Oh My Mona

"Mona kissed me yesterday."

I'm on the bus with Josh and I'm still buzzed. I'm so high off it. I can't stop smiling but there is something else in there too. It hurts. It hurts and it won't stop.

I was at their door, and when it opened Mona's dad was just standing right there. I almost shat myself on the spot. Like this man was scary as fuck.

And then I see Mona behind him, she barely peaks out from around him but I see her and squeak out a hello. The figure looks me up and down before finally Mona speaks up.

"Daddy please can you let Xavier in?"

There's a grunt and I think for a moment he's going to hit me but the man retreats back away from the door and I really awkwardly sidle in past him. I've been to Mona's a few time, we were family friends but it had been a long time since I was last here. They had redecorated.

Had they painted the walls? It was a dusky beige now, a few pictures of Mona and her brother and sister on the mantle piece. Sometimes I forgot she had siblings but that's because they had left home, her sister went last year. I could tell Mona missed her.

I feel Mona looking at me as I sweep over the new decor, she watches me as I think. It almost feels invasive. What a horrible thing to have someone really truly see you.

Mona had not seen me.

I didn't want her to see the ugly sides of me. The parts that weren't lovable.

The parts that were cold and jagged like broken glass.

If she held on too tightly she would cut herself.

I tear myself away from the hallway, I feign it is because I am done looking but the truth is I couldn't bear it when Mona looked at me, it made me crumble. I was hot and cold and when her gaze was on me, I couldn't think, I was intoxicated from being around her.

When she doesn't move now that I've turned around, I furrow my brows at her questioningly, what now?

She doesn't speak to me as she tilts her head at me and for a second I'm worried I've done something wrong but she reaches out and takes my hand. Oh my god she takes my hand.

Her warm fingers slip into mine.

I'm going to fall over.

Mona leads me upstairs slowly, as if she can almost sense how my knees are about to buckle. I hope she can't, and yet. I almost want her to know how fragile I was for her, how brain mumbling easy she got to me. She could do anything she wanted to me as long as she had her hand like this in mine.

Each step is slow but we are already in her room; her house is small, not cramped but small, it's cozy. It's like her. The furnishing reminded me of her mother, her Portuguese heritage showing.

Once we were in her room, she shut the door quickly then turned to me. She opened her mouth to say something but I took the chance to say something first.

It had been turning around and around in my head for a long time, like one of those snakes that eats its own tail. I had started thinking about it and now I couldn't stop.

"I have been meaning to talk to you about New Years. We need to talk about it, it's why all of this happened-" I skip over it all and just say it,

"I'm so fucking sorry Mona."

There's a crease on her brow as she stands there looking at me. A half formed reply starts to leave her mouth "I never said New Years was the reas-"

"Then what was it?" It comes out less off a question and more of a desperate phrase.

I am needy.

Needy for her.

Stop it Xavier. But I can't, I'm here and I'm talking to her. We can work it out. Your obsessed; there is nothing else I would rather be obsessed with but her.

She doesn't answer me. Instead she walks to the edge of her bed slowly and sits down. A cornel of fear starts to pop somewhere low in my stomach. Say something. Please.

"Why did you kiss me?" She challenges my question with her own, she says it quietly but it sounds deafening. Or maybe my head is just far to quiet for once.

I have to stop. If I say something now then it is all out there, there is no going back. There is no pretending or hiding. Are you done hiding Xavier? I don't know. Something twists in my gut. My palms are sweaty and I feel faintly sick.

The words are ash in my mouth and I can't get them out. I open and close my mouth, trying to speak.

When I say it, it doesn't just come out. It doesn't fall out. It pours out like flood gates that hadn't been opened for a very long time, the water rushing out so quickly that you could've never put it back.

"Becuase I liked you and I didn't know how to get it through to you. I thought by kissing you that you'd understand that I liked you as more then a friend. But I know you don't because you stopped talking to me after that. It's fine. It really is, I've accepted it. You just deserve to know."

The silence that followed roared in my ears like wind. I heard Mona breathing from on her bed. She was looking at me again. At me. At me, not through me, not trying to pry into my thoughts, she was looking at me. Like she had just woken up from a dream.

Her lips formed in a 'o' shape. "Oh."

She sounded disappointed...? It was so hard to tell. I sounded sure but Mona made me unsure, she made me second guess. She made me crumble in trust the right ways and she didn't even know it.

"You liked me?"

Her questions were gentler then I had expected, her reactions soft. Oh. What was I supposed to say to that?

"Yes."

I left out the part where I still liked her. Loved her. So much that it ate away at the part inside of me. There was another pause of silence as I let her take it all in. I suppose it must be a lot for her, maybe overwhelming. My hands were sweaty. Ew this is actually getting out of hand, and I mean literally, sweat was pooling on the ends of my fingers. I wiped my hands on my trousers.

"Come here," the words were slow and fumbled out her mouth as if she was struggling to string the letters together. I took a few steps towards her.

Now I was stood in front her knees. I liked this angle.

"This doesn't mean anything, it's just pretend you know." Why do her words sound unsure? "It's nothing serious, just for show. Don't think about it too much." It stopped sounding like she was talking talking me and more like she was trying to convince herself.

She reached up and tugged on my collar, dragging me down towards her. She pulled me down so her nose was almost touching mine, so close I could feel her breath mingling between us.

And then she tugged me closer still. I could feel the phantom brush of her lips. I was so weak I thought I was going to crash down onto her, my mouth was dry and my heart had skipped far too many beats. I felt like I was going to hyperventilate.

"Tell me to stop." She whispered onto my lips.

I didn't want her to stop.

We stayed like that for a moment, locked together, and I swear I felt my heart thrum to a different rhythm, a rhythm that felt like hers.

I begged my hand wasn't sweaty as hell and brought it up slowly to her cheek, running the pad of my thumb along her skin. Oh fuck. I'm so hard. I'm so everything right now.

I don't know how to kiss someone.

If I waited too long now when would I have another moment to kiss her? Even if it was just for pretend. Pretend. Fuck it.

I stroked my thumb against her cheek, tilting her chin up to meet me as I pushed my lips into hers. Everything in me went so unbelievably jelly that I think my insides did a flip. I shut my eyes and opened my mouth.

Slow. Slow. Slow. Omg my god your going to kill her.

I kissed her gently, is this kissing? Oh my fucking god I'm so weak.

Stop thinking. Mona opened her mouth and I let my brain switch off, my tongue and mouth was doing the work. I felt Mona's hand in my hair, it was gentle at first but I pushed forward my kiss, my tongue meeting her bottom lip.

Her fingers curled angrily into my hair and I let out a noise I didn't know I was capable of producing. I whimpered straight into her mouth. I'm going to die right here and now, this is the moment. That was so embarrassing.

I felt her lips peak up into a smile at that, her clumsy kisses becoming quicker and she nipped on my bottom lip. She pulled another horrible noise out of me. Please stop it oh god. This was far too easy for her. I want to make her squirm.

My hands moved from her cheeks down to her waist and I wasn't stand up anymore, I was on the bed next to her, pulling her onto my lap. I needed her. I needed friction. I needed all of her.

She tasted of lemon zest and honey, her tongue pressing against the sensitive parts of my lips, that were sore from little nibbles she half left. I was consumed by her and I only knew her. I could've came right there if I'm being honest, I don't know how I kept myself in my pants. Probably because I would've died happy right there.

Mona finally pulled back, our swollen mouths untangling from one another. She was panting.

I was staring at her lips again.

I dragged my gaze upwards towards her eyes.

Oh my Mona. For a second she was all mine. I wanted to keep her. Her eyes were alight with something I couldn't name, flecks of gold standing out in the light. Then the next second she was unfurling her fingers from my hair. And I was loosing her.

"It's just pretend."

Her voice was so quiet that it crushed me. She was in my arms and then she was not, she wanted me and then she did not. Did she want me? I was loosing her. I had already lost her. She had slipped out my hands a long time ago.

I wanted to whispered something back into her dark hair and pull her back to me, convince her that it was real.

I didn't even know if she had enjoyed it.

Does that make me a terrible person? I couldn't even find the words to ask. She moved away from me. Leaving me alone on the edge if her bed.

I wanted to scream at her. How could she leave me here. But she was only a few feet away. Something was breaking down inside of me. It was crumbling away like wet sand. Shattering so fast I couldn't keep it together.

I reached out for her.

"Xavier I think its time you go home," she stops and turns her back to me. She's blocking me out, she is cutting me out. My throat tightens.

"We can talk about it tomorrow."

Is that care in her voice? Concern? I can't hear her.

She does not turn around.

I get off her bed slowly. I walk down her stairs and down her hallway. I open her door and I leave her front garden. I walk down the road. I walk.

It is evening. The sky is dimming.

It is only pretend.

The streetlights are flickering on, moths filling the cooling air.

It is pretend.

I cannot breath. I am back in my room. No I am in my bathroom. I am looking for something. I cannot find it. I am angry.

It is pretend.

Drip. I fall asleep but I am angry and I am confused. I am hateful. Drip. I'm sorry.

It is pretend.

I'm back on the bus and Josh is looking at me. He is frowning at me. He looks at my thighs. Then he looks at me.

Josh is my best friend.

He holds his hand out to me. We are 8 again. We are on the playground. Except it is me that is reaching out with my hand. It is me that is pulling him from the dirt. I am helping him. Not the other way round.

I take his hand.

He wraps his fingers around me and he tells me it is going to be okay.

We are on the bus. I look across to him and to where our hands are intertwined. Josh is my best friend. My heart begins to break a little. It's going to be okay.