I imagine that her lips were soft.


I can see you two wandering into her house, walking into the kitchen. She sits on her barstool, exhausted by the run you two shared. She leans over and you see that hint of cleavage that she oh so purposefully put out there. You jump at the odd light fixture that she has hanging from an awkward angle because it makes a noise you weren’t exactly expecting. You laugh and she laughs too, calling you a dork. Or stupid. Or something along those lines, but with a playful tone in her voice. That tone remains there, lingering as you guys talk about sweet nothings. It’s like a cat that seems to rub up on your leg with its warm soft belly, teasing you to play with it, this tone was playful. She was a cat, teasing. Yet there’s a gawky tension in the air that you both can’t quite name.

After a while you come closer, sitting on a barstool that’s close enough to hers. Just enough length, you think. Just enough space to close the gap between you if you so choose. The gap that has been there for almost a month now, it being the first month that you and I have shared as a couple.

Were still sharing.

You had it all planned out. At the right moment, you leaned in. I imagine you tucking a piece of her hair being her ear with one hand while looking into her eyes. There you both got to look into one another’s beautiful eyes, because you both have them. Green, hazel and blue all mixed together to create separate combinations of stunning material like different colors in a sunset that you wait patiently all night to see melt into each other. I imagine you getting close enough to go back, but crash into her lips with ease like one color after another in that same sunset. A sunset you waited so long to see melt. You waited so long for it, didn’t you?

That gawky tension was me, and you didn’t want to name it because you knew that it was wrong. You wanted to believe that I wouldn’t find out. You wanted to think that maybe, just maybe the kiss would be worth it. Was it worth it? Was breaking my heart worth it?

After trying to mend my heart for a few months now I have come to find that I will always have this memory that isn’t mine. I will continue to put together the pieces that aren’t there. Those pieces I will never be able to find because I wasn’t there. You were, and she was too. You are both the only ones who knew what really happened. Somehow I always want to make excuses for both of you.

“She fell and I tumbled after her, causing me to fall into her lips. I didn’t kiss your best friend on purpose, Atley, I would never hurt you that way.”

“I know you love him Atley, that’s why when this monstrous bug bit his lip I had to suck away the venom just in case.”

I end these excuses with a shake of the head, always. I know they aren’t true, even though as ridiculous as they may be I want them to be what really happened. I wish it didn’t happen. I wish he loved me. I wish she cared. They didn’t.

Your lips are soft when they press against mine, tearing me away from my day dream that’s more like a nightmare. I was torn away from reality for a second to once again work on that invisible puzzle.

“You okay?” you ask.

Yes, I am perfectly fine. That’s what I always say with a smile after every occasional fake answer. See, you say you love me now. That it was the worst mistake that you have ever made. I do believe you although I probably shouldn’t. You say you love me now. I believe you. I just wish we both loved each other before my heart was cracked open wide and in need of immense fulfillment by this game that I keep playing again and again.

You two don’t talk now. I have separate relationships with both of you, and I fear the possibility of you both ever getting close again. I know it won't happen, but that fear will always be there. Like the puzzle. The puzzle will always be there, in need of figuring out. Luring my mind effortlessly because sadly, my mind likes puzzles. My heart doesn’t like finishing them though, because you never know what you may find when trying to put it together.


I imagine her lips were soft.

But I want so badly for them not to be.