“Anytime, princess,” I said instead.
She got out of the car then, and I watched her walk to the building entrance, my jacket hanging loose around her shoulders. She turned back once to wave, and I lifted my hand in response.
You’re in trouble, Marley. I told myself as I drove away.
Serious trouble.
IX
“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”
— Oscar Wilde
Chapter Ten
Kelechi
“….you should stop being scared and start being curious instead.” What Marley said last Saturday hadn’t left my mind since then. It had forever etched itself in a permanent place in my head that no matter how many times I tried to shut it off, it never budged.
It followed me around like a shadow, not able to detach itself from my thoughts.
Curious.
Dr. Jacques was explaining something about metaphysics at the front of the lecture hall, his voice a steady tone that should have been holding my attention. Instead, I found myself hyperaware of the presence behind me. Marley was sitting in her usual spot two rows back.
I could feel her there without even turning around. It was strange, this awareness. Like my body had developed some sort of radar specifically tuned only to her presence.
“The nature of reality,” Dr. Jacques was saying, “often exists beyond what we can immediately perceive or understand.”
I shifted slightly in my seat, angling myself just enough to steal a glance over my shoulder. She was taking notes, her dark hair falling across her face.
My thoughts drifted to her jacket. The one still hanging in my closet, the one I’d been too nervous to return. The one that still smelled like her and made my stomach do strange, fluttery things every time I looked at it.
Why haven’t I given it back yet? I wondered, though deep down I knew the answer. I wasn’t ready to let go of that connection, that tangible reminder of Saturday night.
As if sensing me staring, she looked up, and our eyes met. She winked at me and I felt heat flood my cheeks as I turned back around immediately.
What was wrong with me? I thought, pressing my hands to my warm cheeks. Why does just looking at her make me feel so strange?
Dr. Jacques continued his lecture. “Sometimes our most profound truths lie hidden beneath layers of societal conditioning.”
I tried to focus on his words, but my mind kept drifting back to that night. To the way she had looked at me so tenderly, to how her fingers had felt against my skin, to the way my whole body had leaned towards her without permission.
I almost kissed her.
No, worse, I wanted to.
The thought still made my heart race, and that left me petrified.
But what did that even mean? I’d never wanted to kiss anyone before. Not even Chukwuma, my fiancé back home. When I thought about Chukwuma’s kisses, pecks actually, they felt dutiful. They felt like what I was supposed to want rather than something I actually craved.
But with Marley, the wanting had been so intense it scared me. Every nerve in my body was reaching toward her, as if I might dissolve if she didn’t touch me.
Was this normal? I wondered. Did friends feel this way about each other?
But even as I asked myself the question, I knew this wasn’t friendship. Friends didn’t make your skin feel electric with just a simple touch. Friends didn’t make you lie awake at night replaying every word they’d said, every look they’d given you.
I risked another glance back and found her watching me again.
