Endings

by Stephanie Kusiak

  I press her thoughts out with a prompt. “What?”

  “I don’t know. I am just really sad.” Her fingers trace lines in the sand between her knees. “I can’t believe how much everything is going to change.”

  “I know what you mean.” I give her a thin smile. “I’m leaving, you’re leaving. Everything is just so screwed up. I know I’m supposed to be happy, but really, I haven’t been happy since last year.”

  “Oh, I know.” Marissa turns to me, desperate with the thought of how ludicrous it is. “I was thinking about that all through graduation today. I mean, I know I was supposed to be thinking about how glad I am that I’m never going to have to see that place again, but Jesus – I was just so depressed about leaving.”

  I feel like I should say something to make her feel better. So I try. “It’ll be great. You’re an All-State track star with a full ride scholarship. You’re totally off to conquer the world. How can anything be that bad?”

  She scoffs, “Arizona State University isn’t the world, Ally.”

  “Fine, desert then.” I correct falling into a comfortable silence with her; a comfortable moment that melts away very quickly when I really think about how much everything is going to change in a just a couple months.

  “And you’re going to California.” She says the word like a curse, like it is the dirtiest word in the world.

  “I’ll be awesome there.” I don’t have to say anything further, because Marissa can see it in my face when she looks at me. She can see my hollow lies for what they are. I might do awesome there, but I’ll be far from awesome.

  “What is wrong with us?” She laughs once – hard. Forced. “I mean we are getting out, getting away. We should be bouncing off walls with excitement, right?”

  “Yeah, and we should be back there dancing and drinking.” I thumb over my shoulder at the muted sound of music and laughter.

  I watch as she shrugs a little helplessly and digs divots in the sand with her bare feet. “Good luck getting me to drink.” She snickers at the memory we share of her two day hangover. “Just don’t feel like dancing.”

  When she shivers, I go for the blanket beside me and puff it out to swathe her shoulders in it. It feels so much colder now, vacant and lonely, as I say the truth about how I feel. It doesn’t matter that Marissa is here, even though it once did. Where once she could hug me and make everything better, now I just fear it. Fear what only she can unlock in me.

  While her fingers worry the edge of the blanket I realize I should start getting used to not having her around. “Thank you.” She whispers softly, and when her eyes lift to me, they look agonized, like she could read my thoughts.

  “I’m sorry. Marissa, if you don’t want to be here you don’t have to be, you know?” She never really was a partier. She was always face first in a book or running or cooking something. I smile at her warmly, remembering all the times we made cupcakes and brownies and cookies together when her mom left the house.

  I also remember when she burned herself in second grade.

  “Hey, let me see your arm.”

  I don’t know why I ask her for it. Maybe it is just to reaffirm the memories we share, to see a physical manifestation of the years we have blurred into one another.

  The shift in the conversation catches her off guard and though her eyebrows furrow she leans a little closer to displace her weight and stretch her arm toward me. I trace my fingertips up it, guiltily taking my time to feel the softness of her skin before rolling it over to focus on the space just above her wrist. I find the slightly darker patch of skin, the line that will forever be imprinted on her. “I didn’t realize it was still there.”

  “What?” From this close, I can almost taste her. My eyes flick to hers, before the intensity of them forces me back to the scar.

  “When you burned your arm making cupcakes,” I brush my thumb over the skin. An absent thought comes to me, hammering into the heart of me. “We’ve been friends for a really long time.”

  “Thirteen years.” She gives me a wry smile, pulling her arm back, but stays leaned toward me. I don’t mean to let my gaze wander, but with the way she is positioned, I can see right down her top. And though I don’t want to, I look anyway. I stare right at where her bikini top is forcing her breasts to swell with how tight it is. God, it’s so hot, it makes my head spin. I clear my throat and look away before it’s too obvious.

  And I struggle to find something to say, anything to distract myself. “So why are you out here all alone?”

  “Because you said you were coming.”

  Oh?

  “And because we don’t really hang out all that much anymore for some reason.”

  Oh.

  Those words wipe the smile from her face, and I sigh heavily as I wonder what I’m supposed to say to something like that. It probably wasn’t fair for me to just up and stop spending time with her. No, in the low light I can see she’s hurt; it paints quite blatantly across her face. It certainly wasn’t fair, and I feel the shame of it as her face falls a little more and she looks away again.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I feel even worse for staring down her shirt.

  While I mentally chastise myself, I watch the way her brow inclines as my words rebound inside her. I stare at her features, refined and delicate, as she dwells on my very flimsy apology. Eyes cast out across the vacant water, Marissa gathers herself before turning back toward me. “Was it something I did? I mean, did I do something or say something?”

  “No, you didn’t do anything.” But all the while those words are coming out of my mouth I just want to tell her yes. God, yes, everything she does, everything she says is intoxicating and breathtaking and all those other words ending in ‘ing’ that just wreck me.

  I want to tell her that I’m crushed by the weight of my feelings for her. That I can’t breathe when I think of leaving, of closing the cover on my book with her. About how just absolutely ruined I am for the rest of my life because I know I can’t ever feel like this for anyone else. I’ll never have this history with anyone; that I don’t want to have this history with anyone else.

  “I really miss my best friend, you know? I do. I miss you now, and I’m gonna miss you when you’re gone.” Her eyes are shimmering, and there is a hike in her lip that is her way of keeping it from trembling. “I’m gonna miss my best friend so much.”

  And there is that thing I feel like I’ll never get passed. I’ll never be able to move past this part where we are friends. It will be the invisible wall that will forever hold me at bay and drive me absolutely crazy, which is exactly why I have to say something, because I can’t half live forever.

  I think my silence goes on too long because Marissa taps her hand on her hip and then without really looking at me, rolls away. She is halfway to her feet when my hand shoots out of its own volition. It wraps around the hollow of her wrist, the place just under the burn I was inspecting. “Don’t go. I have something I wanna say to you.”

  My mouth betrays me. It literally moves without my command. Her eyes are on my hand, on the way I’m holding her, and it takes what feels like forever for her gaze to waver and finally trace to mine. I can’t breathe as I watch her long lithe form lower back down to the blanket beside me. When she moves like that, so calculated and poetic, I don’t know if I can contain my feelings. By the time she is settled, I’m absolutely petrified by what else my mouth is going to say.

  She looks wounded, painfully pricked to the very heart of her because I didn’t say anything in response to her admonition. Though I realize she is divulging that she will miss me when I’m gone, that I matter to her, I wonder if it will be enough. I hope I matter enough for her to withstand the words I’m building up in my throat.

  I steel myself under her watery gaze. “I missed you too. A lot, but,” I stare down at the space between us, my hand sliding from where it is on her wrist, up her arm. “I – um, I just couldn’t be around you.”

  My brain focuses on
what I can feel under my hand and how intimate the motion is to me. Until she pulls back a little, and the flicker of hope I felt evaporates. “I knew I did something. What did I do that pissed you off?”

  I shake my head at the misunderstanding between us as her arm falls away. “You didn’t do anything to piss me off.”

  “Then what? Why won’t you just tell me?” I snap up to face her. Her eyes are dark, incredibly direct as they force me to hold her gaze. And all the while I ramp up the words I want to say, I tell myself her reaction isn’t going to matter. I tell myself that if I lose her friendship, it isn’t going to hurt me. That it won’t leave a hole in my heart the size of her.

  “I just - I just felt this thing, and I don’t know how to explain it. I - just, I just, I don’t know.” Oh, for God’s sake, I wish my mouth would work again because this drawing out is just terrible. I grit my teeth, grabbing at whatever tattered courage I have and put all my faith into the hope she will always be my friend.

  No matter what.

  “I love you. I love you, love you, not in the we-are-best-friends-way. In the much more intimate and awesome way, and it was really hard being around you when I knew you didn’t feel the same way.”

  I can’t look at her. As my words seem to echo and just die around us, I reach out in last ditch desperation and twine her fingers in mine. I hold myself there and wait for her to pull away, to draw back like I’ve burned her. When she doesn’t move, after what feels like an eternity has passed, I hesitate a glance up.

  There is something that passes through her face. I’m not sure what it is, but while my heart beats wildly in my chest, a wave of something shifts over those eyes I love. I know it isn’t the face she gets when she’s upset or angry. It isn’t the face she had when Reggie Baron tried to kiss her, and she wanted to retch. It’s deeper, more frightened almost, like I just told her something I shouldn’t have said.

  I shouldn’t have said it.

  I’m thinking that even as my eyes melt to the sand and the dunes, and take in the view of a place I’ll no longer associate with good times. It will now always be a tomb to the destruction of the best thing in my life.

  “Ally, who said I didn’t feel that way?”

  She says it so softly I’m not sure I heard it right. I look up at Marissa and when her gaze softens on mine, I just freeze there. I drown in the slow realization that a smile is tugging just as hard at her lips as her teeth are.

  “What?” I ask lamely.

  “I said,” she whispers dangerously close. When did she get so close? I scramble air into my lungs as she seems to melt into the space before me. “I said, who said I didn’t feel that way?”

  “No one. I just figured if you did you -” but I can’t get the words out because suddenly my whole existence is filled with her scent and her heat and her lips press to mine.

  A beat passes; two, and then my brain can finally register what’s happening. And strangely the only thought in it is, “oh my God, I’m kissing Marissa Young.”

  It rips a hot arc of electricity to my feet, scorching every nerve ending in my body as I numbly reach for her. I swear I can smell the scent of burning as the connection of her lips to mine, as soft and gentle as it is, sets me on fire. I paw ungainly for purchase and find it in her hair and on her shoulder. My hand clamps there, twists in that thick mane and on instinct my mouth slants against hers.

  She tastes like strawberry Chapstick and Cherry Coke, and it lingers tantalizingly. When her tongue brushes the seam between my lips, I make some incoherent sound and open for her. I might have blushed if I wasn’t already flushed. I might have done a lot of things if my brain hadn’t died thirty seconds ago.

  Marissa deepens the kiss, her hand brushing the side of my face and into my hair. It rakes chills down the whole side of my body, and I shiver. I think I feel her smile, feel the corner of her mouth quirk because she felt it. I can’t stop thinking about that, and it repeats over and over in my mind as I feel her tongue brush mine hesitantly.

  She smiles when she feels me tremble for her. She likes it.

  It leaves me dazed, and I can’t open my eyes when she pulls back. The force of the link being lost between us snaps my heart like a bow string. When I can finally wedge my eyelids open, I’m breathing hard. Her eyes are tracing over me and in her expression I read all the dizzying things I have yearned for, secret dreams that I didn’t want to tell anyone for fear that this moment would never happen.

  “I always wondered how that would feel.”

  I’m giddy with delirium, and I giggle as my face heats even more. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, it was better than I thought.” Marissa moves closer, her nose almost brushing mine. Her eyes are open and from this close I see speckles of color I’ve never seen before. I can feel the rise of her chest, her breathing as elevated as my own. I try not to let the feeling of her breasts brushing mine drive me completely insane. “I’ve dreamt about kissing you for a long time, but I didn’t want to lose your friendship.”

  “You’ll never lose me.” When I whisper that, totally devoid of mental capacity, it’s apparently the right thing to say because she’s kissing me again. However, this time, when I slide my hands around her back, she is the one that grapples to me.

  I’ve easily kissed dozens of people before. I’m no stranger to it. But this - this is something completely different. She instantly stamps out the touch of anyone who ever came before her. Marissa writes across my heart with her softness, with just the right amount of pressure and give to forever hold me captive. I find enough purchase that I can suck on her lips, and I do – summoning a deep almost moan from in her chest.

  I can’t even believe it when I hear it; I can’t believe she can make a sound so sexual. I mean, I’ve tried to imagine it, but never in my life would I have thought that the girl I’ve known my whole life could sound like this. For as light and airy, all full of sweetness and warmth as she is, I thought she would sound the same. That her bedroom sounds would be all gentle and coy, but there is nothing coy about the sexy groan I just heard, or the way she presses to me an instant later.

  All I want is to hear it again. I feverishly tug her closer, opening her mouth with mine as my tongue explores. I learn her, how soft her tongue is, how warm. I memorize the edges and smoothness of her teeth. It makes me shudder when again those heated sounds leave her throat. They ring in my ears, making my muscles weak and my body pound.

  And then, I realize I’m responding to it. When she urges me softly, I mew reflexively into her mouth. I should probably be embarrassed by how needy it sounds, but I can’t. Not when I notice it makes her grind into me. And then everything screams to a halt.

  I focus there, my tongue falling still of its long licking trails. Instead I just whine into the kiss and feel her hips swirl into mine. Oh fuck. It stalls all the air in my lungs. All the times I’ve fantasized about how it would feel, how it would look, fail spectacularly to the reality.

  With every long, slow grind her tongue dips into my mouth and is followed by a soft wistful whisper of my name, “Ally.”

  It sends me into a frenzy.

  I claw closer, providing more friction, and when my pelvic bone hits that spot, I feel her mouth pop open and her whole body jerk against me. It’s more than I can take, more than any sane person would be able to stand. I catch her mouth again to mute her moan as I press her down under me.

  Her hair fans over the blanket and my fingers wrap in it. I kneel over her, not breaking the kiss. “Closer.” Marissa wedges between the motion of my lips and I press down against her. I think I’ve got it, that place where I’m able to control myself, until her leg wraps around my hip and forces my knees to cave under me. She cements us together like we have always been this close and her hips move against me again.

  I can hardly hear over the roar of my heart. And every beat makes me acutely aware of how hard I’m throbbing – everywhere. I can literally feel her heart pounding against me. I can feel the heat po
uring off her. And nowhere is she hotter than between her legs. As soon as I realize I can feel that heat on my thigh, I’m moaning into her mouth.

  “God, Marissa.”

  “Oh, Ally.”

  My name on her lips drags me down like I’m sucked in an undertow. When Marissa breaks the kiss, she is panting and I go right for her heaving top. I can’t even think. It’s all automatic - instinct. I pluck the buttons on it with shaking hands, not because I’m nervous but because my blood is rushing so hard I can’t control my motion. At the same time I expose the span of skin I had stolen a glance at earlier, her cold hand slicks up the plain of my stomach. I know where it’s going, and I sit up a little so she can cup my breast.

  I blow out a breath of air I didn’t realize I was holding, and I forget what I’m doing, forget where I am. All I can see is the fire in her gaze and the way her mouth drops open in a silent plea. She pants harder, and I tremble as her fingers curl, and those perfect nails scratch softly over my bikini top. On the second pass, I see her eyes widen because, oh God, my nipple is so hard.

  “Fuck, Ally.”

  She hardly ever swears, but when she does, she has always made the words worth it. This moment is no different and I moan. I just crumble apart. Between the color in her cheeks, the vividness of her eyes and the way her fingers have now zeroed in on one of the places that drives me wild, I think I might climax if she keeps going. It doesn’t help that right as I think that, she shifts her thigh and suddenly there is pressure right where I need it.

  And I can’t stop the animal instinct that has me grinding down into her. “Oh, baby. Oh, um, are you trying to make me-” I can’t say it, and instead I crush my lips to the bare skin below her clavicle. Her hand squeezes as my mouth drifts down.

  Her skin tastes the same way it smells, subtlety hinted in a mix of melon and honeysuckle. I kiss it in a heated trail, circling the swell and then nudging with my nose to move the elastic clinging to her. I hear a long litany of breathless words leave her mouth as her hand comes up to circle the back of my head.