Fingertips | ✓

four

My lips buzzed with the familiar sensation and I felt like I was floating on air all over again, an intoxicating sensation creeping into the crevices of my being.

That was until you pushed me away, your eyes wide with disbelief and...disgust? You looked disgusted by what I had done but there was no reason for you be disgusted by my action. I wanted to kiss you. You wanted to kiss me.

Right?

Or had I completely misread the signs?

My heart was beating loudly. I could feel it ring in my ears and beat rapidly against my ribcage. Nervousness arose to my throat and I felt sick all of a sudden. I breathed in deep and took a step back, the pain of your rejection hitting me with full force and momentarily throwing me off course. This was not what I had prepared myself for.

I loved that with you, Bradley, I could laugh and enjoy myself but of course I had to look out for the way I acted around you so you would not get bored and you would still be intrigued by me enough to love my company. But that was never the same issue for me. I wanted more. I wanted lots more and you couldn't see it, even standing there in the hallway with my emotions all over the floor for you to see.

I finally raised my eyes to you and you looked at me, slightly taken aback. Your hand gripped the handle of the front door as your feet shuffled against the welcome doormat. A tense silence made a home between us, one I wished was not there in the first place but it preyed on our vulnerability and our inability to say anything that would not hurt the other.

"Kareena," you whispered, your voice hoarse. A tone of uncertainty underlined your voice and I found myself fidgeting in my place.

I loved it when you called me Kareena but you seldom did so, always insisting Curry was a wiser alternative. You liked to say that your nickname for me was an inside joke, one only the two of us would get and perhaps that was why each and every time you called me Curry instead of Kareena or even a more fitting nickname I brushed it aside because it was an inside joke, one only the two of us were privy to—one only the two of us understood. It was special. It was something we shared—just the two of us. It made me feel wonderful, to always have a part of me with you that no one could understand. It all sounded silly, I knew that, but to me that didn't matter. You called me Curry—just you, and no matter how messed up or sick that was I liked it. Not because I liked the nickname—no, God I hated it, but because I liked that only you called me that. It was like your special term of endearment to me. Instead of being called sweetheart or honey, you called me Curry.

And now hearing you call me Kareena made me feel even more sick. It was not that you hadn't called me Kareena before but it was what you called me when things between us got serious. You were going to call me off, I just knew it.

Rejection was a sucker punch right to the stomach but to lose you completely... This was what I'd always feared. This was why I'd never made a move. This was why I had always hid my emotions deep within me. I could never control my feelings about you, but when you were in the room, I tried my best to cover it up.

But now everything was different.

All because of you.

If you hadn't come calling drunk to me maybe this mess would not have started.

"Kareena," you repeated, your voice holding a painful tone to it and dread immediately filled me up again. "I didn't—last night—"

"Was the best fucking night you've ever had. Just admit it, Bradley," I exasperated, trying a tentative step forward. I was tired of this cat and mouse game we had been playing for the last couple of months. Perhaps it didn't seem like that to you but it was always like that for me; we were always walking on a thread.