourth kiss or an eighth kiss. They have done this many, many times. This has been
happening
.
When?
When did this start happening?
Krishna’s hand is sliding beneath Bridget’s back, rucking up her shirt, his skin so dark against hers, and my brain is just hammering at me,
when, when, when?
Last school year? Over the summer, when Bridget took more than one long weekend to visit Krishna in Chicago for reasons that now seem flimsy as tissue paper?
As flimsy as her sports bra, which presents no obvious barrier to Krishna’s hand. It’s working its way around to the front. It’s going to get there, and no. No.
This is wrong. It’s wrong in the way things are wrong when you don’t expect them, but it’s wrong in other ways, too, that I can’t even get a handle on because they hit me in one big mass, a cumulous cloud of emotions, foggy and cold, impossible to sift through, especially because
it keeps happening
. His hands are over her breasts now. They’re moving, they’re
tweaking
, and she likes it. So much.
I have to clear my throat against the possibility that Bridget’s hamster noises will actually kill me.
Bridget
leaps
away from Krishna. Her hand flies to her throat. “You scared me!”
I lift my water-bottle hand, now frozen into a claw. “I just wanted a drink.”
This is the worst thing to say, it turns out, because it makesthem step farther apart, clearing a corridor to the sink that I have to walk through.
I have to not-look at Krishna so hard. And not-hear the way they’re breathing. And not-consider how wrong it is that none of us seems to have anything to say at this awkward moment to end all awkward moments.
Bridget. Krishna. The two talkiest people in a whole universe of talkers, now totally silent.
The water running into the bottle is louder than any running water has ever been.
I can feel them looking at each other behind my back. I can feel the conversation they’re not having, the frantic exchange of messages through hands and eyes.
I turn off the tap. Set my bottle in the sink. Pivot to face them and say, like it’s no big thing, “So this is a surprise.”
Bridget is the color of beet juice. “It’s not what it looks like,” she says. “Because, you know, it looks like we were going to—”
“It’s exactly what it looks like,” Krishna interrupts.
“It’s
not
,” she insists. “Caroline’s going to think we were sneaking around and we didn’t want her to know, but that’s—”
“We were sneaking around,” Krishna says. “We didn’t want you to know.”
Bridget punches him in the arm. “Stop it!”
“Stop what? Telling the truth?”
“No! You’re making it sound like we’re—like I’m—and it’s just not …”
“Not
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