“David, why can’t you just tell me? You’ve never kept
anything from me before!”
Esther followed
me as I tried to walk away towards my car. I knew she was mad by the edge in
her voice, the way her footsteps fell heavy on the pavement behind me. You
notice these things about a person after being their best friend for fifteen
years.
“Just drop it Esther, okay? It’s not a big deal.” I
shrugged, going to reach for my keys in my pocket. My clammy hands shook.
“No,” she pointed angrily at me. “No, it is a big deal or you wouldn’t be keeping
it from me. Just tell me what’s going on!”
I groaned and
turned to face her. “Can’t you just give it a rest already? I swear, you’re
always like this. Nag, nag, nag. God, you’re so annoying.” I watched words
shoot out of my mouth and puncture her. I wished I could take them back. She
quickly masked the hurt though. I hated that mask.
“Oh excuse me,” she spat, “I guess I’m just not used to my
best friend keeping secrets from me. What on earth could be so important that
you couldn’t tell me?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” I turned back to my car.
She was silent a moment. “Don’t you dare say that David,”
she spoke in a low tone. “If there’s one person on the entire planet who would
understand, it’s me and you know it. So you’d better come with another excuse
or tell me truth because I’m sick of this.”
I laughed but there was no humor in it. It was hollow, void
of any joy. I spun round to face her. “You’re
sick of this? I’m sick of this! God,
I want to tell you so badly.”
“Then why don’t you?” She cried.
“I can’t!”
“Why, why can’t you?”
“Because!” We were both yelling, our voices filling the
night air and the mostly empty parking lot.
“Because what? I’m not going to get mad! I promise, whatever
you’ve done, I won’t get mad or hurt.” She brought her voice down, trying to
calm the situation. I didn’t follow her lead.
“No, you’re going to get scared, and then you’re going to
run away! And I can’t lose you!”
“You can’t scare me. Nothing you could do would ever scare
me!”
“Oh really?” I
took two steps forwards, closing the gap between us. “How about this?” In one
swift motion, I placed my hands on her cheeks and pressed my lips to hers. She
was warm and I was shaking, although I couldn’t tell if it was from rage, fear
or the pure joy of doing what I had wanted to do for so long. Hesitantly, I
pulled back and looked at her, terrified of what I would see there, ready for
her to run.
Her eyes were open in shock, and they looked into mine with
an expression I couldn’t read.
Then, she kissed me back.