Nobody has to know
Nobody has to Know
They were lying in bed.
Limbs entangled, eyes drowsy and fingers intertwined.
The silence was mesmerizing. Beautiful even. Until Grace broke it.
‘’Han, I have a boyfriend’’
It was as simple as that, and the silence wasn’t comfortable anymore. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t peaceful or beautiful. It was unbearable.
Hannah opened her mouth in a faint attempt to speak, but nothing came out. Just silence.
They say there are 1,025,109.8 words in the English language, and Hannah couldn’t find one that fit with this moment. So she settled for the first thing that came to mind.
‘’Oh’’
Oh? Really? Oh? That was the best you could think off?
She cursed herself while clenching her eyes shut.
She wanted nothing more than to untangle herself from the limbs locked with her own, but she couldn’t do it. It was so strange. She wanted to get away, but she also wanted to stay.
She turned her face into the nearest pillow when Grace opened her mouth again.
‘’And I’m scared’’
Hannah opened her eyes and looked at Grace. Her brown puddles were staring at the white roof over them, and her arm rested under her head.
‘’Why are you scared?’’
Hannah almost didn’t dare to speak. Sure, the silence had become uncomfortable, but she would be even more uncomfortable if Grace was to continue her earlier statement. Especially if it meant that Hannah had to leave into the unknown.
Grace let a tear slide from the crook of her eye and behind her ear.
Hannah had almost given up the possibility of any response when she heard the whisper.
‘’Because I really want to kiss you’’
Grace laughed. It was stupid. This whole thing was stupid, she thought to herself. And she wanted so badly to cry, but she wasn’t going to do that, so she settled for a laugh.
Hannah stared at her. The Stranger that had rushed into her life when she needed something so much. The Stranger that was no longer a stranger to Hannah’s heart.
How could she laugh at this? This was serious. This was bad. But it could also be something good.
‘’I just wish we had met at a different point in our lives’’ Grace muttered under a shaky breath.
Hannah stared at her, and Grace turned to face the waves in front of her.
‘’I think that if we had; we could have been something good, you know?’’
Hannah cupped Grace’s cheek with her shaking hand, and Grace let her own hand wander and rest on top of Hannah’s.
‘’We are’’ Hannah whispered into the air between them.
‘’No, we’re not’’
‘’But maybe one day. One day when I can kiss you without feeling guilty. One day when we are both at peace’’
Grace looked away. She stared into the ceiling again.
‘’Promise me that day will come’’ Hannah whispered as a single tear ran down and dripped onto the white pillow below her.
‘’I don’t know. But I do know that that day is not today. But still; I really want to kiss you’’
Grace shifted on the bed and Hannah was facing her back.
‘’Nobody needs to know’’
Hannah whispered it, inches away from Grace’s body.
She didn’t know where it came from. It wasn’t intentional. She didn’t want to fuck up whatever they had together.
She wasn’t sure if by ‘’they’’ she meant Grace and her boyfriend, or Grace and herself.
Hannah shifted and hovered her lips over Grace’s shoulder. Her hand traced small circles from Grace’s hip and down her toned stomach.
Hannah never wanted to stop feeling the skin beneath her gentle strokes. So soft and just so Grace.
‘’This is a kiss, right?’’
She placed her lips softly on Grace’s skin, and she heard the broken breaths escaping Grace’s mouth.
When she felt the damp skin under her lips she never wanted to shy away. Every day things like eating, drinking and going to the toilet seemed completely unnecessary when she could just lay there and feel Grace against her lips. And God, she wanted to do so much more than just feel her skin against her closed lips.
Hannah pulled away, and immediately something was missing. Her lips went cold and.. and..
She couldn’t describe the feeling. She only knew that there was something missing from them.
‘’But I need more’’
The whisper was pleading, and Hannah didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to say.
So she came closer to Grace’s body. She could feel the warmth through their clothes, and it drove her insane.
She stretched over Grace’s shoulder with her head and hovered over her face.
‘’This is a kiss’’ she whispered as she closed her eyes and rested her lips on Grace’s cheek.
She felt Grace relax under her lips, and suddenly she was gone from them.
Hannah opened her eyes and looked right into deep brown orbs.
‘’They’re just band aids. Ghosts of the real thing’’ she whispered.
Hannah felt Grace’s breath travel across her own lips. Warm. Shaking.
Hannah was driven by insanity as she tore herself away from Grace’s gaze. The puddles had flickered down to Hannah’s lips, and it was all just too much for her to handle.
Grace brought her hand to Hannah’s cheek, drawing her head back to her gaze as she whispered Hannah’s desperate words.
‘’Nobody needs to know’’
Hannah looked at Grace’s lips.
‘’What about your boyfriend?’’
Hannah realized she hadn’t even heard his name. Grace hadn’t told her his name. Maybe she wanted this- no, needed this- as much as Hannah did. Maybe he was insignificant in comparison to her.
‘’He doesn’t need to know’’ she whispered with closed eyes.
‘’Are you sure?’’
Hannah didn’t dare to look up into Grace’s eyes, so she settled with looking on teeth biting a lower lip nervously.
After what seemed like forever she heard a whisper.
‘’Yeah’’
That was it. That was what drove Hannah over the edge. That was the reason she couldn’t hold back anymore.
She lunged forward and locked her trembling lips with Grace’s.
It was softer than what she thought. More gentle. Loving. There was nothing rash about the way their lips moved in sync with each other. Nothing harsh or desperate.
At first.
But then the hunger for more came, and they both tried to close every gap of air in between them.
Broken I love you’s were whispered whenever lips withdrew. Panting breaths escaping with every touch between them. Painted touches that lingered when the hands had withdrawn. Soft, wet kisses on sensitive, sun-kissed skin. Hannah never wanted the rush, the feelings and the contact between them to disappear.
-
Hannah felt something heavy on her chest as it heaved up and down. It wasn’t uncomfortable. It wasn’t painful. It was just there. Reminding her of everything that had happened the night before. The skin. The lips. The touches. Everything.
She opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the yellow ray of light shooting through the room. The second thing she saw was brown locks painting the skin above her breast. The third thing was eyes looking at her with content.
Such beautiful eyes staring into her own.
‘’Hi’’ she said, her voice groggy from the night’s events.
‘’Hi’’ Hannah whispered.
‘’What time is it?’’ she added while stretching her tired arms.
‘’I don’t know’’ Grace whispered kissing Hannah’s skin.
Hannah smiled. Everything was perfect. The bed was perfect. The sun was perfect. The dense smell from the night before was perfect. The silence that fell over them was perfect.
Hannah had nearly fallen asleep again when Grace’s voice woke her.
‘’Han, I have to leave’’
Hannah cursed herself for asking, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘’Are you going to see him?’’
Grace’s eyes were eager to shy away from Hannah’s gaze and Hannah felt the feelings of anger and disappointment arise in her bones. She felt betrayed, even though Grace didn’t betray her. She betrayed him.
It was as if the broken I love you’s whispered between them the previous night didn’t mean anything. And maybe it didn’t. At least not to Grace. But they meant the world to Hannah.
‘’That’s that? You’re just going to crawl up to him and pretend that nothing has happened? That you love him?’’
Grace turned away from Hannah and got out of bed. She bowed down and picked up her shirt.
‘’Hannah, please. Can we talk about this when I get back?’’
Hannah scoffed and turned her piercing orbs to the window. She hoped that her gaze would burn a hole in the glass to let her anger out.
‘’Don’t bother Grace. I won’t be here then. So you and your boyfriend can go back to loving each other while you are screwing people behind his back. God, Grace! You didn’t even bother to tell me his name’’
Hannah had turned to look at Grace. She wanted to see the shame in her eyes, but all she saw was panic as she walked towards her.
‘’Please, can we just talk about it later? Promise me you will still be here when I get home?’’
Her voice was so pleading, her eyes so sad, it was impossible for Hannah to refuse her.
‘’Okay’’ she whispered.
She cursed herself for letting Grace have this hold over her. For letting her swirl Hannah around her finger.
‘’Okay’’ she whispered again as she turned away and closed her eyes.
There was a light kiss on her forehead before silence caught up with the room.
When Hannah opened her eyes, Grace was gone. She was left alone yet again.
‘’Okay’’
-
Hannah opened her eyes when she heard the door close.
Ah, fuck! My back stings!
She realized that she was sitting against the bedroom wall on the other side of the bed. How long had she been there? She remembered sitting down there, thinking about everything that had happened, when Grace had left. She looked at her wrist clock. 4 hours ago. That’s when Grace left. 4 hours she had been sitting there. Had she been sleeping?
‘’Hannah?’’ Grace asked.
‘’You still here?’’
Hannah heard her take a few steps into the room and come to a halt when she didn’t see Hannah anywhere in there. There was the sound of a plastic bag being dropped onto the mattress.
‘’I bought bananas and chocolate and loaf’’ she whispered.
Really? She thought everything would be okay because she bought the ingredients to her favorite sandwich?
Hannah dragged herself up on her feet and watched Grace’s back. She was sitting on the bed, head resting on her knee.
‘’His name was Alex’’ she muffled into her trousers after a while.
‘’Was?’’ Hannah asked confused.
Grace let out a shaky breath as she straightened her back.
‘’Yeah, I ended it’’
‘’It was the right thing to do’’ she added.
Hannah eyed her as she slowly sat down on the side opposite of Grace. She turned her head and looked down at her fidgeting fingers.
‘’Yeah, it probably was’’ she muttered.
There was the silence again. Not the pleasant one. The unpleasant one. Hannah looked up and out the window. She could see kids playing around the playground. A boy jumped off the swing set and fell. He started crying, and Hannah felt like she should do something similar. But she only felt emptied. There was nothing more inside her as she asked her next question.
‘’Why did you end it?’’
She kept staring at the little boy as she waited for an answer.
‘’I don’t know. It didn’t feel right’’
She could tell Grace was uncomfortable, but Hannah felt as if she owed her as much.
‘’So what now?’’ Hannah whispered, still gazing on the boy. There was a little girl beside him now, helping him stand.
‘’What?’’ was whispered back.
Hannah looked down at her fingers again as the boy was guided away from the playground.
‘’Us’’
It was barely audible, but she knew that Grace had heard it.
‘’I don’t know’’ Grace breathed.
Hannah turned around to still see the back of Grace.
‘’I think we may need some rules’’ she said, her voice stern.
She could see Grace’s head fall a little at the suggestion.
‘’Rules?’’ she whispered.
‘’Yeah, I’ve done some thinking. And I don’t think ‘us’ is such a good idea’’
Hannah turned to the window again.
‘’At least not right now’’ she added.
‘’Okay’’ was whispered behind her.
Silence rested between them yet again, and Hannah couldn’t handle it. So she opened her mouth to ask a much simpler thing.
‘’So you bought B.C Loafs?’’
It was such an insignificant thing, but it lightened the mood by some.
‘’And Cheerios and custard’’ Grace smiled.
‘’Okay’’