Dreams of 18

He’s kissing her, out in the open, in front of all these people. I can’t see the finer details of it, but I can at least see that his mouth is moving. His mouth is moving in a very dominating way.

So dominating that even I can feel it.

I feel it so much that I have to put my lips on the fogged-up-by-my-rapid-breaths glass. I have to press my lips on it the same way as I did on the night of my eighteenth birthday.

Yes, I’m kissing glass – a non-living thing with no warmth or breath – because the man I kissed ten months ago is kissing someone else.

He is kissing another woman and she’s going wild in his arms and here I am, going crazy.

This is what happens when he kisses back. This.

You go wild.

You forget where you are. You forget the people around you, and you become this thing. This sexual thing and you put your hands on his broad shoulders. That’s what this woman is doing.

They’re perfect together.

So perfect and beautiful that it makes me sick.

It makes me think that I’m spying on a king and his queen, in the hopes that the king will look up and catch me. He’ll catch me staring at them with this feverish, turned-on look in my eyes and he’ll leave the queen.

For me.

Instead of the sophisticated, experienced queen, the king will want me: the plain, bedraggled princess who can’t control herself.

God, I so, so want that.

I’m so weak in the moment that I can’t even pretend to deny it.

I want him to look up. I want him to see me.

“Please, Mr. Edwards,” I whisper like he can hear me.

Just like that he does, though.

He rips his mouth away from her, his fingers now fisted in her loose, wavy hair. His chest is heaving, panting. The woman’s confused and she wants him to come back to her. She even tries to put her mouth on his but Mr. Edwards turns his face and his eyes somehow, miraculously, land on me.

On me?

I actually stumble back with the force of it. The force of his gaze and the sheer absurdity of what just happened.

It was like he heard me or read my mind or just knew that I was there.

And I know the moment he figures out it’s me. The girl who kissed him that night.

His jaw tightens. A frown emerges between his heavy brows and his eyes begin to narrow.

I don’t wait around for his eyes to become slits because I’m running away.

Without really thinking about it, I pick a random direction and start walking really, really fast. The sidewalk is packed with the dressed-up evening crowd.

I’m bumping into them, hitting them either with my hunched shoulders or my fat hobo and my anxiety is jacking up.

Finally, finally I find a secluded spot where I can stop.

It’s a narrow alley wedged between two buildings and I get in and lean against the wall, almost falling into it, breathing hard.

The bricks at my back are damp and hot but they feel good against my bare thighs and the nape of my neck.

My entire body is burning, and I know it has very little to do with my speed-walking or even my anxiety.

It has everything to do with that kiss I witnessed. That kiss and his stare.

My hobo slides down and off my shoulder, dropping to the ground, and I look at the sky, exposing my flushed throat to the night air.

I sigh when the breeze flutters over my skin. But my relief doesn’t last long because someone appears at the mouth of the alley.

Him.

Mr. Edwards.

He’s standing by the opposite wall, staring at me.

My feet kinda slip on the ground, even though it’s dry as the desert, when I try to stand up straight. My breaths are coming in short bursts like bombs exploding in my chest. Too much air one second and the next, not enough.

“You f-followed me?” I whisper hesitantly and also unnecessarily.

Of course he did.

He’s here, isn’t he?

At my question, he comes off the wall and moves toward me.

His eyes are deep and unfathomable, and it seems like he hasn’t unclenched his jaw since the moment he saw me minutes ago.

“I didn’t mean to run,” I say when he doesn’t utter a word. “It was a reflex. Absolutely no thought involved. You shouldn’t have followed me though.”

In fact, I came to the bar to find him. But I don’t say that.

Words are falling out of my brain with every step he takes toward me. Slow and fraught with some underlying meaning.

I can figure it out though, the underlying meaning. His clenched jaw and furious eyes are super clear about that.

He’s angry.

As soon as he reaches me, I blurt out the only words I seem to remember in the moment.

“I’m sorry.”

“You are?”

His voice is the same, low and rumbly.