The Walk

She told me to meet her at the trail entrance, once the sun came down. Darkness meant no people - the trails were ours. We frequented the trails in the darkest hours, but on that particular day, a tacit prescience in the back of my mind colored the air with the sort of tension one would find at the apex of a roller coaster. All week, this feeling toyed with me, but only today did I feel that routine had silently swapped places with life-changing momentum. Something beneath her words intimated a choked suppression, a frenzy bound in chains. I gave my thoughts no serious verbalization. I didn't let my mind ruminate on the extra seconds added to her glances, or the way certain sentences would trail off at the end, as if the thought behind them had ceased to exist before she had even begun to speak it.

I was fifteen, fragile, impressionable, and introverted. I admired, and I idolized. There was an all knowing narrator that took residence beneath my submission however, and took note of all my actions, my behaviors. I felt like it kept me safe, like it guided my seemingly misguided innocence. It's this narrator that pulled the strings of my coyness, my wide eyed naivete. It did not create them, they were not false - I merely felt I possessed a veritable self awareness. But part of me truly was this unaware thing who foolishly thought she could be omniscient of her psyche.

When I met her, she was seventeen. She stood a head taller than me, and where my limbs offered awkward, jutting protrusion of bone, she was sinewy, and lithe. We both were pale, but while she exuded an olive toned vibrance, I felt ghostly, and translucent. My hair was flaxen, wispy, winding in extended curls down my back. Her hair was long like mine, but dark, wavy, and possessed an interminable depth. My eyes were grey-blue, reflecting the light. Hers were dark, seizing the light, perpetually appraising everything around her with quiet intensity.

We were brought together by the fortune of pure incident, mutual friends. I was silent; she was bored. I felt puerile in my jeans and lavender tank top. She was in all black - knee high black combat boots, black jeans, and black t-shirt. We were at school, and the bell was close to ringing. An emotion told me to seize the moment, but it didn't speak the words. I asked her if she was reading anything. The mere flicker of intellectual curiosity roused her to reappraise this pallid specter.

The weeks that passed ebbed with perpetual delights and sensations, the kind that only come with the formative experiences of a high school freshman. I tried my first cigarette after dragging reluctant approval out of her to borrow one of hers. We drank wine together, which she made sure to moderate carefully, as she was fairly certain I would be a lush. We smoked weed, which rendered me an incoherent babbling mess. Still, she listened in risible, but good natured silence. We took long walks in the trails, where I talked endlessly, stopping every so often at the intermittent realizations of how long I had been talking, how foolish I probably sounded. Each time, she would shake her head, and gently admonish me for being silly.

I was perpetually afraid that she would realize she had made a mistake with me, that she was better off remaining virtually reclusive. Sometimes, as I would talk, I would sneak a peek at her in an effort to surreptitiously assess her thoughts. She would look almost dumbfounded and mesmerized at the same time, in her subtle and understated manner. In the recesses of my mind where all my self confidence lies, I hoped that she truly was mesmerized, that I was like no one she had ever met. I hoped that the sentiment behind her eyes was blissful exasperation, a "God, where did you come from?" It was surely behind mine at all times.

You see, this wasn't the meeting of two new best friends. In technical terms, yes, that is what she became. But I never felt like we were equals. I felt as though she held all the control. She had been the older, wiser, unapproachable one from day one. I was bursting at the seams trying to constantly convince myself that I wasn't wasting her time. And when I would sense that she was truly endeared by me, I felt a pleasurable tinge of power. It was the sort of power that comes with feeling desired, possessing the ability to tantalize.

That week before she invited me out that night, this feeling grew. She seemed more silent, more pensive. At school, I saw her more scarcely than I usually did. Surprisingly enough, this didn't trouble me. I was able to intuit a conflict stirring inside her, and recognized that she wasn't tiring of me. I would ask if she was okay, and she would smile and tell me of course, but her subsequent sighs would belie her assurances. And sometimes when we would speak, and I would sense that same dumbfounded quality in her gaze, she seemed more jilted and stultified by it. Shortly after, she would excuse herself. Notions bubbled within me, but like I said, I gave them no further analysis. Perhaps I was afraid of becoming afraid, of acknowledging fear. All I could be sure of was that I did not want to ruin a single thing. I let whatever was taking place hover precariously, silently, like the most delicate of spiderwebs.

That night, I waited anxiously for her at the trail entrance. She was always more relaxed in the shrouded secrecy and elusive ambience of the forest, and so I expected some kind of clarity from the night.

I saw her emerge from around the corner, long limbs, black from head to toe, and her hair pulled back in a low, loose pony tail. The turbidity in my chest became almost painfully apparent all at once.

"Hey," I said when she approached.

"Hey."

And so we began to walk down the path, farther from the dimly lit street, deeper into the foliaged oasis of our suburban town.

"You weren't in school today," I commented, remembering how I tried to fool myself into thinking I was actually reading a book for the entirety of my lunch period, when in actuality my brain was buzzing with half words and obscured anxieties.

"Mm. Yeah. I wasn't really feeling well," she said, unzipping a black backpack she had brought with her. She withdrew her cigarettes and a bottle of wine. I was used to her pairing walks with light alcohol. She popped a slender Marlboro 100 into her mouth before offering me one as well.

"I'm okay," I told her, knowing I would probably change my mind. She lit her cigarette, and I watched the ephemeral arabesques of smoke that escaped her mouth and cigarette alike.

"You're feeling better?" I asked.

"Yeah, I suppose. Enough to come out. It was getting too boring to be stuck inside all day anyway." She popped the cork from the wine bottle, sipping it with relish. She passed it to me and I did the same, savoring the bitter tinge of red wine. We stopped at a crossroads, and I looked at her for direction, as she was usually the navigator, being better acquainted with the trails.

"This way," she said, gesturing toward the right. "I want to sit, there's a nice area down there." I chewed the insides of my mouth nervously as I followed her. The sky seemed to be darkening rapidly, and the sounds of the crickets was all of a sudden deafening. I observed her from the back, the way she walked with purpose, her regal posture. I felt gangly and tiny at the same time.

"How was your day?" she asked, lighting her second cigarette.

"Boring... I guess. Did some work during lunch. You weren't there, and no one else has off with me, so... "

"So my company can easily be replaced?" she asked playfully. I blushed.

"Oh never, screw them even if they were there," I exclaimed with a dramatic wave of my hand. She laughed at this.

"Yeah, that's how you really feel," she quipped.

"Give me a cigarette." I suddenly craved one. As I lit it and inhaled, my muscles immediately loosened as the toasty heat settled after making it's tortuous rounds through my insides. The turbidity had settled for the time being.

We came across a small bench in a stout, short trail that led to a dead end of trees. One big tree towered at the forefront of this dead end. It was not only formidably sized, but had branches that winded and curled out into the air like strained and screaming limbs. I sat at the bench, and she made her way towards the tree, leaning back against it's smooth, sloped back trunk. She rested her arm against an adjacent branch that seemed to have come alive right then, just to conveniently curl beside her as an armrest.

"Give me the wine," I said, outstretching my arms like a child.

"Not a lot, I don't want you drunk," she said, tentatively handing me the bottle. I took a moderately sized swig, exercising an unusual self control. I knew I didn't want to be drunk either. Why? I asked my self. My chest tightened.

She took the bottle back, and leaned against the tree once again, staring at the sky while she lazily exhaled smoke. I watched it dissipate into the labyrinth of branches above her. My cigarette had reached its demise. I tossed it on the ground, crushing it under my foot, and entered an uncomfortable silence. I watched her leaning against the tree, still looking up. The cage I had built around my thoughts came undone. Where is the line between admiration and love? Can mere idolization make each heart beat feel so laborious? Am I jealous? Do I want to be her? Yeah... I just wish I could be like her - strong, elegant... beautiful. Why doesn't that feel right when I say it though. Why does it feel like I would rather be enveloped by her than become her... Why do I like that I feel she wants to do just that?

"What are you thinking about?" Her voice broke into my thoughts with an almost violent force, scattering them in all the dark, secreted corners of my mind.

"Nothing." Good job answering so quickly. "I'm... uh... .just going over the day in my head."

After a few moments... and with great hesitation... I opened my mouth:

"What about you?"

She exhaled, and put her cigarette out underneath her boot. She's more courageous than I am.pi]

"Nothing." I smiled in spite of myself. Maybe not. She cleared her throat and looked around, and I saw, for the first time, vulnerability clearly evident in her eyes, her stance, even her fingers. She was awkwardly toying with her nails, her frame no longer seemed relaxed against the slope of the tree, and I could see the thoughts and fear swimming behind her eyes, which hid behind the guise of sudden interest in everything but me. I was overcome by an urge to hold her, soothe every worry, quell every anxiety. Once again, emotions stirred my actions, but didn't speak the words. But I knew what they would have said if they did - be brave.

"What's wrong?" I tried keeping my voice as gentle as possible. Her eyes snapped to me instantly, and she seemed to stop herself from bridling at the last moment.

"Is it that obvious?" she asked, smiling weakly.

"I don't know... not really I guess... I mean, I can just tell, 'cause I'm me. I don't know if a stranger would be able to tell." She didn't say anything. She withdrew another cigarette from the pack, lit it, and exhaled more sharply than she had before.

"You know... I've just been thinking a lot lately," she began, and then frowned, apparently not liking the way that sounded. "Fuck... this is embarrassing. I really don't know how to go about this." She paused to take another drag.

"Does it have to do with why you've barely been in school?" I asked.

"Yes."

I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable. Here I was, somehow so aware of everything that was to happen, knowing that I was the cause of her vulnerability, her anxiety, and at the same time, battling my own emotions that I still hadn't analyzed completely to assess how much sense they actually made to me. But I had thought about it a bit, and I had allowed myself to somewhat speak the possibility of what was occurring. And once that notion was finally released in my brain, an animal free to roam and explore its voracious appetite, I was sensing an increasing magnetic pull between me and her. I felt like I was melting and shivering all at once. I was coming closer to answering the question that had wordlessly plagued my mind - should she be scared? No.

But it was still hard to take control. I watched her.

"I, uh... " she started, smiling and rolling her eyes, "I'm just..okay, let me start over. Listen." She straightened up, and took another drag. "I'm really terrified of just... fucking everything up. With you. I mean, as friends, you know? You're my best friend... That's weird to say, because I haven't had a best friend in a long while. I have a lot of people I talk to, but... well, you know, no one really close. Which was fine... I'm not... you know I'm not pretentious. But there was no one I really had a connection with." She paused to take another drag. I noticed that she was visibly shaking. I was once again overcome with that tender emotion to touch and calm her. She had never stumbled around her words quite like this before.

"Anyway," she continued, "I... am really happy that I met you, I guess is what I'm trying to say." I stared at her.

"That's what's bothering you?" It came out more sarcastic than I had intended. But she didn't get angry. Her shoulders slumped a little.

"No."

I let silence urge her to continue.

"Being with you has made me... question things that I really didn't want to question." She studied my face carefully, perhaps checking for signs of shock, fear, maybe disgust. I only stared back calmly, warmly, even while my heart throbbed. She then began to walk towards me slowly, hesitantly.

"Do you want to sit?" I asked. She shook her head, remaining fixed in her position in front of me.

"Do you get what I'm trying to tell you?" As the question was posed to me, and I was finally placed in the spotlight, the beginning of a long, steep drop, a strange calm washed over me. It froze the disjointed phrenetic activity in my chest like suspended particles in ice that is about to crack. I couldn't utter a word. I looked up at her with wide eyes. Please see that I'm scared.

She dropped to her knees, like she couldn't bear her own weight any longer, and her eyes fixated on me, pleading and vulnerable, with the most intensity I had seen in them all night. I looked down at her from this foreign vantage point.

"You are so wonderful, so... unreal to me, like an absolute dream, and I think... I'm afraid... that I'm just completely losing it. I'm falling for you, if I haven't... already... " I thought she was going to cry, but she didn't, and I knew I had to speak, but I couldn't. I was trying to do something to stop myself from feeling like my stomach was dropping below me, and like my chest was sheared open. I looked at her face, terrified, looking more wounded by each passing second. She had hair covering one eye, messy and disheveled, hanging limply in front of her cheek. I felt my hand rise and gently brush her hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. I didn't know what I was doing, I felt so stupid, awkward, wrong, mentally driving my self insane, delirious with happiness but panicked by my incompetence, wishing I could freeze the time to think about what to do, hating that each moment was one more chance to act the fool, until-

She kissed me. And it was like a bomb had gone off, and all the noise had been shut out, leaving only the faint ringing of an elysium that was not only her kiss, but her body between my legs, and her hands in my hair, the taste of wine and cigarettes on her lips, and her voice within her muffled breaths. After a few moments, she pulled away, and I felt her cheek touch mine as her lips grazed my ear.

"Is this okay?"

I answered in another kiss, which she returned more forcibly than the last. Her hand was clasping the side of my face while the other tightened around my waist, pulling me towards her. I felt a small whimper escape my lips, and almost immediately after I felt the intensity of the kiss deepen, her hand dive deeper in my hair, her other under my shirt, pressing forcibly onto my back. Moments later, she pulled away, still holding me tightly. She brushed a strand of hair from my face, looking into my eyes.

"What's wrong?" I asked in a small voice. She shook her head, smiling. Her face was red, and she was trying to pace her breathing.

"Nothing... " She stood up, brushing her knees off, and sat beside me. I turned my body to face hers.

"It was really hard for me to stop," she admitted with a sheepish smile, looking away. I blushed, unaccustomed to flattery of this nature. "I just wanted to make sure that you were okay, that you wanted this. I don't know, I just got... nervous."

"I do," I said nodding, finally finding my voice. "I mean... I didn't... I wasn't sure before. Just because this is all sort of new to me... I mean, all of it."

"I know. That's why I wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing. I don't want to confuse you or anything." I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Come on. If I'm not... I mean... if I wasn't... if I wasn't... inclined to um... enjoy it, you know, I wouldn't." She smirked.

"Eloquent. But no, I know what you mean. I guess I'm just being paranoid." She sighed and leaned her back flat against the bench, looking up into the sky. She seemed to be enjoying her newly freed tension. I edged a bit closer to her, still facing her. I watched her chest rise and fall, studied her face, her full and slightly parted lips, her half opened eyes, the flush of her slightly rounded cheeks. My mind was deluged with fragments of memories we shared: late night walks where the space between us seemed sinful in retrospect, the way her cigarette would be in firm place between her lips while she would read, her eyes that always seemed to soften when we were alone. I wanted to return to all our memories and cover each version of her in kisses. All I could feel at that moment was a column of bridled energy in the center of my chest, aching for release. My hand awkwardly found hers, and I slipped it within hers timidly, letting our fingers intwine. She shifted her eyes towards me, letting the corners of her mouth rise slightly, almost as if challenging me.

I saw her mouth open, about to question me.

Do it.

I leaned in, and caught her words in a kiss.