Something To Talk About

As Ryan snored in the bed next to me, I clutched the sheets around my naked body and stared wide eyed at the ceiling, unable to blink.

What had I just done?

I had no idea how it happened.

I thought back a few hours and tried to replay everything in my mind, searching for the moment where I should have said ‘Hey, maybe this isn’t a good idea’.

In hindsight, there were a thousand opportune times, but in the moment, it was all happening so quickly that I hadn’t even had time to think.

“I never want to drink again,” Ryan sobbed on my shoulder as I wrapped my arms even tighter around his frame.

I had never seen a boy cry before and it made me uncomfortable. None of the boys I had ever known back home had shown such emotion, and even some of my best friends had never opened up to me the way he had.

I stroked his hair gently, hoping he would be okay soon and eventually after what felt like an awkward eternity, he took a deep breath and pulled himself together.

“I’m sorry, Danya,” He whispered to me shakily, “I just...I don’t understand...why does this always happen? I always ruin everything...what makes me so hard to love?”

“You are not hard to love!” I gasped, and Ryan finally let me go, “Not at all!”

He looked away shaking his head as if he didn’t believe me, and I took his still splotchy face in my hands, forcing him to look at me.

“Ryan...” I breathed, “I have never met anyone like you before. You’re fun and witty and clever. You’re honest, and creative and real. You care so much about the people around you that you would sacrifice your own happiness for theirs. You’re generous and thoughtful...so talented. You have the most incredible mind...”

He started to look away again, but I stopped him.

“Ryan,” I confessed, “I think you’re amazing.”

He paused, and looked up at me, a look that seemed to go right into me in a way that made me feel naked and made my stomach drop and that was when it happened. Ever so slowly, he leaned in and kissed me. Just like that.

Like the kiss between Jon and I, not much earlier, this one was slow, gentle and sweet, yet unlike earlier, I didn’t forget to close my eyes and I definitely didn’t keep my lips pressed closed. Neither did Ryan.

It was all the things a kiss was supposed to be, and there was no lack of magic either.

There actually turned out to be a dangerous amount of magic because once we started kissing, neither of us wanted to stop and things progressed so quickly that hours later, as I lay beside him, my mind was still spinning.

One moment, it seemed, Ryan was crying on my shoulder, and the next, we were under the covers, with only one thing on our minds.

I laid therenext tohim, watching his chest rise and fall as he inhaled and exhaled steadily. Both my head and my heart were threatening to explode with the pressure of my thoughts and the new and unexpected depth of my feelings for Ryan.

I didn’t know what any of it meant. We hadn’t talked afterwards. I didn’t know what to say to him, and figured he was probably unsure of what to say to me at that point, too, so we just laid together quietly until eventually he fell asleep.

I stayed awake though, letting my head fill with questions.

Had Ryan been falling for me over the last month the way I’d been falling for him? Did he want to start a real relationship with me? After everything, could Ryan be my soul mate?

Or was I over thinking everything? Did I really mean nothing to him? Was I just one of those classic rebounds that everyone always talked about and I never really understood? Or would he even remember in the morning?

I studied the outline of his beautiful face in the light coming through the window, a mixture of the early morning sunrise and the flickering light of the old street lamps. A sudden rush of emotion flooded me and the only thing I was certain of was that only being friends with Ryan would kill me.