I’m about to pull away, because emotions are prickling inside me, when she swings her leg over me so she’s straddling my lap, then she grips the sides of my neck and pulls me closer. She kisses me fiercely, to the point where it feels like my lips are going to bruise, then she’s crushing her chest against mine as she gently rocks her hips. I dig my fingers into her waist, bringing her even closer, before I push her back, breaking the connection.
She’s panting, wild-eyed, her hair falling out of the braid. She glances at Tristan’s empty chair and then looks back at me.
“We should stop,” I say, but it sounds like a lame attempt, my voice drifting off at the end.
“W-why?” She stutters a protest and I have to admit that it’s nice there are no tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to.”
I brush her hair back from her eyes, and let my fingers linger on the bruise on her cheek. “You don’t even know me, Nova. I’m no good for you… you deserve so much better.” Please run away. Because I can’t seem to do it myself.
Her jaw tenses, like I struck a nerve. “I think I should get to decide that.”
“Whether I’m good enough for you?” I ask.
“Yeah, which I can only decide if I get to know you,” she says.
I motion my hand in front of myself, pressing the point. “This is pretty much it. What you see is what you get.”
“That’s never the case,” she disagrees, flattening her palms onto my bare chest right over the scar and my body goes rigid. “In fact, most of the time people hide who they really are.” Her throat bobs up and down as she swallows hard. “Most of the time you think you know someone, but you really have no clue.”
I think about her boyfriend and how he took his own life, and I can’t even begin to imagine what that did to her. I wrap my fingers around her scarred wrist, still concealed by bands, and graze my palm along it as the truth pours out of me. “But sometimes people are exactly who they are. And what you see is what you get.” I press my fingertips down, feeling the beat of her erratic pulse. “I’m exactly who I am. I have no job, I get high and drunk all the time, I have no purpose. Even my fucking art doesn’t have any meaning anymore.”
“But it did once.” She glides her free hand over my shoulder and grips my shoulder blade, her skin searing hot against mine. “And all those things are what you do, not who you are.” Her hand is trembling, and her pulse throbs with the beat of the bass coming from the stage. “Please, let me get to know you, Quinton.” Begging laces her voice and her big blue-green eyes, and I wonder if this is about me anymore, or someone else, and I should get up and walk away because she’s too good for me to be kissing, but she’s so also sad and the little tiny piece of my old self—the one who loved to help everyone—wants to make her happy, make her smile, make her laugh—help her. Even if it’s completely unrealistic.
Then she’s kissing me again and lightly tugging on my shoulder and I still have my fingers on her pulse and my hand is gripping at her waist. Passion and heat consume our bodies as she traces her finger up the back of my neck. I gently pull on her wrist, drawing her even closer, until there’s no more room left between our bodies, then I slip my hand around to her back and underneath her shirt so I can feel the heat exuding from her skin.
She lets out a gasp as I move my mouth back, gently biting at her bottom lip. Then I descend lower, down to her jawline, sucking soft kisses on her neck, and she arches it back. When I approach the top of her chest, I can tell she gets nervous by the acceleration in her pulse. She moans as I start to slip the straps of her shirt down, and the sound nearly drives me crazy, my body responding in ways it hasn’t in a long time, as my mouth reaches the curve of her breast. I picture myself standing up, taking her to the tent, and peeling her clothes off, knowing that if I slipped inside her it would feel different than it did with the other women I’ve been with over the last year. I’m trying to decide if I want it—the connection—when someone in the crowd shouts something profane at us and it’s followed by whistling, and the moment scorches into ash and separates into pieces.
We break away from each other, and I’m relieved to find that she’s not crying this time around and neither am I. But this time is different, and maybe it’s because it’s not the first kiss. Or maybe it’s because I understand her a little bit better, and that she’s not just some girl that giggles and laughs and doesn’t get what it means to hurt inside. She’s been through stuff, and for some reason, I’m drawn to her. Why she’s not crying, though, is a mystery.
Her lips are a little bit swollen and her chest is heaving. “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this out in the open,” she breathes, tracing circles on the back of my neck, as she eyes the tents behind us.
“Do you want to try and get close to the front?” I ask, trying to avoid going into the tent with her, because I know what will happen if I do. “I think that band you said you love is about ready to start playing.”
She cranes her neck and looks over her shoulder at the stage with uncertainty in her eyes. “I’m not sure if it’s worth it.”
The people surrounding the stage are rowdy, and a lot of girls have given into the singer’s demands and are walking around topless. It’s a really bad scene, and a year and a half ago I’d never have dreamed of coming to a place like this. But sometimes stuff happens and we find ourselves lost, and suddenly we’re standing in a place we don’t recognize and can’t remember walking—or falling—there, and we’re unsure how to get back or if we even want to.