Maybe Someday(56)

shouldn’t be. It’s exactly what I was hoping to

see.

I continue to watch her as she listens, and her

face conveys a mixture of emotions. She smiles,

then exhales, then closes her eyes. When the song

ends, she looks at me and mouths, “Again.”

I smile and hit play on my phone again. I con-

tinue to watch her, but the second her lips begin

moving and I realize she’s singing along to the

song, my smile is washed away by a sudden emo-

tion I didn’t expect to feel at all.

Jealousy.

Never in all my life and in all my years of liv-

ing in a world of silence have I wanted to hear

something as much as I want to hear her sing

right now. I want to hear her so bad it physically

hurts. The walls of my chest feel as if they’re

closing in on my heart, and I don’t even realize

that my hand has moved to her chest until she

turns to me, startled. I shake my head, not

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wanting her to stop. She nods slightly, but the

beat of her heart against my hand is increasing by

the second. I can feel the vibration of her voice

against my palm, but the material between my

hand and her skin hinders my ability to feel her

the way I want to. I move my hand upward, until

it’s at the base of her throat, and then I slide it up even farther, until my fingers and palm are flush

against her neck. I scoot closer to her so that my

chest is pressed against her side, because the

overwhelming need to hear her has completely

taken over, and I don’t allow myself to think

about where the invisible lines are drawn.

The vibration of her voice stops, and I feel her

swallow as she looks up at me with the exact

emotions that inspired most of the lines in this

song.

Say it’s wrong, but it feels right.

There’s no other way to describe how I feel. I

know that the way I think about her and feel

about her is wrong, but I struggle so much with

how right it feels when I’m with her.

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She’s no longer singing. My hand is still

wrapped around her throat, and her face is tilted

toward mine. I slide my hand a little higher until

it’s grazing her jaw. I run my finger around the

cord to the earbuds and pull them away from her.

I return my fingers to her jaw, slowly slipping my

hand behind her neck. My palm conforms so per-

fectly to the back of her head it’s as if my hands

were made to hold her like this. I gently pull her

toward me, and she turns her body slightly to-

ward mine. Our chests meet, and it creates a

force so powerful that every other part of me is

demanding to be pressed against every other part

of her.

She reaches her hands up to my neck and

lightly places her palms against my skin, then

slowly eases her fingers up and into my hair.

Having her so close feels as though we’ve cre-

ated our own personal space, and nothing from

outside our world can make its way in, and noth-

ing from inside our world can make its way out.

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Her breaths fall in waves against my lips, and

although I can’t hear them, I imagine they sound

like how a heartbeat feels. I let my forehead fall

against hers, and I feel a rumble from deep within

my chest rise up my throat. The sound I feel pass

my lips causes her mouth to open in a gasp, and

the way her lips are slightly parted causes my

mouth to immediately connect with hers in

search of the relief I desperately need.

Relief is exactly what I find the second our lips

meet. It’s as if every pent-up, denied feeling I’ve

held toward her is suddenly uncaged, and I’m

able to breathe for the first time since I met her.

Her fingers continue to sift through my hair,

and my grip tightens against the back of her head,

pulling her closer. She allows my tongue to slip

inside and find hers. She’s warm and soft, and

the vibrations from her moans begin to leave her

mouth and flow straight into mine.

My lips softly close over hers, and then I part

them, and we do it all over again, but with less

hesitation and more desperation. Her hands are

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now running down my back, and my hand is slip-

ping to her waist, and my tongue is exploring the

incredible way hers dances against mine to a

song only our mouths can hear. The desperation

and speed at which we’re escalating this kiss

make it apparent that we’re both attempting to

get as much out of each other as we can before

the moment ends.

Because we both know it has to end.

I grip her waist tightly as my heart begins to

tear in two, half of it remaining where it’s always

been, with Maggie, and the other half being

pulled to the girl beneath me.

Nothing in my life has ever felt so good yet