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I’ve dreamt about my confession to Langa for over half a year now, ever since I first saw her walk into our classroom.
In my head, the scene is set perfectly: The sun sits on the edge of the horizon, about to set and turning the sky a beautiful mixture of oranges, pinks, and purples. We’re at the skatepark, but no one else occupies the space - it’s only the two of us, sitting hip to hip on top of the familiar half-pipe. Music plays - probably out of my phone or something, that detail’s less important - something sweet and soft, a whispering pop song or a flowy piano piece. I turn towards Langa, the setting orange sun lighting up the edges of her icy blue hair to look like a halo. Her ocean eyes stare over at me with a glimmer in the corner, almost as if she anticipates what I’m about to say to her. I place my hand on top of hers - feeling the slender fingers, the warmth of her skin, the scabs and scars where she’s tried to catch herself on the ground while falling. The world around us goes silent as I tell her how much I love her, how much she means to me, how I don’t just want to skate with her infinitely - I want to be with her infinitely. It would be so romantic that Shakespeare himself would be crying in the corner if he could hear it (and if he spoke Japanese). She wouldn’t even speak in response - she’d lean in to crash her lips into mine as a chorus of angels sings in the background.
It’s a perfect scene. A scene I adore so much. One I had planned to attempt on Friday night during our weekly trip to the park prior to ‘S’. I’d finally psyched myself up, committed to the day, and practiced my confession in the mirror with the music playing loud so my middle school sister couldn’t hear and be an insufferable brat about it. I’d painted my nails the forest green color I know Langa likes - she’s always asking me to paint her nails with it - and planned out my outfit - something casual enough to wear to the skate park but still cute enough to be worthy of a confession. All week, I’ve been buzzing with excitement.
Until Wednesday.
My heart stops beating when I see it happen. A boy from our class that usually sits two rows in front of me and Langa - Itachi - approaches us in our typical lunch spot where no one ever approaches us. The look I see in his eyes is familiar - I’ve seen it a million times played out in a million other people prior to their confessions. Not that I personally have ever received a single confession - but they happen somewhat regularly in our school. In fact, I’d seen a few people approach Langa with that look before. She’d always either not understood what they were trying to say, or just flat out said she wasn’t interested. So there’s nothing to be worried about with this boy who is - unfortunately - tall, dark, and handsome. Right?
With a timid look in my direction, he asks to speak to Langa in private. She turns towards me, uncertainty in her eyes as she seeks out my permission without speaking. I give her a shrug, trying to act cool and unbothered by the thought.
Inside, I’m so fucking bothered.
My brain goes to panic mode immediately. After all this thought I’d put into asking our Langa, some guy that hasn’t ever even talked to her just waltzes in and has the absolute gaul to just confess out of the blue. Before she’s even out of my sight, I’m already convinced that this is the person she will marry and any hopes for a romantic relationship with the girl of my dreams have been thwarted forever.
It’s my fault, really, for thinking not only that Langa could have any inkling of attraction to girls but that she could have any inkling of attraction to someone like me.
My pulse is dreaming through my skull when she returns, cheeks blushed bright red in deep contrast to her milky white skin.
“So, uh…” she begins, looking down at her hands and pointedly not at me.
“So, uh?” I’m on the complete edge of my proverbial seat. I forget to breathe as I lean in, anticipation burning like a fire grill under my feet.
“I think I have a date on Friday.”
“Oh.”
For probably the first time in months, I’m speechless.
The air hangs heavy over us for several excruciating minutes. Hands gripping the edges of my uniform skirt tightly, I have to resist every single urge to make a run for it. To ditch school and go hide in my bed until graduation day comes. I know I won’t do it - I’d learned my lesson the hard way the last time I’d ran away from her after she’d decided to skate in the tournament against Adam. Hell, I’d even been hit by a car for that mistake, so if there ever was a sign that running away from Langa is a bad idea, it was that.
“Reki,” she begins, breaking me out of my trance, “can I… Can I ask you for something?”
What? To go away so she could start eating lunch with her new boyfriend? To stop staring at her so much since she’s clearly into someone else? Bile swells in my throat, having to be swallowed down forcefully. Not only am I helplessly in love with her, but Langa is my best and admittedly only friend at school. What if she did start sitting at lunch with this new boy? What if she stopped hanging out with me? What if we stopped skating together?
My hold on the hem of my skirt tightens further. Half-aware, I sense some of the threads snapping. That’s future Reki’s problem.
“Yeah, for sure. Go… go ahead, dude,” I say, barely able to keep back the shaking in my voice.
“I’ve never been on a date before.”
“That’s not a question,” I retort, almost snapping at her from the restless anxiety buzzing throughout my body. She looks up at me, startled by my aggressive tone. Trying to back track, I soften my tone and add in, “I mean, really? You just seem - “ Way too pretty to not have gone on a million dates . “ - like you would have before.”
She shakes her head. “No, I - I never really got asked out much until I got here.” She bites at her lip, a small change in her expression that sends my head rolling. “Have you, um - have you ever…?” I can see the clear embarrassment paint over her cheeks. It’s almost precious.
I take in a deep breath, trying hard to be cool and rational. Even if I am hopelessly in love with her, Langa is first and foremost my friend. Despite the acute stress of this situation, I know deep down that my friendship with her is more important to me than any possible romantic imaginations I’ve had before. She’s clearly anxious in her own way and asking for the help of her best friend. I can suck it up for her sake.
“Yeah, um, kind of.” Saying I have dating experience is a generous term. The boy that I used to skateboard with a long time ago once asked me out to go to a cafe with him. I only realized halfway into rambling over a cup of sugary milk tea what his intentions were, and it immediately sent me into a panic spiral for the rest of the “date”. When he walked me home afterward, he kissed me. It felt weird and slimy, with him trying to push his tongue in my mouth way too early into the kiss. A week later, he broke his arm after bailing hard on one of the hills on the outer edge of town. We didn’t skate or talk anymore after that.
“Can you help me?” Langa sits up, looking at me with the determined look I only ever see when she’s about to race someone. “I want to do well. I want to know what I’m supposed to do and - I know you know about makeup and hair and all that much better than I do. You’re so artistic, I know you would be able to help me look nice.”
“Calm down, speed racer. This isn’t a beef - this is a date with some other second year.”
She stays upright, continuing to stare at me until I give her an answer.
Easily defeated, I sigh. “Sure, fine.”
Her thin arms snap around me shockingly fast to trap me in an embrace. For someone with such skinny limbs, she has the world’s tightest grip. “Thank you, Reki. You’re really amazing.”
I feel my own cheeks flush at the compliment. For the briefest moment, I forget about the whole boy-date thing and allow myself to feel content in her arms. “Stop it, you’re embarrassing me,” I mumble onto her shoulder. She pulls back, arms releasing me but with a smile on her face and shining light in her eyes. It hurts how much her face looks like my imagination of my aborted confession. “I’ll come to your place after school, okay? I’ll stop by home to grab my stuff on Friday, and then I’ll turn your pumpkin self into a princess.”
She nods, glowing determination exuding from her every pour before she leans over to grab my chopsticks and eat a piece of fish from my bento.
*
Carrying a loaded backpack up the stairs to Langa’s apartment, I know this is a mistake.
My insides have not unknotted themselves since lunch two days ago, my thoughts constantly surrounding the fact that Langa is going on a date with someone who is most definitely not me. It’s a cruel knife in my gut twisting itself anytime I remember what happened. One saving grace in these past few days is that Langa really hasn’t said much of anything about her upcoming date. Life has played out as usual, outside of the pit constantly growing in my belly.
Langa’s alone when she opens the door, her hair damp and a light blue robe wrapped tightly around her body. Freshly wetted, her hair shines more than usual and the moisture brings out the darker tones in her hair. Her milky skin is gently flushed a subtle pink on her cheeks and her chest, most likely due to the warm shower. I know if I were to reach out and stroke her face, it would feel so soft - the tips of my fingers buzz at the thought alone.
A voice inside my head screams at the cruel gods.
She ushers me in, acting nonchalant in spite of the fact that she’s clearly fresh from the bath and likely completely bare under the robe - a thought that I cannot let myself get caught up on. As I get closer, I can see the water droplets cascading down from her long hair, sliding down her neck.
“You know, most hosts prefer to be fully clothed when they have guests,” I say, desperately trying to bring humor into the situation to mask how warm I suddenly feel.
The taller girl frowns slightly. “I’m sorry. I was hoping you could help me pick out what to wear. I’m not sure how to dress.”
Awful, awful, awful mistake. I could ditch right now, I want to ditch right now, but my loyal feet stay planted.
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
I follow her into her bedroom, a place I’ve been to countless times but have never seen it in its current state of disarray. Clothes are strewn all over the place - the bed, the floor, the chair and the desk. Worrying at first that I might have to sit through hours of possible outfits, I’m relieved when she only picks up two hangers. The relief fades rapidly once I get a good look at what hangs off of the hangers: two dresses, the first midnight black skater dress with a mock neck and no sleeves, the second a cool teal a-line cut with three-quarter sleeves and neckline that looks much deeper than anything I’ve ever seen Langa in. Not that that’s saying much as Langa, much like me, seems to prefer keeping most of herself covered in baggy clothes with the occasional set of skinny jeans.
Outside of the skirt of our school uniform, I’ve never seen Langa wear any kind of dress before. My heart floats up into my throat, cutting off any ability to speak at that moment. Imagining her in either of the outfits brings a sharp heat to my chest.
“What do you think? Do they look okay? He’s taking me to a restaurant, but he didn’t say which one yet. Do these look good for a restaurant date?”
Hesitantly, I nod.
“Which one do you like better?”
Neither. Don’t go on the date. Stay here with me and never look at a boy ever again.
“The teal one would bring out your eyes.”
Reki, you stupid fucking virgin.
Her eyes widen ever so slightly as she looks at me. “You think so?”
I give another uncertain nod. “I’ll, uh - I’ll go get set up while you, um, get set up here.” I nearly run out of the room, needing desperately to get a breath of air away from this horrid situation that I stupidly put myself in.
Once I’m back in the kitchen, I drag out my makeup bag from my pack, noticing the tremor in my hands. I stare at them for a long second, seeing the places where my green polish has chipped. I want to cry.
No. I need to get it together. This is for Langa. She deserves to go on a date with some handsome guy and be happy. If this makes her happy, then I should be happy for her. I can do at least that.
I carry my toolkit into the bathroom. Gripping the edge of the counter, I study my fingernails even further. The color that Langa loves. The first step in my preparation for the confession I was supposed to have tonight.
Maybe it’s not too late? Maybe I will throw away the sunset skatepark and confess to her in her bathroom.
No, no, no. I’m happy for Langa. I’m going to be happy for her if it’s the last thing I do. With the racing of my weak heart, it just might be.
I glance towards the toilet, comforted to know that if I end up vomiting from the anxiety, at least I won’t be far away.
Enraptured in my own spiraling worry, I don’t notice at first when my best friend enters the room. She calls out my name softly, in her heartbreakingly breathy voice, as she stands awkwardly in the teal dress. “Reki?”
She looks beautiful. The shape of the dress highlights parts of her figure I never even noticed before. Langa always looks like harsh lines under the skater ensembles she typically adorns, but in this dress, I can see the strong curves along her hips and chest. When did Langa get a figure like that? Was she always like that under all the layers?
It’s cruel.
“Does it look okay?”
My throat is almost too dry to speak. “Yeah.”
She smiles slightly.
The next step in the process will be makeup, which will also be the step that takes the longest. For her benefit and mine, we drag in a chair from the kitchen for her to sit in. It’s a weird change of pace, standing above her like this as I tie back her hair to keep it out of my way. A shudder runs up my spine as I see the way she looks up at me. It’s an image I wish I could capture in my mind forever, but I know it’s not an image that really belongs to me.
Everything goes silent as I dutifully get to work, carefully rubbing a thin layer of primer over her skin. Being so close to her like this, I can see all the details in her face. Her long lashes, the slight part in her lips, acne scars along the outside of her cheeks, the faintest hint of freckles scattered on her nose. It’s perfect, and it’s depressing. Still, I swallow back the emotions swelling inside of me at being so close to her, closer to her face than I probably ever have been. As I begin to dab on a light layer of foundation (something I’d had to pick up at the drugstore since she is far too light for any of my shades), I almost tense up when I realize that being this close I can smell the scent of her shampoo. Peaches and cream.
Laser focused in on keeping my cool as I continue my work, I nearly poke her in the eye with a brush when she speaks.
“Reki? Can I ask you something?”
Good god, please don’t.
“Yeah sure, what is it?”
Being so close towards her face, I can hear the sound of her lips pursing together before she speaks. “Do people here usually kiss on the first date?”
On that one, I completely drop the eyeshadow brush, thankful it lands on the ground and not on her dress. I take my time going to pick it up and cleaning it off, stalling as long as I can. “Why do you ask?”
She stares down past me. “I’ve never… done that before.”
“Kissed on the first date?”
“No - well - yes, technically. I’ve never… kissed.”
I wait for her to add more to her sentence before realizing that she has finished on the word “kissed”.
“Oh, well, uh - I don’t totally know? I mean, some people do, I know I - “ I think back to my awful kissing experience on my first “date”, cringing slightly. “I guess my experience has included that. But, if you don’t want to kiss him, you know, you don’t have to -”
“I know,” she interjects, voice a higher pitch than I’ve ever heard it. “I - I don’t know if I want to. I just want to be, you know, prepared.”
There’s a minute of silence as I return to her eye makeup. I can only be thankful that she waits until after I’ve finished my meticulous work on her eyeliner before asking her next question.
“Have you ever kissed someone before?”
I’m reminded for the second time this evening of slobbery tongues. “Yeah, it was… something.”
She nods, pursing her lips again as she looks lost in thought. I finish her eyes, continuing on to coat her cheeks in a subtle blush and modest highlight. Turning to my bag, I pull out a few different options for lips - a few glosses with some pigment as well as a handful of lipsticks, some creme with an occasional matte.
“What color do you want?”
The answer I receive is not a color, but rather an anxiously blurted out question of its own: “How do you kiss?”
I blink.
“I don’t think I have a lipstick that tells you that.”
She rolls her eyes, but it does little to hide her worry and embarrassment. “You’ve… done it. I haven’t. There must be something to know, right?”
I furrow my brows, studying her face for a few seconds to try to understand what she’s getting at here. “It’s not really something I can give you a wikihow on. I don’t really… know how to explain it. It kinda just happened when I did it. Well, I really didn’t do it - the other person kind of did it to me.”
“How did he kiss you?”
I almost laugh. “You don’t want to kiss like he kissed me. It was like kissing a dog.”
“How did you want him to kiss you?”
There’s something indecipherable in her eyes, the ocean blue glowing more intensely with the backdrop of the dark eyeliner and shadow. A terrible image flashes through my brain that I have to quickly lock behind whatever mental doors I can.
“I can’t… I don’t… I don’t have… words.”
When she speaks again, I recognize the edge in her eyes. It’s that determination again, that desire to do the best of anyone. The same desire that sent her skating off a literal cliff with a creep dressed in a skeleton suit.
“Can you show me, Reki?”
“You… want me to show you?”
My mental doors unlock. I see a new scene playing over and over in my head.
“If that’s okay.”
It’s not a fair question at all. Of course every fiber of my being thinks it’s okay. All I want to do is “show her”, but the fallout of doing so will leave me ripped to shreds. It’s such a bad, horrible, terrible idea.
Hands trembling as I touch the side of her face, I play out the scene I envision in my head. Slowly and cautiously - giving her any moment to change her mind or admit to pulling a sick joke on me - I lean in closer to her face.
What will happen if I do it? Will it change anything? Or will it just make everything hurt more when I find out she kissed someone else after?
I hesitate. “Are you sure? You said - you said you haven’t kissed before. Don’t you want that to be on a date with someone you like?”
Her conviction doesn’t waver. “You said the kiss you had was bad. I'd rather have experience going in, so I can make sure not to be like that.”
This is hardly an experience. This is just a twisted, gay fantasy that’s going to scar me forever.
“Besides,” she adds, voice dropping to almost a whisper, “You’re my best friend. I know that I like you. I'd rather kiss you first if there’s a possibility that he’ll kiss weird.”
Langa’s logic, as per usual, is going to absolutely kill me.
Even still, it’s enough to ignite the flame that pushes me forward. I try hard to think about that first kiss, all of the things that felt wrong about it. The way he went in too intensely, pushing too hard against my lips to try to force them apart. From my memory, it felt equally like he was trying to bruise me as much as kiss me. With that in mind, I try as much as possible to approach Langa’s lips with a gentleness, not trying to ask for too much.
If kissing him had been suffocating, kissing Langa is like breathing in fresh air for the first time. She follows in my gentle lead, her own hands reaching up to hold the sides of my face as our lips move slowly against each other. She tastes like an autumn breeze and fresh rain in the morning.
It ends too soon when she drops her hands from my face, a clear signal I take to pull back.
“Thank you,” she says before looking towards where the lipstick sat abandoned and cold on the counter. “I like that peachy looking one.”
I crack into a million pieces.
*
When I leave, I don’t go home. Instead, I resign myself to wandering around town with my head hanging low until I inevitably settle on loitering in the skatepark - a nature preset for me, especially in moments like this. It’s empty enough that I feel no guilt plopping down on one of the benches on the sidelines, staring off into the void in front of me.
The sun drops closer and closer to the horizon as I sit for hours, lost in maddening thoughts about what just happened.
I kissed Langa. These three words are facts now, undeniable truths of the world that I now have to deal with.
I kissed Langa, and then she still went on a date with some boy she hardly knows.
My mind floods with new images, thoughts of Langa and Itachi in some fancy restaurant downtown, thoughts of him walking her home to the stairs of her apartment that I’ve ascended with her a thousand times before, thoughts of him leaning in and kissing the lips that I kissed first.
I kissed her first.
Should that thought relieve me? It only makes me feel worse.
It’s too much, it’s all too much on my stupid, gay brain. The tears that I’ve been holding back all week since I first saw Itachi walking up towards my best friend finally break through the gates, rolling down my cheeks as disgusting sobs shake through my chest.
Somewhere across town, Langa is probably having the best date ever.
The sun slips lower in the sky as I spend at least an hour on the bench, crying softly and hoping the few patrons that continue to linger the park at this hour don't try to talk to me. I notice a couple pointed stares in my direction, but everyone maintains a healthy distance as one by one the evening crowd slips out the gate. Gazing towards the sunset, I see the beautiful gradient of oranges, purples, and pinks.
This was supposed to be when I confessed. This was when I was actually supposed to kiss Langa. If stupid Itachi never asked her out, I would have given her the best first kiss ever, not some trembling mess in a bathroom solely for "educational" purposes.
Who am I kidding? There is no other context where we would have kissed. Langa deserves so much more than a loser like me, a loser spending her Friday night weeping at a skatepark without even skating - my trusted board remaining completely untouched to my right.
She deserves the world, and I can't give it to her. It's exactly as I said months ago, during our first and only fight - we just aren't a good match.
A fresh wave of despair showers over me. It's almost shocking how many tears I have been holding behind my eyes.
The sun is a sliver on the horizon, nightfall threatening as I finally stand up from the bench. Nighttime meant 'S' would be starting soon. There's no use sitting around and moping when I can at least distract myself there. It'll be the first time going without Langa there since she moved to Okinawa. I might as well get used to it, since I doubt Langa's handsome boyfriend would sacrifice his Friday nights with her just so she could skate with a bunch of lunatics in an abandoned mine.
It's fine. I used to go there alone anyway. As long as she's happy. It's what matters most in the end.
Her Friday nights will be full of all the things couples do. Dates, kissing, droning on forever about how much they love each other, a boy that actually has the guts to tell her how he feels, then more kissing, then more than kissing… The thought of Langa doing more with someone else, especially doing so with a guy, is a sucker punch to my jaw.
Reluctantly, I make my way to the front gate. My eyes glue themselves to the pavement below, removing my awareness to the point that as soon as I turn outside of the gates, I crash into the person approaching, dropping the board being toasted on my hip in the process.
Dropping down to grab my board, I mumble a meek, “Sorry.”
Slender but strong fingers grab at my shoulders, yanking me back up.
“Reki.”
My eyes widen as I look up at my best friend. “What are you doing here?”
She offers up a weak smile. “I wanted to find you before ‘S’. I had a hunch you’d be here. Especially since you weren’t responding to my texts.”
Had she texted me? I haven’t looked at my phone in hours.
“What are you doing here already? What happened to your date?”
Her smile wavers. “Can we sit down somewhere?”
Mind spinning with confusion, I manage up a tight nod before turning back through the gates. I retrace my steps completely, taking ownership of the bench from before - still warm from my own sitting there for over an hour. The sun has disappeared entirely over the horizon, it’s last glow fading with every second.
Langa parks beside me, pursing her lips. The color from her - no, my - lipstick is noticeably faded in the center, with some smudging along the edges. Of course, part of that must be a product of the fact that she went to dinner, but I know that no food would cause that kind of smudging on the ends. My chest tenses, trying to bury any thoughts on that subject to no avail.
“How… did it go?” I ask after several moments of silence pass.
I watch as her eyebrows furrow, her expression going hard as she stares forward. “It was weird. I don’t think I liked it.”
“How do you mean?”
I notice that she continues not to look at me when she speaks.
“It felt uncomfortable. He seems nice, but… All he did was talk a lot. Which I guess I’m used to - you talk way more than I do.” She says that part matter-of-factly, though it still stirs something disconcerting inside me. “When he talked, though, it was all about stuff I didn’t know about. A lot about baseball, both about him playing and then also about some of the Puro Yakyu teams. I guess it’s not that different than how we must sound when talking about skating, but… I really just didn’t… care.”
It’s hard to process much of what she’s saying right now, as the bigger question still echoes through my brain. “Did you two - you know, what we talked about…?”
“I kissed him.”
My brain short circuits. I know my emotions must be painted even clear enough on my face for Langa to read them, because as she turns towards me she looks flustered and speaks quickly.
“I don’t know, everything was winding down and I kind of wanted him to shut up. It felt like I was supposed to do it. Like one of us was supposed to do something and he kinda seemed surprised by it. It was…” She looks away from me again, down at her hands. “It was weird.”
This is good news, right? Langa seems pretty disappointed by the whole thing. I should be happy to hear this, but the pit in my stomach remains.
“Do you think you like him at all?” I ask.
Langa frowns. “He seems fine. I don’t think he kissed badly, really. It was kind of stiff and the hair above his mouth scratched weird and…” She trails off, staying quiet for what must be a full minute. Her eyes appear dejected, in a way that I cannot prevent feeling sad over. I start to inch my hand towards her, trying to think of some way to be comforting, but I chicken-out right before she speaks again. “I wanted to try. I thought I should try at least once before ruling it out.”
“What? Kissing? You know, one bad kiss doesn’t mean th -”
“No, no!” she interjected, cheeks blushing bright red. “Not the kissing part. I don’t think that’s the issue.” There’s a beat where Langa looks uncertain while glancing towards me. “I liked when you kissed me earlier. That was nice, even if it was just practice.”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at here, Langa.”
“I don’t think I like boys.”
“Yeah, I mean, they definitely suck, don’t they? I know baseball is super boring, at least play something exciting , y’know? Like basketball or–”
“I think I’m gay.”
If my brain had short circuited before, hearing her say those words caused an entire system shutdown. Should I have seen this coming? Now everything she’s said so far has made more sense. The fact that she’s turned down nearly every boy in our class, too, makes sense. After all, even if he’s apparently an insufferable baseball fanatic, he is still cute…
“I think there’s something else, too,” she says, drawing my back down to earth.
“Yeah?”
I don’t know what I expect at this point. Langa, who I almost always can read from a mile away, has thrown me through so many mental hoops this week. I don’t think, though, I ever considered what happens next.
“When I asked you to kiss me earlier -” She cuts herself off, reconsidering her approach. “When you kissed me, I really liked it.”
My body stiffens.
“I don’t know how you… feel about these sorts of things. I don’t want to be creepy, especially because I know things are… different here than back home…” Langa, often the pinnacle of impulsive decisions and moving before thinking, appears uncertain as she looks away from me again. In response, the tightens in my chest and drumming in my veins fades, a new piece of my assuming confidence for the both of us.
“Do you want me to kiss you again?”
She doesn’t look up still as she counters my question with another, “Would you want to?”
“You first.”
Her eyes close completely as she nods.
With her eyes still shut, I place a gentle hand on her cheek. Soft and warm despite the chill of the evening air seeping through the park. I take in a deep breath, trying to lean further into this wave of self-assurance that feels so foreign. It’s a complete role reversal for us - me taking a confident lead while Langa shrinks in her disquiet. I’m driven by the desire to give her what she wants, no matter what the cost might be to me. Leaning in gradually, I bring our lips together once more.
She stiffens at first, almost as if in surprise, but we melt into one another quickly. This kiss is deeper than the one we’d shared earlier, not pushing for too much but with a stronger intensity, a more genuine desire behind the movements our lips make against one another. It doesn’t take long for Langa to regain her brazen nature, clumsily pressing ahead as one of her arms snakes around my waist, pulling me in closer as her lips tug harder on mine. When we part, we’re both panting softly, wide amber meeting wide oceans.
It’s not sunset, there’s no music playing, and I can’t muster up the monologue I’d dreamt of before, but as she leans back slightly, just close enough to rest her forehead against mine, everything is perfect.