Right as I told him we should be friends, he kissed me. That wonderful, overwhelming, heavy kind of kiss that I personally wouldn’t mind being smothered by. What are you, twelve? Well, no, but I felt like I was twelve. “A grown up woman should never fall so easily.” What are you, a grown up? Clearly not.
He didn’t tell me he loved me, didn’t get me flowers, and thank God didn’t ask me on a date. What he did tell me was how incredibly attractive he found me, but not using words. Somehow that language was more meaningful to me. So, when I thought about my boyfriend, Bryce (yes, this story gets juicier!) I barely felt guilt.
Bryce professed his love to me every day and bought me countless bouquets. He talked to me about how many kids he wanted to have and got mad when I didn’t feel like holding hands. He even agreed that we shouldn’t have sex till we’re married. And he actually said until “we’re” married. Because apparently we were getting married. This is the kind of smothering I didn’t want. As an in-between twelve years old and grown-up, I knew it was too much too soon. Not that it mattered. What was happening between my legs hit me a lot harder than anything that was going through my mind.
I knew no boundaries. I forgot everything about who I was or wanted to be. I probably forgot my name. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling or why and it didn’t faze me in the least. My instincts took over, logic out the window. We were primal and so immature.
I lied. We did more than just kiss. Neither of us said a single word and we didn’t need to because we had a new language. One that Bryce never knew. Afterwards, I felt like I had just snapped out of a daze. The best and worst part about it was that even after he left and I started getting ready to go out to lunch with Bryce, I couldn’t bring myself to form even an inkling of regret.
I didn’t bother telling Bryce at lunch. We went to my favorite Chinese restaurant and I didn’t feel like ruining what was turning out to be a great day. When Bryce and I finally did break up, I pretended it was for different reasons. Something about going away to college and needing to have freedom. In a very small way, that much was true. I no longer liked the idea of love that was presented in so many actions and words. I wanted it to be real, physical and raw. I needed the freedom to feel.
I like how you managed to allow only so much information to be revealed in the story: you didn't tell us who the other guy was, or what Bryce meant to you, or give us juicy details of how exactly your break up played up, and I'm glad you didn't. This story exemplifies your own personal reaction to everything that happened and I like how that was expressed through stripping away most of the extraneous details
ReplyDeleteI agree with Austin. There's a very nice use of ellipsis here and your voice is as present as it always is.
ReplyDeleteThere's a nice narrative arc to this, and a compellingly honest voice. You might begin with Bryce, structuring it as the story of the end of the relationship with him, the awakening of a desire for something more. I don't think we need to know much about the other guy, though perhaps some context. The penultimate sentence makes sense as an ending; I'm less clear about "the freedom to feel," unless it is a restatement of the desire for the raw and the physical. In which case you might not need it. This is a good draft; keep working on it.
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