Page 36

Neither of us says anything as she lowers the blanket off our heads so we can look up at the actual stars. Our hands are still clasped together underneath the blanket, but I lie less stiff, relaxing into the comfort of her skin against mine.

“You see any of the dippers?” I finally break the silence, my eyes pointed up at the sky.

“Nah, but do you see that weird monkey butt shape up there?” Drew asks, pointing toward a patch of stars in the northeast direction.

“Yeah. What is it?”

“It’s called monkey’s butt.” Her face deadpans as she pivots her head to look at my reaction.

“Actually?” I furrow my brows and narrow my eyes in disbelief.

“No.” She laughs, returning her gaze up to the sky.

“You little-” I start as I tickle her under the blanket, causing her to kick her feet and curl her body into mine so that her forehead rests sideways on my chest.

Drew pulls her head up so her face is centimeters from mine. Her warm breath blows softly onto my face as our eyes meet, unwavering. I press my forehead to hers, my cheeks turningbright pink.

My heart is pounding, and my stomach drops as a million butterflies swarm it at once. She brings her hands up to my face, cupping my burning cheeks. Her eyes divert from my eyes to my lips, then back up to my eyes.

We hold contact for a minute, the air feeling more pressurized each second that goes by with my face in her hands. I reach up to caress the back of her head with my left hand and run the fingers of my right through the hair in her eyes, brushing it out of the way so I can see her whole face.

She leans in, our lips barely touching.

This is it. This is the moment I’ve longed for ever since that night in the lake, though I’m ashamed to admit I’ve been pining for this long. The moment that may ruin our whole friendship. Ruin the image I had of myself. Ruin everything good we have right now.

And just like that, the butterflies turn into moths. I pull away, awkwardly looking at the bare patch of dirt beside me and away from Drew. I hear her sigh as she turns back up to face the sky, my eyes still averted to the grass. Her hand is still in mine, but her grasp feels looser as if she wants to create distance between us, but she’s scared that if she lets go, we would have to confront what just happened.

The weight in the air is lifted, but a new kind of weight has replaced it, heavier than before.

We lay in silence for another ten minutes, the air colder now as we look up at stars that seemed to have dimmed in the past hour we’d lain here. I am incredibly stupid. Stupid for pulling away. Stupid for backing out of confronting feelings I’ve harbored in secret all this time. Stupid for messing it up out offearof messing it up.

But just a small part of me is relieved I didn’t lean in to kiss her. The guilt comes rushing in like a tsunami hitting a town I’m aforeigner in, confusedly reading the warnings in a language I’m unfamiliar with.

Just when I think I’ve spared myself a restless night of overthinking about who I am versus who I thought I was, it hits me.

I almost kissed her.

There was a part of me that wanted to. I touched her hair, held her hand, and stroked the back of her head. I leaned in too. What would my mother think of me? What would Holy Trinity think? I need to leave. I need to be alone with my thoughts and marinate in them until every single possible scenario is played out. Then I need to cry.

“It’s getting late. I should go.” I say, standing up and picking up my phone.

“Oh, um, okay,” Drew replies softly, shaking her head and avoiding eye contact with me.

I look away, knowing I’ll cry if I watch her cry, and I’m not ready to cry yet. Not until I’ve overthought this a million times over in my head and settled on the worst to prepare for it. The only time I’ve cried outside of my scheduled times for crying was right here at this playground with Drew, and I’m not exactly feeling up for recreating the moment again right now.

As soon as Drew stands up, I grab the blankets and head off the field, walking fast, as if I’m prey in a stealthy chase for survival, which, in a way, I sort of feel like I am right now. I try my best to hold back tears, walking briskly across the street, opposite the side of Thom's ice cream parlor. Luckily, it’s dark enough on the streets that I don’t think any of the people sitting outside the parlor recognize me.

When I get home, I make a beeline for the stairs and head down to my bedroom. Thankfully, my mother is upstairs, fallen asleep on a chair in the foyer. A bible rests in her hand as she’s passed out, which only makes me feel worse.

Once I’m in my room, I close the door gently, careful not to wake her. Normally, in this kind of stressful situation, I turn to my art. Except this time, I’m scared to turn to the one thing that comforts me in fear that I’ll only end up subconsciously drawing Drew. Instead, I switch off the lights and lie in my bed, my eyes adjusting in the dark to stare up at the blank ceiling, wishing I were back at the playground seeing stars again.

It drives me insane that she’s ruined the one thing that grounds me. No- that I’velether ruin the one thing that grounds me. That my art became her because she became my anchor. Despite how amazing it felt in the moment, I hate how much of myself I gave her in such a short period of time. I’d never let anyone in so quickly before, never so deeply.

My parents always had a crowd around them, but the friendships always felt so superficial, almost like we were a family of actors, and the people they kept around were our audience. As a result, I never let myself get too close to anyone there. I figured it was better not to let anyone in, in case the curtain fell and I ended up blamed for our exposure.

Except none of that mattered in the end, once my father went to prison. Everyone knew we weren’t the perfect family we pretended to be, and nobody stuck around. I can’t blame them, though. I wouldn’t want to hang around the family of a murderer.

But since I’ve been back in Georgia—since I’ve met Drew—everything from before that I tried so hard for got flushed down the drain. Almost like I found home in her, getting comfortable enough in it to lay down roots like she was a thing that was promised forever.