Grace for Drowning

And then we shared one of the most intimate moments I can remember that involved only words. And then we bared our souls to one another. "And then...it got complicated."

"Did he kiss you?"

"No." She looked a little disappointed by that. "I think he came close though."

"You think?"

I shrugged uncomfortably, suddenly unable to find the words to express the depth of the situation. "I don't know. Maybe I was just imaging things. Forget I said anything."

But Joy wasn't going to let me off the hook that easily. "Uh uh. There's no going back now. You need to let your poor neglected friends who aren't getting any live vicariously through you. It's part of your sisterhood agreement."

"I didn't realize we had an agreement," I said, feeling a smile tug at the edges of my mouth.

"We broke ice-cream together," Joy replied solemnly. "It is an ancient ritual. We're sealed to one another now."

I laughed. "If I remember correctly, that involved you shoving most of it down your throat before I could get a second scoop."

"Still counts! Anyway, enough dancing around the subject, Missy. Give up the goods!"

I sighed. "It was just one of those moments, you know? Where you're both just staring at one another and everything else fades away. He had his hand on my face, and this look in his eyes..." I trailed off.

"Okay, stop, you're giving me shivers now."

Reliving the moment was doing the same to me, although I didn't want to say that.

"So then what happened? Did you stop him?"

I licked my lips. "No, he kind of stopped himself."

"Seriously?"

"Yep. Then he tried to act like nothing happened. I

t's so goddamn confusing."

"Well, it sounds like you're pretty sure it wasn't just nothing, right?"

I nodded slowly. Any doubts I'd had disappeared when it became clear that he felt as awkward as I did. You don't behave that way over nothing.

"Okay, well first, five points for Joy, because I totally called it. He wants to jump your bones."

I laughed. "Noted."

Her voice softened a little. "And second, that might mean it's time to start asking yourself the tough questions."

I felt a lump building in my throat. "Like what?"

"Like, if he hadn't stopped himself, would you have?"

And there it was, the crux of issue. The doubt I'd been carrying in the back of my head like a lead weight. "I think so," I replied, but my tone wasn't convincing either of us. Whatever my mind may have thought, my body had made no move to act on it.

She hesitated, chewing nervously on her lip. "You know if something did happen between you two, that's okay, right?"

"What?"

"I just mean...Your fiancé, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that he wouldn't begrudge you a kiss, or anything else for that matter. He loved you, right?" I nodded. "So he'd want you to be happy. I know it's trite, but there it is. If you're not in the right place for this, then that's obviously totally fine, but if you are, you shouldn't just dismiss it out of loyalty to someone who isn't asking you to."

"And what if I have no idea what sort of place I'm in?" I asked.