The Taste of Bells

I didn't mean to. I really didn't, but I found myself watching her more closely after that. I couldn't help but notice how beautiful her bronzed skin was underneath her school uniform, how tiny freckles barely dusted her apple cheeks. How she always rolled her 'R's thanks to Spanish being her first language, and how her voice always sounded like the fuse of a cannon sizzling until it went off. I wondered if Ricky noticed those things, too, or if he was just trying to get in her pants.

When I was younger, I was fascinated by that one picture of Naomi Campbell kissing Linda Evangelista. The action appeared so nonchalant, like they didn't even think twice about leaning over in their seats and pressing their lips together when the photographer suggested it in passing. They looked like goddesses. I wanted to be like that, detached from an anchor that held me down to an inhibiting sense of shyness, making me stutter over even the most significant notions I felt passionate about. Everything always seemed to expire within me before I could let it out.

We didn't talk about it immediately. I was the one to bring it up, which surprised even me. We were sitting on her bed, which hadn't been updated from its frilly, pink state since she was in grade school. I was supposed to be doing my geometry homework with her, but I couldn't stop thinking about her lips on mine as I spaced off, staring at a poster on her wall of young Leonardo DiCaprio with his golden blond hair and dreamy blue eyes. I wondered if she saw his face every night before she went to sleep.

It was after her mom came in to give us some of her "famous afajores", or, as she said, "Paraguayan lemon cookies". I smiled meekly and thanked her, feeling guilty as the fresh memory of her daughter kissing me just an hour before replayed over and over in my mind. I couldn't meet her eyes; I felt like she could see into my brain, silently judging me.

"So, um," I spoke up as soon as we were left alone again, "what…was that? Before?"

She looked up from her textbook, mid-chew. "What?"

I gulped, feeling foolish. The cookie was beginning to crumble in my hand. "Y'know, when…when you…"

She didn't seem to understand. Above her head, Leo seemed to hiss at me, "Just spit it out already!"

"W-when…Ricky said…"

"Oh," she sat up, laughing it off with a wave of her hand, "that? That was just to get him to shut up. Sorry I didn't warn you. But did you see the look on his face?"

"Yeah," I let out a breathy, halfhearted excuse for a chuckle. Just to get him to shut up.

"Chloe," she furrowed her brows, "you're making a mess."

I snapped out of my sudden disappointment at her words, following her line of vision until I realized I'd been clenching my fist, unknowingly crushing the cookie now mangled into crumbs that fell out of my palm and onto her sheets.

"Sorry."