Pretty Follies

You know when you’re at a sleepover with all your friends, and you’re trying to pull an all-nighter? You’re tired, tired, still tired, and then suddenly at three in the morning everyone suddenly has a giant kick of energy. You’re happy, laughing and raring to go do something crazy. I wasn’t exactly geared up to go TP a neighbor’s house, but I must have been on one of those second winds. I surprisingly had energy and had energy for a quite a while now. I wasn’t passing out as much, could see straight and I didn’t feel like a complete bag of shit. Lorraine and I were riding on it together, but we must have been getting close to the end of it though. It couldn’t last much longer.

“How fucking big is this forest?!” Lorraine yelled into my back, agitated. I had actually wondered that so many times before. There were only so many steps a person could take. I didn’t think there would be that many trees to lock us in here for this long and it wasn’t like we were in the Amazon.

I was sure we hadn’t been walking for over twenty minutes, but I was getting tired already. Once I leaned against a tree, Lorraine took the hint and slid off my back and balanced on one leg, using my shoulder to keep herself steady. Feeling a huge heaving in my chest, I turned away from her and buried my mouth in my arm, preparing for the giant cough I knew was coming.

To my surprise, I felt Lorraine’s small hand on my back, rubbing it soothingly and knowing it was the only thing she could do for help. I smiled to myself. I didn’t know why, I was just in that mood. Funny how I was at the lowest point I had ever been in my entire life, but just one pat on the back from Lorraine could make me the happiest.

After that episode, Lorraine suggested we sit again. I was ready to make this spot the last stop, I really was. I was unhealthily hacking a lot more frequently, my endurance had clearly dwindled and I didn’t think I could go further. What was the point anyways? This was a never ending forest that we clearly couldn’t get out of. I wasn’t sure if Lorraine was still gung-ho about the whole, no rest, carry on, ordeal. But I was sure done.

Jadedly, I leaned my back against a tree trunk and watched Lorraine as she sat down across from me. It wasn’t ten feet away, not back facing me, it was next to me. I smiled wearily at her and she did the same back as she he scooted a little closer, making our kneecaps touch as we crossed our legs.

“Laney, there’s a bug in your hair!” I dramatically said. Lorraine eyed me, seeing the amusement in my eyes and decided to play along.

“Oh shit! Get it out, get it out!” she squealed, raising her voice two octaves, followed by shaking her hair around. Once she was done, we looked at each other and laughed; a little bug didn’t scare us anymore. Hell, we probably had a lot more grosser things buried deep on our scalp by now.

I shuttered at the thought and immediately pushed the idea out of my mind. It was easy to do; across from me, Lorraine was humming. At first I could have sworn I heard a buzzing by my ear and I thought it was a fly. But listening closer, I realized she was humming the sweetest tune. I couldn’t recognize it and I wondered if she was making it up.

I watched her intently, how her nose would crinkle once and a while, how she parted her lips to take a breath when she needed. It was all so…perfect. Once and a while she would have to reach up and tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, but she hummed the entire time.

I didn’t know if she knew I was staring because her eyes were shifted down at the ground, where her pointer finger drew doodles in the dirt. I didn’t even care to look at her scribbles and instead I kept my eyes shifting from her lips to her downshifted eyelids.

I guess she did sense my obnoxious stare and my silent, pleading eyes that begged her to shift her eyes up I could look in her eyes. “Why do you keep staring at me?” She was looking at me, allowing me to gaze at her eyes again.

Fucking Christ, I was pathetic. “Huh, what? I’m not…” I stuttered nervously.

“Yes. Yes you are. What? Is there something on my face?” she joked, trying to lighten up the mood knowing very well there was a lot on her face. I didn’t respond. No laugh, no scoff. She picked up on it and her face turned serious. “What? Is something wrong?”

“Well, yeah, a lot of things,” I said smartly, causing Lorraine to roll her eyes. “But no.”

“Then…why do you keep looking at me like that…it’s…weird.”

It’s weird. That’s the word. It was weird. It was weird that this was happening. It was weird that I wanted her. It was so fucking weird, so fucking weird.

Should I do it? Do I tell her? How would I do it, if I had the guts to say anything.

“What?!” I didn’t say anything to make her any less self-conscious. Instead, I leaned my body forward. “Alex…” Lorraine said in a shaky voice, keeping her eyes glued to me. I stared back, absorbing the pretty glimmer in her eyes of amusement and nervousness. I wanted to do something with my hands: ran them up her legs, grab her hands, run them through her hair. “You’re freaking me out.” I still didn’t respond.

Without warning, thinking or letting her say anything else, I roughly grabbed her face and I kissed her. I smothered my lips against hers and I kissed her as hard as I could. Nothing else mattered to me at that moment, just the fact that I was pressing my lips against Lorraine’s as hard as I possibly could. I didn’t know what had gotten into me, but I was tired of these games. I didn’t think, I just did it.

And surprisingly, after processing the fact that Alex Gaskarth was kissing her, Lorraine Johnson kissed me back.