Grey

The empty square in the middle of Grey’s Polaroid wall in her bedroom slowly filled up with pictures of us over the months we were together, until there was no space at all. I remember looking at the pictures every time I went over there, smiling to myself at the sight of myself beside the most perfect girl in the entire world. She caught me looking sometimes, and smiled too, placing a small kiss on my cheek before taking my hand and leading me out the door.

We became that couple that were hardly ever apart. I spent most of the time that I wasn’t in class, with her, or waiting for her. These days, it feels like I’m still waiting for her. Waiting for her to reappear in my life, to be under that oak tree again with her battered copy of The Catcher In The Rye. Waiting for her to say that she wants it all again. Us.

I never used to wear odd socks, you know. I was one of those people that had to have everything matching and in its right place. This was why my side of the room always looked so drastically different to Rory’s, who had no problem at all with living in a dump.

Grey wore odd socks all the time. She used to tell me that she couldn’t stand the idea of one sock being shunned to the back of the drawer forever, all because it had lost its partner. She said that people lost people all the time, but eventually they found someone else. She didn’t see why the same thing didn’t apply to socks.

I remember looking at her odd socks, one bright blue, the other black and white striped, our feet resting against one another’s at the end of her bed. It was strangely cold for that time of June, and we were huddled together under the covers in her room, telling stories of summer’s past and smiling at the memories. Memories we’d made without each other. It seemed bizarre at that time, to think that we’d had separate lives before meeting each other, when I couldn’t imagine life without her then.

I looked into those emerald eyes of hers and she told me about the summer she learned to ride a bike, a nostalgic smile on her face. When she’d finished, all I could do was kiss her. It was all I ever wanted to do. I felt her grip my neck, run her fingers through my hair. I moved on top of her, then, our bodies so closely pressed together as we kissed it were as though we were one being. I remember the way her hands crept up underneath my shirt, slowly tugging it free of my torso.

I stopped, then, looking at her, asking her if she was ready. We’d been taking it slow for a long time, getting to know each other at our own pace.

“I’m sure,” she said with a smile. “I want everything with you.”

I smiled and kissed her again, helping her out of her clothes as she helped me out of mine, moving and fitting together in the most perfect and effortless way. It was beautiful. It was then that I knew why it was called ‘making love.’

Afterwards, I held her in my arms and kissed her on her forehead and whispered that I loved her. And she whispered that she loved me too as we fell asleep in each other’s arms on that strangely cold day in June.